John Walmsley (photographer)

[7][8] In his final year studying photography at Guildford School of Art, the students asked to talk with the governors about the quality of the courses.

Instead of submitting assigned course work as his final submission, Walmsley presented the photos of the sit-in thinking that, recognising and reacting to unfolding national events, was an appropriate display of his skill as a photographer, something which his degree trained him to do.

[9][10][11] Walmsley, still a student, had permission to photograph at A.S. Neill's democratic school Summerhill, a place where he immediately felt at home.

[12] The photos were published in 1969 with a text by Leila Berg as Neill & Summerhill: A Man and His Work, a Penguin Education Special.

Walmsley says, "These were either about how society treats children or were early readers, stories of everyday life, for kids to cuddle up with mum or dad".

[7] During Walmsley's final year at art school, he began supplying photos to educational textbook publishers, something he continued to do for decades afterwards.

[13] Walmsley worked on commissions for magazines, book publishers, government departments and charities but always retained his copyright.

In 1973 he followed the Salisbury Playhouse production of ‘Mother Courage’,[14] living and working with the company from first read-through to first-night, including learning lines in their ‘Digs’, finding and preparing the props, all the different rehearsals and time off for shopping, laundrette, boating on the river and more.

[18] The photos were exhibited at the Bluecoat in Liverpool in 2017 and Walmsley arranged for John Ord and the ‘kids’ to come to the opening night, the first time they’d met in decades.

[24] A self-published book is planned for late 2021 to coincide with an exhibition (link to follow) at the Whale Arts Gallery[25] in Wester Hailes.

All the photos will be in the archive at the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh for use by students and researchers (link to follow).

[28] Walmsley co-curated it and co-edited the catalogue ‘Finding Our Voice’[29][30] with Brian Dunce, one of the staff members who were sacked during the sit-in.

Because of his involvement with both education and architecture, the British government sent Walmsley to Armenia, in 1990 following the massive earthquake two years earlier.