The 80's

Sporting a trilby was an 80's thing.

Danny A-B

Amanda - T - Jassy

Maggie Thatcher was elected in 1979 and in the ashes of Punk was planted the seeds of a social revolution that outlives the now putrid corpse of the New Romantics.

Tanya and I can rightly claim we were there at the beginning though one wouldn't normally "Bragg" about it. In 1980 Billy and Wiggy, then together as the punk band Riff Raff, made one of the very first video albums, just a few months before MTV was launched in the USA. Released on VHS cassette, Every Girl an English Rose  was partly filmed in our house because its director and producer Jackie Mackay was a old friend. Tanya was there, likely making tea and toast for everyone and cheerfully putting up with people keeping out of the way by sitting in her bedroom.

I would go over to Acton and do odd jobs at their video production company AVM and use Jackie's darkroom in return. She gave me film and asked me to shoot some of the Riff Raff gigs for her. She would bring her camera too but being their manager, roadie and general mother-hen, she had a lot of other stuff to do as well. I'm 99% certain the lower photo is one of mine because I was using bounce flash. Jackie, with her consummate skill and better lenses, would typically shoot at wider aperture and push-process.

Brixton erupted in flames in 1981. In February 1983 I left England for California.