Peter Mitchell - Some Thing Means Everything To Somebody

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Milk jug. Devon Motto Ware. 1952

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Overseer of Works in the Place of Eternity I was thinking about Tutankhamun’s tomb and seeing that exhibition at the British Museum in the sixties. All those wondrous treasures, all that gold and the intimate and ordinary fixtures of daily life even down to the little wreaths of withered flowers (olive leaves, blue lotus petals and cornflowers) decked around the royal emblems to see him through this life and the next. I’ve often wondered what the priests and the craftsmen and the labourers on the pyramids and the farmers and the scribes and the army took with them when their time was up. What about those who made the Easter Island heads or installed the terracotta army deep underground or made the paintings in the Lascaux Caves, built Avebury, Stonehenge and the Parthenon? Not much turns up in Neolithic tombs or Roman burials or plague pits. It’s the ‘high status’ individuals in society that get the gorgeous treasures to match their overpowering sense of the afterlife.

And yet when going through the catalogue of the entire contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb I get the sense that the boy-king loved these inanimate objects in their own right and not just for the purpose they would perform in death. I like to think that he ear-marked many of the objects before his death to make sure he still had them in the life to come.

Back in Victorian Leeds, John Marshall of Hunslet built a new flax-spinning factory in the guise of The Temple of Kalabshe, Nubia and named it Temple Works. I was pleased to discover that the design of a brooch I’d owned from the sixties (Portobello Road flea market) featured on the façade of this magnificent building – a happy coincidence I could exploit hence the launch of The Winged Cobra Workshop. It’s a brooch I’ve always worn and treasured, along with many other things, and though I don’t collect anything I have accrued a strange range of objects that at times almost speak to me. There’s no gold, designer labels or exquisite craftsmanship or rare value attached to these things but these things are very attached to me and more, they have done great service in their usefulness to me. I don’t worry too much about the afterlife and I’m not superstitious but …… my trusty ‘Signalling Equipment Ltd’ compass (strongly moulded with screw-on lid) always goes with me when I’m leaving Yorkshire.

For a British Council talk I was to give in Warsaw I went to a lot of effort to translate the text and the title of the event – ‘These I Have Loved’. No easy matter despite Leeds having a sizeable Polish population. We’re talking nuance and emphasis and when I got to Poland the variations and arguments continued. Basically Poles can only love people (I’m probably simplifying things a lot) and when faced with Bradshaw’s Rusty Bike on a stick under the caption ‘These I Have Loved’ they are puzzled.You don’t love hats or dresses or cars or kitchens or compasses etc. but you do love human beings. The translation I settled on was ‘These Things that you see before you are Close To My Heart’ and blow me – what a fine sentiment!!

Put slightly differently, the possessions Tutankhamun put aside for the future made him a king; the possessions you see before you made me a photographer.

Peter Mitchell March 2015

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Air raid shelter sign & anti-splinter air raid goggles. 1939 Baby’s anti-gas respirator. 1942 The Protector Lamp & Lighting Co Ltd, Eccles, Manchester. 1936

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Alien identity disc (both sides). 1939

Tootal Broadhurst woman’s headscarf. 1938

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The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Robert Tressell. 1935 Poultry cigarette cards. 1940 Union contribution card. 1965

Eye Shooting Pocketbook. By Authority of the Lords Commissioners of The Admiralty. 1941

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Handmade photographic album. Jack McIntyre. 1949

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The New Testament in the Moffatt Translation. 1955 Five Get Into Trouble. Enid Blyton. 1953

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Length swimming badge. 1954 Shark swimming cap. 2015

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Card Modelcraft/Micromodel. 1951 News Chronicle I-Spy No 11. 1954 I-Spy Redskin badge. 1953

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Eagle comic. 1951

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Eagle centre-spread. 1952

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Collins Engineers Diary. 1958 Airfix plastic model kit. 1957

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Dalida & Buddy Holly. 1959 Ecko RP329 record player. 1957

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Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament handouts. 1962

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T-square. Causer & Co. 1960 Official Secrets Acts. 1959 Stationery Office paper weights. 1961

