£90k.....For a Wooden Shed?

It seems Britain is a society more divided than ever. Whilst thousands of young families are struggling to get on the housing ladder with prices spiralling far beyond what their earnings can pay for, one wealthy individual has paid over £90,000 for an 8'x6' wooden shed in the genteel seaside town of Southwold in Suffolk.

Of course, they have bought more than just a shed, they have bought into the fashionable Gun Hill end of the sea front. One upmanship? Keeping up with the Jones? Or just plain daft? Who can say? One can only surmise that money is no problem for the proud owner of a piece of real estate with no mains electricity, running water or gas. Owners are not allowed to sleep in their huts either. Waking up floating in the middle of the North Sea after a freak tide is bound to ruin a weekend after all.

Chairman of Southwold's Beach Hut Owners' Association, Dr Slim Dinsdale, said: “It is a sad fact that many people are now being priced out of owning a beach hut, I think that for some people they are becoming a trophy symbol."

For those with a little less loose change the local estate agents are advertising huts towards the pier end of town for around £35,000. A veritable bargain if ever there was one!

Times article here
Licence photographs here.

Coastal Erosion...

The East Anglian coastline has long been suffering from the constant battering of the North Sea, constantly shifting and redefining itself. It's saltmarshes and shingle spits the most obvious to us of this relentless change. Towns and villages have disapeared beneath the waves over hundreds of years, most famously at Dunwich and currently Happisburgh which becomes a little smaller every time there is a storm.

It is reported that the lighthouse on the shingle spit at Orford Ness, built in 1792 and the first on mainland Britain to be automated in 1965, may have to be pulled down and a new one erected further inland as the sea eats away at the beach.

A spokeswoman for Trinity House said: ''The lighthouse at Orford Ness was more than 100 metres away from the foreshore for much of the last century. ''However, with coastal erosion accelerating over the past decade, it is now only 45 metres from the shingle shore."

East Anglia is going to look very different over the next fifty years 

as successive governments abandon large scale coastal defences of these shores. Quite what will happen, nobody knows.

What a Refreshing Change...

Usually photographing a band involves nothing but hassle, unpleasant gorrilla types and the obligatory rights grab wanting you to sign over your life's work and a kidney for the pleasure of wanting to give them some exposure in the newspapers. Having dealt with this, you usually have the first three songs to get what you need before being unceremoniously slung out on the street. Some 'big' artists like you to foxtrot after one! They are normally the sort that keep a crowd, who have paid handsomely to stand in a cold open air stadium, waiting for an hour or so after the support act have finished before deciding they can be bothered to turn up.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at Holkham Hall in Norfolk to shoot a feature for the Daily Mail on old school rockers, Status Quo.  I had been asked to photograph the two leading band members,Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi around the theme of touring on a bus and their attitude couldn't be more different.

Upon arriving I was given an 'Access all Areas' pass and told to wander where I liked.  This I am not used to! After the writer had finished her stuff, I got to work.... trying to get something serious looking proved difficult. 

These guys liked to give a photographer the run around!

Actually the feature pics where tied up in about 20 minutes. No prima-donna's here. Even with all the mucking around they were very easy to work with, after all, they must have done this a million times before.

The PR asked if was going to shoot the concert, and if I wanted to photograph the whole gig including from the stage. I soon got some more memory cards from the car!

I'd always quite fancied going to a Quo gig; they are a British Institution, much like Beefeaters and wet summers, so this proved to be one of my better commissions of late made all the easier by their hospitality. 

Maybe this is why they have been around for so long. Some other so called stars should take note.

Licence photographs here.