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Diners drive ins and dives nashville8/31/2023 In those days, the young men’s style was to have their hair fairly long, but the army didn’t like long hair so the Cypriot army barber used to cut it short. I spent a lot of my spare time in the dark room.īefore we went into the army, my 2 brothers used to cut each other’s hair, so besides the camera, I took with me I took the hair clippers. Luckily, the army had a “darkroom” in Famagusta for us soldiers to go and develop our films and print the photographs. Everywhere I looked, I kept taking photographs. There were camels walking down the street in Famagusta, old men with donkeys loaded up with farm produce, rows of “shoe shine” boys wanting to shine our army boots and many things we had never seen before in England. I had my camera with me and I soon started taking photos of this “Paradise” we had come to. We had never been anywhere up till then.Īs soon as we were allowed some time off, we went down to the local town, which was Famagusta, (now known as Varosha or Maras). When we arrived, we thought we had arrived in Paradise. Richard: Soon after that we were sent to Cyprus. I was taught to be a wireless operator, and my brother was taught how to drive an army lorry.Ĭhris: Wow, so how did you start taking photos of Cyprus and what did you do with them? After our initial basic training we were taught some sort of “trade”. It was £8, about 2 weeks wages in those days and I took the camera with me when I joined the army. At 18 years old, my twin brother, Michael and I were told to go and join the army under the government National Service scheme, but before I joined the army, I went to the camera shop and bought a French camera called Gallus De-lux. Richard: I left school when I was 16 years old and went into the printing industry as a apprentice compositor. I took the camera to school and started taking photos of the boys in my class and when I got home, I developed the film and enlarged the photos and sold them to the boys for sixpence each.Ĭhris: Amazing, so tell us about your time in the army He also taught me how to develop the film and put the film into a photographic enlarger. Amazingly, he made me a small camera out of a Colmans Mustard Tin. ![]() I had a brother who was 7 years older than me and good at metal work. ![]() Richard: I first became interested in photography in about 1950, when I was 15 years old. So please tell us a little of your early days in the UK and how you came to take photos of Cyprus when you were in the army. Welcome Richard and it seems you are always busy either sending reviews to CyprusScene for publication or promoting your books of photography from your army days way back in the 50s. Hello my name is Chris Elliott and I would like to welcome you to this CyprusScene review and my guest is a well-known ex-soldier, photographer and resident of Northern Cyprus, Mr. He is a great loss to the TRNC and its communities and we send our condolences to his family and remember him in many happy ways and our readers will learn more of him through this interview we made with him in February 2021. Sadly over the past year or so we were loosing contact with Richard whilst Margaret was having lots of hospital treatment and were aware that Richard also was also having medical treatment so we saw less of him. In fact Richard was very active promoting his 1950 photographic memories and even lobbying the UK Government to recognise the TRNC with help from CyprusScene publications. Margaret Sheard and I had become friends with Richard many years ago and helped him promote his books and exhibitions and many memorable ones including his exhibition in Famagusta and in the Old Round Tower in Girne where Margaret talked to Richard whilst I recorded a video. ![]() I was deeply saddened this week to learn that our dear friend Richard Chamberlain had died.
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