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21st birthday token. 1964

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Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band LP. 1969 Bob Dylan. The bootleg series. Boxed set LPs. 1991

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Olyslager car manual. The Sunday Times. 1962

Traffic In Towns. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. 1963

e

Double page spread (of Leeds) in Traffic In Towns. 1963

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Rear car badge. 1959 BMC Workshop Manual. 1959 RAF Type C Flying Helmet. Air Ministry Size 2. 1944

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Siemens 60A fuse box cover. c 1920 Sinclair System 3000 Amplifier. 1968

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Magic coal fire effect electric fire. Belling. 1962

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Anglepoise desk lamp. Herbert Terry & Sons Ltd. 1962

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35mm slide. Boulder/Hoover dam. 1969 Mickey Mouse hairbrush. WDE. c 1940 Zap Comix No 0. Robert Crumb. 1967

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Hornsey College of Art protest poster. George Snow. 1969

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Plimsolls silkscreen print. Peter Mitchell. 1970

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Bauhaus chess set. Diane Collett. 1969

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Business card. 1972 Adler gabriele 25 portable. 1984 The Jason chair. Carl Jacobs. Kandya factory. 1954

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Line drawing of Spencer Place with trees. 1984 Mahogany shop lettering. Leeds. c 1900

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Silkscreen poster. Education Gallery, Leeds. 1975

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Jumper of a Thousand Sheep. Diane Collett. 1978

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Panorama of Mars. Viking Lander 2. JPL. 1976

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Pre-preview flyer, entrance badge & touring crate for A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission. 1979

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Flyer for Ornamented Types. Ian Mortimer. 1992

Clarion Call. York College of Art Type Office. 1988

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SUITS, AIRCREW. COLD WEATHER MARK 3 JACKET

This Aircrew Suit (Jacket and Trousers) is designed to provide necessary protection under cold weather flying and survival conditions. Appropriate underclothing should be worn.

SCARF

A scarf (Stocks Ref. 226/258) should be stowed in the collar of the jacket for use under survival conditions. Garments can be washed as detailed on Home Laundering Consultative Council (HLCC) label. Cleaning should be carried out in accordance with A.P108F Chapter 0001. The garment must be periodically inspected by the safety equipment section as detailed in AP108F Chapter0104.

GENERAL

Care must be taken when dotting and donning the jacket to prevent damage to the sliding fasteners. The D ring is for the Oxygen Mask attachment when not wearing a life jacket.

RAF Mark 3 Cold Weather Flying Jacket & sewn-n care label. 1977

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Photography exhibition posters. 1978 – 1999

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Polaroid. Oakland, California. 1985 Lunch box. Ciudad Juares, Mexico. 1985

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Tin mouse. Yone No 2094. c 1964

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Planning Quarry Hill’s final message to the world. 1978

Official Opening of Quarry Hill Flats, Leeds. City of Leeds Housing Committee. 1938

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Spencer Place cats, Ted on top and Pie below. 20 & 21st Centuries.

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Stained glass window. Sheila Ross. 1982

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Death. Collected poems. Don Staines 2005 & letter 1965 Souvenir of the Steven Wirtz Gallery, 1985 & letter Connie Wirtz 1970

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35mm slide. Sandwich packaging prototype. c 1990

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Concorde. Air France Flight AF. 4590. 2000

Concorde. Safety card, aircraft G–BOAD. BA Flight 002. 2003

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Vestpa Clubman scooter & spare brake cable. 1958

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Silver Hand of Fatima necklace.

Diane Collett & letter. 1972

Never-opened parcel.

Eyvind Kvaale 2006 & letter 2014

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Leeds General Infirmary clock. W. Potts & Sons Ltd. c 1900

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Gallery poster (both sides). Hasted Hunt. 2007 Roach Motel trap. 1985

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Leeds Stonehenge. Peter Mitchell. 1976

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Woolly hat with Winged Cobra badge. 1965 Sou’wester. Port of London Authority. 1960 The Beacon jacket. Barbour & Sons. 1996

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ABC minors badge. 1957 Film poster. Walt Disney Productions. 1976

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Punch magazine cover. Ralph Steadman. 1969

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Knitted Hasselblad camera. Sheila Ross. 1979

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The Sunday Times. Robert Freson. 1964 Bad Weather. Marin Parr. 1982 Cheap Novelties. Ben Katchor. 1991

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Warsaw snow dome. 2009 Solidarity poster. 1980 35mm slide. Te zdjecia sa bliskie mojego serca. 2009

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Homemade photoprint case.

