Candid Cameraman's Confession

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 145, 20 June 1940, Page 22

Candid Cameraman's Confession

By Terry Stamford

" OORRY I didn't recognise you first but I see so many people. Yes, I'm a kerb-snapper now. Street photographer if you want to be classy. I've got eo sick of seeing people's silly faces that I just don't take any notice of 'em anymore. Sight 'em' snap 'em, and give 'em a card, that'e me. Strictly professional. "Sounds exciting? Don't you believe it! Listen, I've been doing it. for eight months now and I take over a thousand ehote a day. Six days a week, thirty days a month. Why, that must be, let's eee, thirty times six thousand multiplied by six. Oh, let it go! But believe me, after six months of that sort of thing people's faces become just so many blurs. You forget 'em the minute they've passed you. You have to, otherwise you'd go off your head trying to remember who wae who. "Another? Thank?, don't mind if I do. Same again, please, mise. What were, we talking about?. Oh, yes, excitement. Well, excitement's a eore subject with me. You don't make your fortune when thinge are dull, but, on the other hand, you don't etand to lose a great deal either. See what I mean? I had a bit of excitement the other day that's Bent me back twenty-five quid and so the quieter things are the better I like it.

"Now, take thie job of mine. It's a proper . . . Oh, sorry, miss. Didn't see you standing there. Well, as I was saying, it's a proper beaet. Thirty bob a week and threepence in the shilling commiesion. Ten in the morning until seven or eight at night. My own boss? Don't I wish I was! Listen, I've got a boss and a half, I have. A naturalised Scotsman named Rosenheim. They say you can't be in two places at once, but Rosey can, and go one better! He's like red hair in an Irish family, you never know when he's going to crop up next. "Do 'em again, will you miss. Well, this bit of excitement that came up happened on Thursday. I'd made up my mind to be on the job that day. Rosey had sacked two men the day before for. taking ten minute* over their dinner hour. So there was I snapping away and dealing out the cards like a professional dealer. Aβ I say, I dont take any notice of the people I enap usually, but I eaw a big fellow coming along carrying a pigskin brief case. Hβ looked pretty tough and you generally don't bother snapping hard-looking specimens. It's bad business, eee? They don't usually send in for their pictures, anyway. "It must have been twenty minutes to knQcking-off time and I was so fed up with it that I wae hardly bothering to eight my shots. I just clicked the shutter and passed out a card. This one didn't take hie, though. Just brushed past without saying anything. I didn't break down and cry; we get plenty of that. I stuck the card in my pocket because the coppers tell you off ff you litter up the pavement too much. "Then it was time to knock off and I went to get a paper to eee how much I'd dropped at A.P. that afternoon. Oh, I'll take light if you don't mind. Too much Burton loads you down thie weather.

Well, two of my horses had gone down and the third hed finished second, but I'd only done it to win. So I decided to stand myself a few to even up the score. The newspaper bloke started to tell me about a man who'd had a brief caee con-

Short Story.

taining diamonds worth a couple cf thousand snatched. I wasn't very interested, though. Served him right for having 'em in the first piece, I thought. Then I thought it might have been the man who'd come hurrying down the street. He was carrying a pigskin case as if it didn't belong to him and he certainly looked tough enough. It had only happened about fifty yards from me, too. Shows you how you can be right in the centre of thinge without noticing anything, doesn't it? Still, what did I care? Live and let live, that'e what I always say. If he'd got away with sparklers worth a couple of thousand jolly good luck to him. Let the coppers earn their own salaries!

AH this talking's making me dry. No, mine thie time. Same again, miss. There I was in the saloon, leaning on the counter trying to puzzle out what had happened to my horses, when in comus a fellow whose face looks familiar. You know how it is with me, I can't fully recognise anybody. Well, this fellow sees me looking ■at the racing returns and starts chatting about the day's results. I'll talk racing with anybody, and we had a pretty pleasant hour arguing about the nags. You haven't got to go anywhere, have you? No? Good, 'cos I just coming to the funny part of the story. This fellow and I have been standing each other pints, and soon I start telling him how much I've dropped over the afternoon turning out so sticky. He says he'll soon put that right, he's going down to the dogs where his guv'nor's a bookie, and why don't I go down with him T Well, I was on that like a bird. It isn't every day you get the chance of a bit of inside information. I said I'd go and he said there was plenty of time as his good thing didn't go until nine thirty. So we stayed there knocking back pints until about quarter to and then left to catch a train.

I hadn't had time to ditch my camera but I thought I'd drop it into the station cloakroom. We went up the street and this fellow said he knew a short cut. We turned up an alley and then he turned round and hit me such a wallop to the jaw that I was knocked end over end. I didn't get a chance to return it, for he was ell over me and finished me off with one in the wind that just sat me down helpless. He picked up my camera and smashed it against the wall. Then he put it down on the floor and jumped on it. He was thorough, I will say that for him, for he wasn't satisfied with what he done but what he had to take the busted case and eling it down a grating. All of a sudden I realised who he was. He was the man with the pigskin brief case I'd snapped going down the street a couple of hours before! Well, finally I got my wind back and got up to find the camera. It was smashed, of course, and I knew that even at wholesale prices it would cost me at least twenty quid to replace. Why didn't I take the film to the police? Do you think I hadn't thought of that? Listen, I took that sna-p a few minutes before knocking off time and I didn't think it was worth while to load in a new pack. I only went on clicking the shutter because I could see old Resenheim snooping at me from the opposite corner. That fellow needn't have bothered smashing up my camera. There wasn't any film in it! What, going now? All right, have one for the road. Same again, please miss!"