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This picture was taken in our beauty shop in Bradford, called Shade. Janet (right) was a friend of my then wife Melanie (left). I’d spent a good two years taking photos and I enjoyed it, not that I thought my work was good enough to be shown in an art gallery. I couldn’t earn enough from photography to cover the costs of the materials, so we decided to get a bank loan and open the shop instead, with Janet as a partner.
I first got into photography in 1983, aged 28, after I was made redundant from my truck-driving job. I had a friend who did photojournalism and I used to go and watch him develop black-and-white photos in his darkroom, where you have a red light on to see what you’re doing. So when I heard about someone who was selling a colour kit, I jumped at the chance. I thought my friend was going to help me learn how to use it but he didn’t know how to develop colour photographs. It was only when I started teaching myself that I realised how difficult it is.
My photos from that time feel important now because that community is gone. They took down the flats, and the whole community spread out. In the summer there used to be a congregation of African-Caribbean people outside the Perseverance hotel or the Young Lions cafe. There was always music on and people who knew me. One of my photos is of a guy with a ghetto blaster – there was always someone with one. In the cafe there would be one on the shelf, belonging to some customer or other. There was also a pool table, and there were always people sat in there, whether they were eating or not.
Recently the pictures have found new audiences. My friend Ned Archibong, who works for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, knew about them. I got them digitised about 25 years ago and every so often I’d put one or two on Facebook and get loads of comments. When Ned told me that the people at City of Culture wanted to exhibit them, I couldn’t believe it. They went on display in an old converted warehouse called Loading Bay. I parked the car and walked to the building and found myself staring at a billboard with a photo of my friend, Michael, a poet. He had written a poem to go with my photos. As the lift door opened on to the gallery, my name filled the wall. Walking in and seeing all my photos enlarged, I thought I must be dreaming.
The exhibition then went up at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. I thought it would be in one of the rooms upstairs but no, it was in the main foyer! There was also a smaller selection on display as part of a group show at Sunny Bank Mills, in Leeds.
The beauty shop in this picture was derelict when we got it, and we worked hard to sort it out, but the business went down within 10 months. What we never took into consideration was the fact that the African-Caribbean community in Bradford was small.
I moved to Birmingham after that and worked for a bakery, which was hell. About a year later Melanie and I got divorced, and I moved back to Bradford with my daughter. I eventually settled down working for the NHS where I stayed until I retired four years ago. I still take photographs on my phone, though not professionally.
Victor Wedderburn’s photographs can be viewed on the Autograph photography website.
Victor Wedderburn’s CV
Born: Jamaica, 1954
High point: “As part of my exhibition they had some of my images blown-up large on billboards – it was unbelievable driving around town and seeing my work that big!”
Top tip: “If you’re working with film, store your negatives and keep them in good condition, you never know when you might need them.”
