IN & AROUND HORSE COUNTRY • DECEMBER 2012/JANUARY 2013
Jet Drama Captured by Photographer Jim Meads
almost every newspaper and magazine across the world. In January 1963 it was named Picture of the Year by Granada television programme What the Papers Say. Jim, who started as a freelance photographer in 1950 when he was just 20-years-old, still works fulltime despite now being 82-years-old. His work has seen him fly to America on 181 occasions and features in the Guinness Book of World Records for photographing 500 different packs of hounds from all over the world during his long career. But despite all this, Jim, who has kept extraordinarily fit by running across country with hounds and horses to take his pictures in the hunting field, insists “retirement is not on my agenda.”
By Richard Jones in County Times Friday, September 28, 2012
The amazing photographs [shown here] were taken by Carno photographer Jim Meads and one was named “Picture of the Year” in 1962. Taken using his trusted Micro-Press camera, it shows test pilot George Aird ejecting out of a Lightning Jet Fighter after it suddenly rolled out of control and [just before it] crash-landed near Hatfield Airfield in Hertfordshire [England]. Jim, then a hard-up 32-year-old photographer, was playing outdoors with his two children, Paul, four, and Barry, three, when suddenly he heard a huge explosion and witnessed the jet plane nose-diving towards the ground. He only had two shots on his 5 x 4 plate camera and captured these two images, one of the pilot ejecting from the plane and one of the explosion as the jet plummeted into the ground. He sold his shots to the Daily Mirror for £100 and eventually made enough money from the picture to buy himself a small family home. “It changed my life,” explained Jim, who has lived in Carno for the past 26 years. “I remember it like it was yesterday. I was out trying to amuse my two children by taking photographs of them as the Lightning Jet was coming in to land, but then at 300 feet the jet rolled out of control and started roaring nose-first to destruction at 200 mph. “Pilot George Aird, who I have since flown with, pressed the button on his ejector seat and shot up into the air. Knowing I only had two shots on the camera I waited for the perfect moment before pressing the button and then used my second shot to capture the explo-
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Picture of the Year: Jim Meads, of Carno, captured this image of a Lightning Jet Fighter plummeting to the ground in Hertfordshire in 1962. It was later named “Picture of the Year.”
sion when the smoke was at its highest. “Cameras were not like they are today. These days I could have captured an amazing sequence of pictures by holding down the button, but I had just the one chance. I was so nervous when processing the picture in my dark room, crossing my fingers and praying that the picture would come out all right.” George Aird, then 34-years-old, made a full recovery despite breaking his leg and receiving a black eye after crashing through a greenhouse roof into a bed of tomato plants. The picture appeared in the Daily Mirror on Tuesday, October 9, 1962, and quickly appeared in
Explosion: Jim had just two shots on his Micro-Press camera. The explosion was the second image he captured.
OPENING MEETS Middleburg Hunt Opening Meet November 3, 2012, Groveton Farm, Middleburg, Virginia Middleburg Photo
Dawn Ellis and her daughter Ava.
Middleburg Hunt member Ann Denison.
Huntsman Barry Magner with the hounds of Middleburg Hunt.
Middleburg Hunt member George Kuk.