Mark Burton Photography

Warborough and Shillingford cricket club: theatre of dreams

One of the things I love most about being a photographer, is being there with my camera when people experience a life-changing - or at the very least - extremely significant moment in their lives.

Often these moments are with my clients, on their wedding day. Sometimes, its with friends or family and I have been there for times of great joy - as well as sadnes. And then yesterday, I was there with my camera, when young Fin Treadaway walked to the crease, batting number 10 for Nottingham Old Boys as they played Warborough and Shillingford Cricket Club. (Nottingham Old Boys - also known as ‘The NOBS.’)

Fin Treadaway: heart of a lion

Fin is only 9 years old, and was invited to play because someone had dropped out last minute. There was hardly a throat without a lump in it, as the diminutive cricketer strode out to bat, seemingly fearless against a team of grown men.

From this angle, he looks like a giant

His Dad, Ben, had scored 11 earlier on. Messers Flood and Hobbs had both blasted handsome 50’s. Your author had scored one of the most stylish two-balls ducks ever seen on this particular ground.

Grandad, proud and overcome with emotion……..

Young Fin’s Grandfather, Nick, was umpiring, and had to wipe more than one tear away as Fin reached the middle. He looked tiny, and the charming comedy of his size was accenuated by the fact he was playing with the tallest player on our team, my cousin Peter. (Noted musical impressario, and night-club mogul, to be seen in an earlier post about the ‘Grime’ scene.)

Large and little

The Warborough team sportingly continued with their slow bowlers, and Fin calmly survived several deliveries before scoring a run. This was met with raptuos applause and deservedly so. He was out soon afterwards, but he’d scored his run, and won the admiration of all watching.

Fin gives the ball a good wack

Fin’s first run

Their hero: Fin walks back to Mum, Grandma and his adoring sisters

“Not like it was in my day….”

The NOBS closed on 238. A very respectable effort indeed. We had a superb lunch with wine and port. The surroundings couldn’t have been more perfect. The shadows began to lenghten, the church bell chimed when it should, and we knew the prospect of tea and sandwiches wasn’t too far away.

“Pass the port would you old boy?”

Inside the club-house I had a good look at the team photos. Stretching back to the 1960’s there were pictures of each of the successive Warborough and Shillingford teams. My uncle Mike, the other umpire for the day - features in many of them. Then my cousins James and Andrew appear. One notebale frame is a copy of the scorecard entitled ‘Chips off the old block.’ It records the day James and Andrew, opening the batting, scored 80 and 70 respectively, and were still ‘not-out’ at the end of the innings against Didcot. They were 14 and 13 that day - so Fin isn’t the only young man to have had a big experience, at a young age, on this particular field of play.

The day Andy and James gave Didcot a good drubbing

Andy and James went on to play for Oxfordshire, their universities and some very good club teams. This day’s game, ‘The NOBS’ versus Andy’s old village club has been an annual, friendly fixture for ten years, and it can only be a measure of Andy’s concern over the thinning ranks that he turned to me with a desperate invitation to play. To my credit, my last innings was 26 not out. In the debit acount, this last game was in August 1989 and I suspected there were chaps on the other side that weren’t even twinkles in their father’s eyes when I last put on pads. Nevertheless, I was delighted to receive my first NOB cap.

NOBS team huddle

Turning back to the game, the Warborough and Shillingford opening batsmen found it difficult to cope with the NOB bowlers. Runs came slowly, but a harsh tea-time team-talk must have ensued, because Warborough came out blasting, with a string of fours, and several sixes.

One particular fellow, named ‘Horse,’ which may have been his Christened name (in these west-country parts one is never quite sure) decided it would be mirthful fun to swivel his ample hips around and belt the ball at Fin - who was fielding in the compartive safty of long-leg.

If I’d been Fin I would have made a heroic dive in the opposite direction. Fin, ever the team player, and braver than me, crumpled towards the red-rocket, and received a smarting blow to the knee as thanks. Needless to say, after some words of encouragement, and the huddled concern of the whole team, Fin resumed his fielding efforts.

Perhaps as reward for their dastardly batting, the Warborough wickets started to tumble. Andy bowled himself and picked up five wickets. He even gave his long-time sparring partner, and team comedian Edward ‘Chunder’ Williams a second spell. Stupefyingly, Ed managed to take two wickets. All day, Ed insisted that the team take turns in carrying around a small pink handbag, and even took it out to bat himself. Apparrently, its a ‘mascot’ from an earlier cricket tour.

Father, Grandfather and Grandson

It soon came clear that despite the belting efforts of the Warborough team, the NOBS were going to come out on top. Andy threw the ball to Fin. He bowled two tidy overs, and while he did, Bronny took a photograph of the three generations of Treadaways on the field together.

The NOBS 2008

Andy took the final wicket, by taking a catch off his own bowling. There was only one over left, so it ended up a close finish. The NOBS headed off to the various parts of the country from which they journied, saying ’see you next year.’

