Power of the image

Most of the pictures by top photographer Frank Power, who died recently, were in black and white, yet by all accounts he led an amazingly colourful life, writes

.

Click here for: Veteran Frank Power's photos

He was taken prisoner by the Japanese in the Second World War, and a memorial service was held in his home town of Dudley after he went missing, presumed dead, during the fall of Singapore.

As Mark Twain would have said, the reports of his death had been somewhat exaggerated, and when Frank returned to Britain after being freed by US Marines, he went on to enjoy a remarkable career as a press photographer, continuing to take pictures right up to his death last month at the age of 88.

Frank was a near permanent fixture at the Dudley Hippodrome in the 1950s, where he rubbed shoulders with stars such as jazz legend Humphrey Lyttelton - who performs at Stourbridge Town Hall next month - funnyman Tommy Cooper, not to mention a young up-and-coming comedian by the name of Ken Dodd.

He said his picture of Lyttelton, taken from the wings of the theatre while he was playing, was one of his favourites, although his more everyday subjects have made equally fascinating photographs, and the Black Country Society produced a book of his works in 1996.

One such photograph was taken at the Round Oak Steelworks in Brierley Hill, where he took a picture of John Clarke going about his business.

Mr Clarke was employed by the company's bricklaying department, and his duties included fetching beer to help keep the workmen cool in the searing heat from the furnace.

Frank said in the book that Mr Clarke would carry 30 bottles at a time from a local pub, including around a dozen balanced in a bag on his head, and made the trip twice a day for 40 years.

When Frank asked if he ever dropped them, Clarke gave the swift answer: "Yoe doe drop the beer, me mon."

If John Clarke's beer-carrying skills were impressive, Black Country strongman John Ashcroft's ability to lift things was amazing.

Frank pictured Ashcroft, who kept the Cooksey pub in Netherton, lifting a cast iron bar table in the air with his teeth - and two children sitting on top of it.

Another evocative picture of Frank's was of a group of schoolchildren at Blowers Green Railway Station in Dudley, in 1959, waiting for the train to Hereford where they were going on a hop picking holiday.

It used to be commonplace for Black Country children to spend their summers hop-picking.

An event forever etched on the memories of Black County folk was the funeral of England football star Duncan Edwards, who died in 1958 from injuries received during the Munich air disaster.

Frank captured the scenes outside St Francis's Church on Dudley's Priory Estate during Duncan's final journey, where thousands of mourners turned out to pay their respects in scenes almost reminiscent of a royal state funeral. Another picture of Frank's showed a somewhat scary initiation tradition at the former Hansons Brewery, where apprentice cooper Brian Edwards was indentured by being rolled around the shop floor in flaming barrel.

Friend Graham Gough, a former Express & Star photographer, says a 1957 picture taken of a chimney stack in Wednesbury during demolition, holds a special appeal for those in the trade.

The photograph shows the stack falling at approximately 45 degrees, but this picture taken in the days before the availability of cameras which can take several shots in a split second.

"He had an old plate camera where you could take just one shot before having to change the plate," says Graham.

"You couldn't take any more, you had to get it exactly right. If he had got it a second later, the thing would have just hit the ground."

Graham who was just starting his photography career in the 1950s, says Frank was a great support in the early years.

"He helped all the young photographers, he would always offer some advice, and bought many of them their first pint."

Frank initially became an apprentice electrical contractor on leaving school, before getting a job in the Louis Marx yo-yo factory in Dudley, where he found the work to be well-paid but mind-numbing.

Other jobs he had included work as an electrician's mate, a blacksmith's strike, a boiler-keeper, and as a polisher of golf club heads. In 1936 he started work as an assistant to photographer Norman Lewis, whose first question was:"What do you know about photography?"

"Nothing" admitted Frank honestly.

"Good, I want somebody to train from scratch and not tell me what to do," was the unexpected response.

"You start on Monday."

Frank's early career was interrupted by the war, but he returned straight afterwasrds and although he officially retired in 1992, he never really stopped taking photographs.

l A Black Country Photographer: Pictures from Frank Power's Album 1937 to 1995, are available priced £5.95 from the Black Country Society at PO Box 71, Kingswinford, DY6 9YN.