Peter Mitchell. 1985 Pulp Head; Dispatches from the Other Side of America.

John Jeremiah Sullivan. 2012

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Tin plate submarine & oil can. Sutcliffe Pressings, Leeds. 1973 Poster with essay on reverse. Public Space Leeds gallery. 2008 Catalogue of Braime products. 1940

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Diaries over a long period of time. Some of them.

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Reproduction of Waterfall. Henri Rousseau. 1960 Card model of kingfisher. Birdmobile. Malcolm Topp. 2013

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British Stellar Passport. Issued c 1955 Pocket compass. Signalling Equipment Ltd. 1956

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Self-promotion T-shirt. 2000 Painter’s denim outdoor jacket. c 1964

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STARS AT A GLANCE. George Philip & Son Ltd. c 1942 Dragon Rapide passenger seat. De Havilland Aircraft Co Ltd. 1934

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Starlight Starbright We’re gonna hang some new stars in the heavens tonight They’re gonna circle by day They’re gonna fly by night We’re goin sky high Yoo Hooooo hooo Yeah yoo hoooOoo Hooooooooo

And all along the highways and under the big western sky They’re singing Ooo oooooo They’re singing Wild Blue.

And way out on the prairie and up in the high chaparral They hear a voice it says: Good evening This is Captain Midnight speaking And I’ve got a song for you Goes somethin like this

And I said Hello Operator Get me Memphis Tennessee And she said I know who you’re tryin to call darlin’And he’s not home he’s been away But you can hear him on the airwaves He’s howlin’ at the moon Yeah this is your country station And honey this next one’s for you

By the shores of Gitche Gumee By the shining Big Sea Water Downward through the evening twilight In the days that are forgotten From the land of sky blue waters

Laurie Anderson

Hiawatha

And dark behind it rose the forest Rose the black and gloomy pine trees Rose the firs with ones upon them And bright before it beat the water Beat the clear and sunny water Beat the shing Big Sea Water

And all along the watchtowers aand under the big western sky They’re singing Yoo Hooooo They’re singing Wild Blue.

And wau wau up there, bursting in air Red rockets, bright red glare From the land of sky blue waters Sent by freedom’s sons and daughters We’re singing Ooo Hoooooooo We’re singing Wild Blue.

We’re singing Ooo Hoooooooo Ooo Hooooooooo

Geronimo and little Nancy Marilyn and John F. dancing Uncle took the message and it’s written on the wall These are pictures of the houses Shining in the midnight moonlight While the King sings Love Me Tender

So good night ladies And good night gentlemen Keep those cards and letters coming And please don’t call again

PAGE No.

5 We had a complete service of Devon Motto Ware from a holiday in Cornwall.

Mottos were always trite but ours had a touch of literature about them; an education at the dinner table. “To thine own self be true; speak little, speak well; good friends be scarce, take care of me.”

9 Eccles was famous for its cakes, cotton and the miner’s safety lamp. I was born a mile down the road from the lamp factory at Hope Hospital. Then I was evacuated to London where gas masks and goggles were standard playthings throughout the forties and early fifties.

11 My mother was born in Rome and classed as an alien during the war, having to report to a police station every week. As a girl she worked in the Tootal’s factory office and much later for Chatto & Windus and The Hogarth Press.

13 My father was anti-aircraft gunner on ships during the war and a painter and decorator by trade. When he died he left the complete set of his union cards; Robert Tressall’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists 1935 edition; several pictures of chickens because he was a staunch member of The Ladywell & District Poultry Society and a manual for the Bofors Gun.

NOT ES 15 Uncle Eric and his friend Jack McIntyre often came down from Manchester to London for holidays. Jack was an amateur photographer and would present a homemade photo album as thanks for the holiday. I now regard these albums, with their shards of poetry on the passing of time, as brilliant.