Andy coaching in Africa. Cricket is proving a great help in spreading Aids awareness messages

In a few weeks, Andy and Ed will be heading out to Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. In 2005 they founded a charity called ‘Cricket without boundaries’ with their friend Chris Kangis. Since then, they have led four trips to Africa, using cricket coaching as a means to help teach Aids awareness. They work in places of extreme poverty, and set up long term projects that go on instructing, long after they leave. Its a great organisation, and you can find out more by going to:

www.cricketwithoutboundaries.com

One of the people going out on this next trip is Fin’s Dad, Ben, another experienced cricketer. Whatever adventures they all have - and travelling and working in Africa is always an adventure - its certain Fin isn’t the only young cricketer whose life these enthusiastic and dedicated coaches will influence this year.

Before the misery sets in

Last year, in a moment of madness, Bronny and I decided to join our friends Jane, Jo and Brian at the Glastonbury festival. We’d heard of the fun, the music and the drugs, and in hindsight, if we’d started munching Class-A’s as soon as we left the car park then we’d have been far happier people.

When we were young

Even looking back at this photo is hard. So young, so carefree… without the scars and the miserable memories……

I could have gone to Margate

All during the first night, and into the next day it rained. It wasn’t just your ordinary rain, but the torrential sort that usuallly last a few battering minutes. But not at Glastonbury. It battered non-stop for hours. The place has its own unique micro-climate which dictates monsoon weather as soon as more than three people start pitching tents within twenty yards of each other.

Jane’s matching boots and bag ensemble.

Fortunately, we were travelling with Jane, whose a girl. She went to a posh school, and knows all the cocktails and dates blokes called Trevor and Miles. At the mere sight of this downpour, surely, she’d burst into tears, and demand that we hopped straight back into Daddy’s Range Rover and head back to Hampstead?

Jane: bench presses 350 and fights with knives to relax

Regretably, Jane is also a police detective and is tough as old Jimmy-Choo’s. I don’t think she’d even noticed the sheets of water lashing other people into a dazed submission.

Fancy the loo in 40 minutes?

Fortunately, some genius had ensured there was a tent selling warm cider. A brilliant idea, only marred by the fact that drinking such beverages meant using the toilets would be required sometime in the near future.

Exhibit A: Mud

What I started to find quite amazing, was that people actually seemed to be enjoying this purgatory. The mud, the smell of the toilets, the endless marches from A to B to get food, or to go to the toilet……

We could be in Ibeza right now

It was like watching a strange natural history programme. Who were these strange creatures that enjoyed this unique form of torture? It was like an adult version of detention….

Up close and personal: The Killers, somewhere half a mile away

Well OK, some of the music was pretty good. ‘The Killers’ were superb, and ‘The Arctic Monkeys’ lived up to their billing. Maybe if the acts had been James Brown, Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield then I’d have looked beyond the mud…. but wherever I looked there it was…..

Exhibit B: more mud

As the weekend progressed, Bronny and I began to realise that Jane wasn’t going to weaken. There was absolutely no chance of her bursting into tears. Three nights running we left her dancing or cavorting, with energy to burn (usually sometime between midnight and 2am). Off we’d go, to seek the temporary refuge of our pitiful tent, that didn’t fit the airbed - and was next to one couple that persistently communicated their vigerous… *ahem*…. ‘hugging’ with animated grunts and groans while the tent next door blared their music at us with a grim determination.

Having or good time or just delerious?

On the last day, there was nothing for it. Waking up to our now miserable neighbours, faces streaked with mud and tears, as they quietly sobbed over their broken hearts, I chirped, ‘Not so ****ing chipper now are we?’ (I didn’t really say that, but I should have.)

Anyway, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em….

Happy? We’re going home in three hours, of course we’re happy!

It was time to get-down, Glastonbury style. Unable to ‘cut-the-rug’ we squelched the mud….

Quite how Jane managed to look this glamourous, after four days of mud, lack of sleep and a strict diet of warm cider and cold falafels, while lying on an old bin liner, in a field of mud, surrounded by raving luncatics, I have no idea….

Exhibit C: ankle breaking mud

And then, late into Sunday evening, Jane suggested that maybe it was time to make our way home. We avoided breaking our ankles, unlike 13 other poor folk who snapped theirs over the weekend, and left 100,000 people behind us as they enjoyed the final acts.

Shaking our booties

We packed our tents and began the long tramp to the car park. Eventually we reached Jane’s Dad’s Range Rover, and negotiated our way out of the car park. The next day, other souls would spend 10, 12, 14 hours or more doing the same journey we did in two minutes.

Then, as the headlights lit up the motorway infront of us, and as the early morning hours clicked by, I knew my home and a warm bed was getting ever closer. It was one of the few moments in my life I can say without any doubt, that I experienced the purest feeling of joy….

