[Image above: Dorothy Tyler (b. 1920), Surrey, 2008. High Jump (silver medal winner). Competed in three Olympic Games winning silver in Berlin in 1936. Dorothy was a driver for the army during the war. She still plays golf competitively.]

With more than a spark of homage and tribute, members of that 1948 team, decked with their deserved pride, will decorate gallery walls across the UK in a touring exhibition created by photographer Katherine Green. Presenting these sportsmen and women and their oral histories, it offers an insight into their experiences and worthy representations of their achievements.

For the past six years the social documentary photographer has been tracing, tracking and traveling the UK to meet the members of the 1948 British Olympics team.  Initially commissioned in 2007 by Waltham Forest Council to photograph people who had memories of the 1948 games, Katherine soon realised that there were Olympians who were still around with fruitful tales to be shared.

[*Gordon Thomas, (b. 1921), Shipley, 2012. 
Cyclist. Gordon won silver medal for the team road race, went on to become professional. He won the Tour of Britain in 1953.]

Having already formed an interest in documenting people’s memories throughout her previous photographic works, she was drawn to dig far deeper, meet the athletes, explore their experiences and draw parallels between their Olympic time versus that of 2012. Through an exhibition of images and oral histories their stories are told in a multidimensional form as Katherine explains…

Compiling the photographs

The British Olympic Association have been the link between myself and the athletes. They have been a fantastic help. I wrote letters to them, and they then sent these letters on to the athletes on their databases. It was then up to the athletes to get in touch with me if they wanted to.

Capturing portraits

With my portraits I always aim to capture a sense of pride and to celebrate the subject. My subjects are usually those that have been overlooked or go unseen, so much of my work is about bringing people into the public eye. In this case, I was really hoping to create celebratory images of older people, which make the viewer think more about the elderly people in their own community and the stories they might have to share.

Inspirational athletes

All of the people I have met have been inspiring and modest. Many overcame great difficulties to get where they did and as amateurs, they were not allowed to be paid for their work, so they took unpaid leave. I found the women particularly inspiring. During the war they had to completely adapt their lives, and manage families, as well as find time for training.

Most recently I met an amazing and inspirational woman called Denise St Aubyn Hubbard (pictured above). Denise was a high board diver, she trained in Egypt, where her parents lived before moving back to the UK during WWII. Upon arrival she tried to sign up for the Army or Navy, but both were full up. As she spoke Arabic and French she was asked if she would like to learn Japanese, she did, and was trained to read Japanese in a six month period. She then worked at Bletchley Park in the Japanese cipher section. After her swimming and diving career ended, she began sailing. She joined the Royal Navy Auxiliary Service and for eight years became the only woman skipper. She started her own school in seamanship and navigation, and at the age of 64 she sailed single handed across the Atlantic. All done whilst raising a family and retold with the utmost modesty.
I met the fabulous basketball player Lionel Price in Hampstead for a morning shoot and interview. Lionel had grown up in Soho with a love of the theatre, and was full of joie de vivre, at 11am he cracked open a bottle of bubbly, and by the end of the interview we were both quite tipsy.

Creating the exhibition

It has taught me a great deal of respect for older people. It’s so important to take the time to stop and talk to people, and listen to people’s experiences. They have so much of value to share. It also taught me about how much we have now in terms of possessions and wealth. In today’s terms, the UK in 1948 was a difficult place to be, resources were scarce. Many athletes had to improvise by training at home or in parks because gyms and equipment weren’t being manufactured, athletes trained on very little food due to rationing, many handmade their own kits. There was an amazing make do and mend, and ‘mustn’t grumble attitude,’ the most frequent phrase I heard was ‘people just got on with it.’ This was really inspiring and gave me a greater respect for what I have in life.

[Ron Cooper (b. 1928), London, 2007
Lightweight Boxer. A Royal Navy stoker who turned professional after the Games]

Katherine Green’s touring exhibition 1948 Olympians can be seen at the following locations:

Until 16 June
20-21 Visual Arts Centre
Church Square, Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire DN15 6TB
01724 297070
www.facebook.com/2021VAC

10 May – 21 June
The Hat Factory
65 – 67 Bute Street, Luton, Bedfordshire LU1 2EY
01582 878100

02 July – 30 August
Rugby Art Gallery & Museum
Little Elborow Street  Little Elborow St, Rugby CV21 3BZ
01788 533 201

Images courtesy of Katherine Green
Words: Kaye Patrick

The collection draws inspiration from the raw yet beautiful Nordic nature using powerful photo prints of wild animals.

Cushions (£89.95)
These high quality photo print canvas cushions are made from 100% cotton and filled with soft feathers. The print is the most amazing quality and the backside of the cushion is charcoal or black. Some designs are also available as large floor cushions.