17 I was a great fan of the Famous Five (Enid Blyton) and Just William (Richmal Crompton) and I have only just rediscovered Five Get Into Trouble and have no idea how it came to be a Sunday School prize when there are no pictures of Jesus in sight. I regard myself as a lapsed Methodist but I still like the hymns.

19 I earned my length badge about eleven and have swum ever since. This year I bought a shark hat to enhance my prospects at wild swimming.

21 How I came to love cities. Uncle Eric and mum took my sister and I to the Festival of Britain where I was disappointed that the giant octopus had been electrocuted in the Dome of Discovery the previous day. But riding the top deck of a bus getting points for Big Chief I-Spy was terrific.

23 Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, constantly battling The Mekon and his

Treens and beautifully printed and drawn by Frank Hampson. The more I consider my paper-boy job (mornings and evenings and milk round on a Sunday) the more I realise what an asset it has been.

25 A child of the Airfix Generation and a keen scribbler. The Engineers Diary is open on the day I went to see Brigitte Bardot in Heaven Fell That Night at the Plaza, Catford and what a coincidence that the picture I saved is by the photographer who has a show on at this moment in London – the man who made people jump – Phillipe Halsman. None better than Brigitte though!!

27 Bought the ‘Ecko’ record player on the never-never with Buddy Holly and Dalida, a French diva-style singer.

Both died tragically, Buddy in a plane crash and Dalida via suicide. Buddy’s the one who has stayed with me.

29 We used to wear our CND badges under our lapels – badges and wrist bracelets were banned in my boys-only school. I never did the marching but went to the rallies in Trafalgar Square.

31 Everybody left school at 15 or 16. I went into the Civil Service as a trainee cartographic draughtsman at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in Whitehall. To this day minis-

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NOT ES try values have stayed with me though the department I worked in for many years will have been swept away decades ago.

33 Twenty-first was the coming of age time. This big iron key was made by Roger’s dad whose company did well out of constructing large runs of Mulberry Harbour for the D-Day landings in France. Roger’s parents came from Yorkshire and were notably different from Londoners.

35 I can’t resist Bob’s I gave you my heart but you wanted my soul as the old Captain B. growls the dust blows forward n’ the dust blows back. Heavy.

37 I was seconded to the Ministry of Transport to work on this report which had a massive influence when it was published. The team set up their own company and I went with them.

By yet another weird coincidence I worked on the drawings for a large town and ten years later not only do I live there but Leeds seemed to have adopted ideas from the actual report.

39 The scooter crashed and with the insurance I bought an Austin Healey Sprite and motored round Europe. I gave it away in 1972 and whenever I see one on the road (pretty rare these days) I check the number plate just in case – 4EKT.

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41 My mum bought me the magic coal fire effect electric fire when I first left home. It needed a strong through draft to make the magic flames work.

self as a printmaker. In this instance it was normal to decorate your own footwear and it began a trend to regard things that interested me even if nobody else was interested.

43 My mum bought me the magic coal fire effect electric fire when I first left home. It needed a strong through draft to make the magic flames work.

53 I’ve never won at Monopoly let alone chess but I do appreciate a finely made chess set, be it Lewis, Bauhaus or Marcel Duchamp.

45 A factory lamp from a still-British company. Another present from my mother in the early sixties that still works fine.

55 Before this typewriter, the IBM Golfball and before that the Olivetti portable - indispensible tools. The chair is one of four belonging to the 50’s and all four are still in use. A British chair, despite it’s Swedish looks. I had friends squatting in Leeds and after staying with them, I never went back down South.

47 America 1, 1969. Left Buchanan’s and went off with Diane to hitch around North America. In retrospect a massively influential on the road voyage of experience. When hippies ruled the world.

49 Back to England and Hornsey College of Art which was exciting because along with Guildford College of Art the revolution in the New Art Education had begun. I had a terrific time there but the exact nature of the uprising escapes me these days.

51 For three years I used photography and silkscreen printing and saw my-

57 The shop lettering came from Milnes Deaf Aids on Boar Lane and the line drawing is of my flat (second from right) in the LS7 4DX postcode block.

In those days the Post Office would come round every few years and repaint your house number on the brick work. I keep up the tradition.