Much as I love my vintage BMW, there are just some jobs it can’t handle. Especially when it comes to carting around all my photography equipment.

So, I’ve gone and got myself one of these new fangled vehicles. Its more robust and significantly, has its own unique form of ‘climate-control.’

Will look forward to visiting you sometime soon!

By remarkable coincidence, Charlottesville, the town where I once lived in Virginia, is home to some of the world’s most well-known and respected photographers. They include Sally Mann, Sam Abell, Bill Allard and Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols.

The last of these, Nick Nichols used to host an annual slideshow party at his home where friends and photographers from the area could share their latest work. Its from this event that the ‘Look 3′ Festival of the Photograph has grown.

I’ve just got back from the second annual event, with my brain packed to bursting with new ideas after seeing numerous fantastic exhibits and listening to three talks by world renowned photographers Mary Ellen Mark, Joel-Peter Witkin and James Nachtwey.

The show-stopping event was James Nachtwey’s talk on the final evening. His war photography has documented conflict in Rawanda, Chechnya, Bosnia, Iraq and the Congo. I was curious to know what he was like. Was he going to be a ‘gung-ho’ hard-man war photographer, bristling with tales of daring do?

He was the complete opposite. A quiet, gentle character that was extremely nervous about talking in front of 1000 people in the sold-out Paramount theatre. He was interviewed by photo-editor MaryAnne Golon, a friend and colleague of 30 years. She put him at ease and was able to ask more direct and insigtful questions than a professional interviewer could have done.

The story that I believe will become part of photographic legend was his description of photographing 9/11. Just back from assignment, he was at home in his lower Manhatten apartment when the Twin Towers were struck.

He was framing a shot with a church and crucifix in the foreground as the first tower fell. He then moved to the second tower, which he admitted was ‘an error of judement’ in light of what had just happened. (Go to ‘9/11/01′ at www.jamesnachtwey.com” )

He recalled looking up and seeing the second tower starting to crumble. It was like a waterfall, he said, and one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. He knew he didn’t even have time to take a photograph, and in the 5 or 6 seconds it took for the tower to fall was able to dash into the elevator bank of a hotel, which protected him from the crashing rubble and shattering glass. He said he didn’t know how he was able to cover so much ground, so quickly, ‘it was like I was able to teleport myself across the street.’

The story was cajouled out of him by MaryAnne Golon, who was able to add her own experiences and viewpoint. She recalled talking to to other photographers during the day that said, ‘I’ve seen Jim.’ She asked, ‘was this before or after the second tower fell?’

She didn’t know if he was alive or dead until he walked into ‘Time’ magazine’s mid-town office, exhausted at the end of the day and covered in dust. He left footprints as he walked across the carpet, and his imprint as he sat in a chair. The following day, people asked ‘You’ve seen James?’ And MaryAnne could point to the floor and say, ‘you can walk in his footprints, and see the ghost of him on the chair.’

These revelations - and what was to follow - were significant in themselves, but even more-so in the context of the festival and talks by photographers and artists in general. It is extremely rare to have someone talk about their life and experiences with such intimacy and candour. Often, people will revell in the attention and delight at their opportunity to show-case and promote their work.

The question that drew gasps from the audience was when MaryAnne asked, ‘When you have seen so much pain, and so much suffering, do you still have the capacity to love?’

There was a pause, and we all realised that only a friend could ask such a question - and perhaps there was a momentary thought that maybe she’d gone a bit too far…… asking something like that in front of so many people.

‘Witnessing pain and sadness,’ James Nachtwey replied, ‘is an act of love.’

This reply was met with thunderous applause.

And rightly so. He told stories about 9/11, about leaping from fox holes after premonitions about shells exploding, about being in the back of a humvee in Iraq when a grenade was tossed in. (The writer with him, grabbed it and was in the process of throwing it out when it exploded. ‘That one hand saved four lives.’)

However, what shone through was his compasion and an inexpicable drive to document the worst that humans can do to each other. There are two images that are burned in my mind. The first, is a never ending pile of machetes from Rwanda. The second, is of an emaciated, African man crawling on hands and knees during famine. James Nachtwey explained how this man has probably lost everything. Farm, animals, family… yet his determination to keep going, even though he can no longer walk, should give us all hope.

(Go to ‘Famines’ at www.jamesnachtwey.com” )

The following evening, with the festival over and the attendees on their way home, I was sat on the downtown Mall in Charlottesville eating a slice of pizza with friends. As we chatted an un-assuming man with grey hair walked past. He looked completely anonymous and could have been someone’s uncle or Dad. However, I recognised that it was James Nachtwey walking back to his hotel.

Part of me wanted to run over and thank him for his honesty the night before, and give him a hearty hand-shake.

But instead, I decided to let him continue his walk in peace, with a silent and grateful thank-you.

To see a short film slideshow on the festival, you can go to:

www.npr.org