Good afternoon from London on this very sunny solstice.

Alas, it’s been a month since my last communique and what a busy busy four weeks we have had.

I am thrilled to share that from the back of my exhibition at Soho House last month, the gorgeous guys and girls from Reem gallery in London’s trendy Soho have offered me my first solo headline show. The date has been set for January 11-28th 2023 in the courtyard of the Ham Yard Hotel, tucked away a pinch from Piccadilly Circus and Brewer St. I can not wait to show some new bits and get 2023 off to an absolute flier!

Harwich, Essex.

Ten years ago I bought a bike from eBay from a guy in Harwich, Essex. I got all the way there and the guy didn’t meet me. Typical Essex… I ended up walking round the streets of Harwich for an afternoon and found some very interesting things. Number one; Samuel Pepys was the MP for Harwich. If it’s good enough for my fellow diarist then it’s good enough for me. And two; it has an incredible WW2 defence bunker tucked up on the hill. The thought of it hadn’t left my mind for the last ten years so I thought I’d go back and take a look.

Two things had changed since my last visit. The first was that it was now private property and I couldn’t get in, and the second was it is massively overgrown. So, not to be disheartened, I call the number on the gate and a lovely man called Barry told me he’d be there by 2 pm to do some bits. Spot of lunch in town and let’s go meet Bazza.

True to his word he’s there bang on. He bought the site from the council a few years ago and now they maintain it for posterity and local interest. Its been a defensive position since Henry the 8th set it up in the 1550s to defend the river from the French. Upgraded for the Napoleonic wars and then finally beefed up to this concrete monster for the WW2 onslaught. Two disappearing gun placements, ammo stores and two lookout towers. If they got past this there’s another one a bit further down called Redoubt Fort. Double whammy.

So let’s start this tour of Beacon Hill Fort. At the start it’s all ammo stores underground, graffiti from years gone by (mostly love notes), and digs with hooks for the hammocks. The fireplaces are still there which brings the human touch to the place. It’s easy to feel like it is a nuclear bunker or to overlook how it would have felt to work here, but you’d be target number one for any approaching destroyers streaming in quickly. There are two buildings that make this place super fucking cool. Both are the lookout towers. The first one is a three-story beast that you can have full access to. Once you’re up there the position of this place comes to the fore. You can see evvvverything. Straight across to Felixstowe and the gigantic port they have there. You can even hear the containers landing on the ships, it’s a constant sound. Every room is covered in graffiti, nothing too spooky, but it’s very ‘Berlin’ if you know what I mean.

Apart from a few buildings that are slightly weather beaten, you have full access to every building, every nook and every cranny. The gun placements are massive. Two of them had a 10inch ‘disappearing gun’ and the concrete bunkers that held them could easily be concrete amphitheatres if they were empty. These all lead to the big boy though. To my utter dismay, you can only visit the back of it. The front side apparently is still council land and you cant get through. Down but not beaten, it’s still super cool, I just could not get the exact shot I wanted. Photos as always will be attached so you can see the scale of the place.

It took me easily an hour to see the whole fort, minus the time I was chatting to Barry and his wife, but the site is huge. There are a few human touches that they’ve added, including personal belongings they found hidden or light fittings. It does give you an idea of how it must have felt to be here, in the rabbit warren just waiting to let rip. I didn’t ask if they ever fired in anger, surely they warned off the Armada in 1588? Must have.

I thanked my host and slipped him some gold coins to say thank you for his time and headed for the ferry port. Ferry ports and big cold concrete spaces at the best of times but when you’re walking around with a camera you have the added fear of being arrested for spying. My plan was to get into the terminal and see if it was a time warp in there. However, they’d seen through my plan and locked the doors. I still had half an hour to kill so I moseyed down the platform (which was huge) and past the terminal building which meant I could see the ships in the port. To my amazement, the boat in port was none other than the Antarctic explorer, the ‘Sir Richard Attenborough! Now, this boat is infamous among Brits because it’s the only ship ever to be named from a public vote. Sounds good you might think. The winning name however was ‘Boaty McBoat Face’. Not quite the fitting name the powers at be had wanted. Try as they might, Boaty was overruled and Sir Richard Attenborough was chosen. No one can argue with that, he’s done enough, but still. Felt like I’d seen a celebrity. Ok enough waffle, pics, please!

12:34. NFTs.

OK ok ok. I know I know. But you’ve gotta try everything right? In response to my BBC article a company offered to work with me and for the last two months I’ve been preparing all the files into a lovely folder ready to roll. I’ve also turned the images into a 5:30 video that isn’t quite ready for public viewing yet. It’s a funny feeling to watch ten years of your life in ten minutes and I’d always wondered what colour it would be. I’m very happy to tell you my life is quite colourful, not the grey I had imagined for some reason. OK so stand by, I’ll have the video up on youtube soon and you can share the wonderment with me. As always, my faves from the past month are attached below…

Framing.

I forgot to mention, that I can now send images framed straight to your door. Every image can be mounted on acrylic or framed with glass. Hit me up if you have any questions.

Until next time, adios.