59 It was European Architectural Heritage Year 1975 and my first one-man show in the Education Gallery, Leeds.

I printed this poster at the Winged Cobra Workshop in the style of English Enlightenment typographic title pages – Newton, Harvey, Hooke et al.

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PAGE No.

61 Wool picked from barbed wire fences, hedges and dry stone walls across Yorkshire and hand spun and knitted into the Jumper of a 1000 sheep. I had a 28 inch waist then.

63 Our spacecraft landed on Mars in 1976 to find it way below freezing and rusty. I felt I had to acknowledge this somehow and when asked to do an exhibition for Impressions Gallery of photography, I came up with ‘A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission’ launched in 1979.

65 Each crate held a third of the exhibition and needed a fork lift truck to load it. Even so it toured for several years.

67 I started teaching handset letterpress at York College of Art who had a great type department. Great days! The apple macs arrived and the clarion call shouts at nobody. I bought Ian Mortimer’s Ornamented Types limited edition for £1200 and a wait of some years. An absolute bargain – such beauty and such skill.

69 Leeds had at least four good Army surplus shops and I’ve used up at least five of these RAF flying jackets. Perfect for photography. Sheila made the silk

NOT ES scarf to store regulations 22C/2587 to be stowed in the collar.

71 I always kept the silkscreen studio at the ready as an insurance policy against the collapse of photography but photo-things got better and better.

73 America 2, 1985. The second hitch across the continent this time with a homemade case of photographs as I was navigating by the network of photo galleries. The lunch box came from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and The KINGFISH was a bar in Oakland over the water from San Francisco.

75 The last mouse out of Quarry Hill Flats (top floor Thoresby House). I never mess with photographs but for the last day of demolition I wanted to use flag poles on the principal facade to justify five years working on the demise of modern architecture. Finally the signal flags sent the message ‘GOODBYE WORLD’.

77 If the television packs up when your cat is sick you are in real trouble. Ted lasted 14 years and Pie has managed 10 so far.

79 Made from cathedral glass, it’s a panorama of the Derwent Project with mythi-

cal Spitfire diving on North Yorkshire.

81 People I have conversed with for over 45 years.

83 I have nothing about my younger sister. She worked for United Biscuits later Heinz Foods and when she died odds and ends came through, amongst them a slide presentation from the Experimental Sandwich Unit. I use these slides in talks, often when considering the sentimental values of photographs.

85 America 3, 2003. A trip to New York with print case at the ready, Concorde, now with plastic cutlery and distinctly like the London Underground, really had that gawkish, end of Empire ambience. Great to be aboard though!

87 Look at those gorgeous Italian curves and elegant chic persona. Needed a new clutch cable every month.

89 More people I’ve known for over 45 years.

91 The man that wound up these hospital (‘silent tick’) clocks died and the knack of keeping them going died with him. I was delivering new electric clocks (circa 1973) and scores of these clocks were piled up in the base-

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108 Poland. Minus 20, brilliant sunshine during the day. Minus 25, brilliant sky at night.

award-winning gardeners and poultry keepers so I thought plants and animals would be OK. My partner has a place in the country (Derwent territory no less) where deer come down to the river, kingfishers fly upstream and otters splash about. It’s Rousseau’s paradise and his picture now graces the bedroom wall. The paper kingfisher will sit on the front of my coffin like a small version of a sailing ship’s prow.

109 America 5, 2012. Some hitching involved but obviously too old for it and pleased to find the Greyhounds still on the road. This trip was working on Strangely Familiar at Nazraeli Press in southern California. Far out …… as I still say!

117 My British Stellar Passport has been in my possession since I was tiny and was given to me by an American lady married to Wing Commander Cliff. She gave me the passport in a red leather jacket and her name was Margaret Rankin. But what became of her?

111 The poster from which Strangely Familiar the book title comes. Braimes, big Leeds company and ‘Sutcliffe Pressings’, small Leeds company making toy boats, and both around for over 100 years. Alas no longer.

119 Going on holiday gear. The jacket was one of my dad’s painters jackets from Woolwich Borough Council and I sewed on a ‘Utility’ mark. The t-shirt is for job interviews.

ment for anybody who wanted them!

tern came from them circa 1978.

