Wine, Women and Song...

Europe's oldest man, Henry Allingham is 112 today. He has jokingly said that the secret to his longevity is "cigarettes, whisky and wild women". His life has spanned six monarchs and has taken in 21 prime ministers.

Now partially deaf and almost blind, Mr Allingham, who was born in Clapham, London, now lives at St Dunstan's home for blind ex-servicemen, in Ovingdean.

Mr Allingham is the oldest surviving World War I British veteran, a founding member of the Royal Air Force and the last known survivor of the Battle of Jutland. In August 2005 he led the nation in the Lord's Prayer at the Cenotaph in London to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of World War 1. In 2003 he was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur.

Licence Henry Allingham portraits here.

The Cat Man....

As a rule men and dogs go together; women and cats go together. You may find the odd single chap who lives with a cat or two but it is generally not the case. And we've all come across the mad old dear who is surrounded by the things!

However, author, Tom Cox lives with six felines, and I should add, one woman. His latest book is titled, "Under the Paw, Confessions of a Cat Man" and is the subject of a feature in the Times. Nothing unusual in this you may think. The tricky bit of this assignment was that the Times2 section of the paper has recently undergone a redesign and I was asked to photograph said cats with studio lights and Tom incidental within the frame.

Now, getting six cats together in one place is difficult enough, let alone freaking them out with high powered strobes. Luckily, Tom hadn't fed them that day, so a group feed was decided on.  With food in the bowls the six were gathered together, remaining in place for long enough to get off half a dozen frames before deciding they'd had enough and disappeared back into the garden.

Getting it right was in all honesty, more by luck than judgement and enforced the old adage; never work with children or animals.

See Times article here.
Licence Tom Cox portraits here.