Photographer's pride at 'forever' book

Looking at the old camera in his hands, Victor Wedderburn can hardly believe photographs he took more than 40 years ago are finally being made into a book.

Back then Wedderburn, now 71, could not afford a new Praktica (MTL5) SLR camera and had to scrape together the money to buy his second hand.

He had just been made redundant from his lorry driver job of 10 years, so making ends meet was his first priority.

Wedderburn set about photographing his friends and neighbours in Manningham, Bradford, then an area home to a large Caribbean migrant population.

Decades later, some of the 1,500 colour shots he took have been brought together in a coffee-table book, Frontline 1984-85.

It is a permanent record of a community often besieged by racism and stereotypes, but also an intimate portrait of everyday life behind-the-scenes.

"To have a book, and it's a hardback book, it's a forever book," Wedderburn says.

"To think years in the future all these people who frequented what we called Frontline at the time. It's a record for them."

The Frontline was the nickname for an area in and around Lumb Lane, Manningham Lane, Grosvenor Road and Green Lane.

Wedderburn says: "In the summer, there used to be a congregation of African-Caribbean people outside the Perseverance Hotel or the Young Lions Cafe - there was always music on and people who knew me.

"I didn't know anyone who developed photographs, so I just learnt myself developing by putting everything in bin liners and doing it by touch and by feel.

"My friends laughed at me for taking colour pictures, because they weren't considered art."

Wedderburn, who came from Jamaica aged 16 to join his family living in the city, had hoped to make money from his photographs but no-one could really afford to pay.

Instead, while searching for other ways to make ends meet, the self-taught lensman created an invaluable record of a community that was often pushed to the edges of society or even ostracised.

He says: "All that's gone, what we called Frontline, it's totally different now."

Wedderburn later became a mental health nurse and eventually retired, but he always kept his negatives as well as some photos he considered had "gone wrong".

Interest in his work picked up after he put some examples of his work online.

Last year, his prints featured in an exhibition at the Loading Bay gallery in Bradford as part of the UK City of Culture programme.

That public exposure eventually led to the idea of a book produced by the Bradford Culture Company, backed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Anne McNeill, who has edited it, says: "Victor's images tell the story of the Frontline as a place where generations hang out at cafes, hire films from the local video shop.

"Where romances blossom, where endless football games are won and lost, where men shoot the breeze over a game of pinball, and where cars, a source of pride for their owners, are characters in their own right.

"All to the beat of sound systems playing reggae, roots and dub.

"Frontline is an irreplaceable visual record of a period in British history, and a distinctive contribution to British social documentary photography that is full of relevance for today's audiences."

For Wedderburn, who still lives in Bradford, the publication by Trolley Books is the fulfilment of a long-held wish.

He says: "It's like having a lifetime dream and finally, it's happened.

"I'm just amazed that it's actually here."

Frontline 1984-85 is due to be launched at Autograph Gallery in London on 5 November and then in Bradford at the Loading Bay on 10 November.

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