93 America 4, 2007. This show, curated

by Martin Parr, was to prove that lots of people had been exhibiting in colour at the same time or even before the famous Americans.

105 Some indication of where my photographic nous comes from.

95 An entry for a sculpture design competition for Leeds. This winning entry (mine) became known as the ‘Leeds Stonehenge’ and was where I lived and designed to indicate where the pubs were according to the position of the sun. It never got built.

97 Barbour Jacket (the ‘Beacon’), Port of London sou’wester and woolly hat knitted by my mother with the Winged Cobra brooch.

99 Always a great film enthusiast and great fan of Saturday Morning Pictures at the ABC Plaza, Catford.

101 I subscribed to Punch magazine as soon as I started work at 16 and saved this Ralph Steadman classic even before I became interested in Photography. It’s a brilliant exercise in photographic theory.

103 Great for previews and openings. Hasselblad won’t believe me but the pat-

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113 The first diary dates from age six and I’ve scribbled for most of my life.There’s a lot more of these things and I’m too scared to read back through them.

121 Got my plane seat booked and my map of Eternity in my photo case.

Let’s roll!!

115 I bought the picture and framed it myself after my father had decorated the front room (the lodger had finally left) when I was 16. My parents were

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is dedicated to two Germans. Rudi Thoemmes in Bristol I know, and I give thanks and salute him for publishing such an odd and personal book with no interference and total trust in my quirkiness. That takes real nerve! Hannes Jähn from Köln I don’t know, but he produced a small, tight art book in 1968 titled ‘55Vogelscheuchen’ and I thought I would make something a lot different.

Deep thanks goes to Ian Breckin, Tom Groves, Leo Griffin, James Ryan Dobson, Paul BennettTodd, Sam Wilcox, Adrian Davies, Andrew Oram, Jane and Marcus Raithatha, David Sheard, Onny Thomson, Philip de Bary, Mark Senior, Patsy Lyttle and Sheila Ross.

Silvertone, CC Imaging, Leeds College of Art BA Photography Course & Artemis Leeds Schools Loan Service.

The star-spangled cover courtesy of Neal Whittington of Presents & Correct.

The photograph album on page 15 has a quote from H.W. Longfellow, an American poet and famous for, among many things, the poem ‘Hiawatha’. I do like America and for me and Jack McIntyre and this photographic album of a different calibre I’ve echoed Laurie Anderson’s updated and eerie song of the same title taken from the collection ‘Strange Angels’ 1989.

The scarecrows date from 1974 – 2015 and are essentially Yorkshire. They could be Walter de la Mare’s ‘host of phantom listeners stood thronging the moonlit air, listening to the world of men’ or the various tribes of farmers or anybody. But to me they’re friends.

The hieroglyphs under The Winged Cobra Workshop on page 4 come from British Museum Egyptian Antiquities 1671 and translate as: ‘I was an astute individual who spoke with his own mouth’.

The architect of Tutankhamun’s tomb had several titles and duties and I chose the one that applied to photography …… relatively speaking.

PS As this book was going to press, I found myself in Venice. To my surprise, on strolling past the Doge’s Palace, there was a giant Henri Rousseau poster the whole height of the building. The exhibition included both The Waterfall and The Poultry Yard. After a lifetime of knowing nothing of the man, suddenly here he was. The Waterfall was the last picture he painted. Unfinished at the time of his death, he died in 1910 from a poisoned leg, that jungle paradise just across the room.

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Measured elevation of 165 Spencer Place (aka The Winged Cobra Workshop). 1984

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This first edition of Some Thing means Everything to Somebody is limited to 950 copies © Peter Mitchell for text and images, objects and photographs. © RRB Publishing for this edition Designed by Leo Griffin Master scans and Production by Tom Groves.

Printed by Longo, AG Bozen Hiawatha by Laurie Anderson © Warner Bros. Inc. All Rights Reserved RRB Publishing is a division of RRB Photobooks Ltd. www.rrbpublishing.com www.rrbphotobooks.com Bristol MMVX ISBN: 978-0-9932323-0-5

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