John Claridge

A few years later, he saved up enough money from his paper round in the London docks to buy a proper camera to record the world he was growing up in.

[1] He had no formal training as a photographer but aged 15, began working for McCann Erickson advertising agency in their Photography and Design department.

[4] He worked under Robert Brownjohn, the art director known for his James Bond title sequences, who encouraged him to have his first exhibition, of photographs on the East End, aged 16.

[6] From 1976 to 1989, Claridge lived and had his darkroom in a flat on Frith Street, Soho,[6] above Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.

[7]Having grown up in a boxing family,[2] Claridge has taken over 100 photographs of members of the London Ex-Boxer's Association, which were serially published by The Gentle Author, 2012-2013.

For me, it was the one place in Soho that still held its Bohemian character, where people truly chose to share time and conversation, and I became aware that many I had once chinked glasses with were no longer around.