Tea Towels (£14.95)
By Nord Tea Towel is available in three designs – Moose, Deer and Wolf – and made from 100% cotton.

All available from Cloudberry Living.

The line up includes Taking Back Sunday, Funeral For A Friend, Gallows, Charlie Simpson, Architects, Every Time I Die, Cancer Bats, Set Your Goals, Make Do And Mend, Lower Than Atlantis, Motion City Soundtrack, Say Anything,The Blackout, Capdown Random Hand, Sharks and loads more.

All you need to do is join us on our Facebook page click ‘Like’  and we’ll pick a winner. Simple!

DEADLINE: You have until the 16th May, 2012 to LIKE our page!

Designing and producing all of the garments by hand adding a bespoke quality to each of his garments all the items are made to order, ensuring exclusivity and a personal service. This new collection is made up of casual suits, light weight knitwear, tailored seperates, shirts and outerwear – all finished with the British designers Latino flair.

Photography by Garazi Gardner
Grooming by Ami Streets
Modelled by Scott Adams
Creative Direction by Krishan Parmar

Natasha Law’s

These new works reveal an increased exposure of layers in her technique. In Pink, Down she leaves slivers of the aluminium sheet exposed to reveal the raw surface and annunciate layers of built up paint. Similarly with her works on paper she creates a strata of different mediums. Starting with drawing she then adds gloss paint and works directly onto a glass panel layered over the work.  The synthesis of these different grounds creates an almost three dimensional effect accentuating the movement of her forms.

Eleven Fine Art
11 Eccleston Street, London SW1W 9LX
22 June to 18 August 2012

Tucked away between Fleet Street and London’s legal quarters, is Volupte -  a world of decadence and delight, a place to escape, unwind and be entertained.

Sit back, relax and let your server bring you exquisitely muddled cocktails and sumptuous food all whilst watching London’s finest burlesque and cabaret performers. Great live music with a host of burlesque beauties, cupcake cuties and sultry songstresses. Enjoy a glass of bubbly, finger sandwiches, pretty cakes and tea.

I headed along on a Sunday for the Voluptea where the award winning House of Burlesque were performing and cocktails, Earl Grey Gin tea and scones were served with clotted crème and jam. It was a truly girly afternoon and we left making new friends too – the crowd were easy going like that.

By far the best moment was when a man was plucked from the audience and made to get on his hands and knees to perform Hound Dog with a raunchy, semi clad dancer. It made for a roaring laugh as he squirmed in front of us all.

And while the critically acclaimed burlesque show took place we nibbled on our scones and quaffed champagne cocktails and gin-soaked tea. It was high octane glamour with a heavy coating of sauce. Not to mention the perfect bodies that wriggled across the stage in a kind of parody of burlesque but keeping it sexy all along.

The cocktail list as you wait for the performance is expansive and prices start from around £10 a piece. A tenner towards an afternoon of escaping the big bad world can only be a good thing.

For more information visit  www.volupte-lounge.com or call 020 7831 1622. Volupte is located at 9 Norwich Street London EC4.

By Erica Crompton

The arrival of the festival to the Canary Islands positions the destination among other renowned international music hotspots, making it an important stop for prominent artists on their tours. Whether part of the electronic music, pop or rock scenes, these events will add an additional element to tourism on the Islands and in Tenerife in particular.

Apart from a line-up featuring prestigious national and international musicians, the Rock Coast Festival will also welcome a variety of exhibitions, video art and new artistic trends, creating a new kind of visual arts mode of expression, all the while celebrating the leisurely aspect of the festival and its culture.

Artists playing include Ben Harper, Cypress Hill, Marilyn Manson, Iggy & the Stooges, Evanescence, The Smashing Pumpkins, Sepultura, Orbital, Fatboy Slim and Ministry of Sound DJs.

Not only is it a great festival but you’re also be staying at the Five star hotel Iberostar Anthelia so you can experience a truly luxurious Festival in Tenerife. All you need to do is book your flights!

HOW TO ENTER

Head to our FaceBook page: facebook.com/fusedpublications and LIKE us.

Next answer this QUESTION: What is Iggy Pop’s real name?

Send your answer along with your name, address and telephone number to competitions [@] fusedmagazine.com.

Deadline for entry is: 11/05/2012 at 12noon.

24-26 May, 2012
www.rockcoastfestival.com
www.iberostar.com/en/hotels/tenerife/iberostar-anthelia

T&C’s
Please note this prize does not include flights.
Accommodation is for the duration of the festival only (24-26 May, 2012) and for 1 room.
This prize requires you to be over 18 and have a UK Passport.
Only 1 person per entry.
This prize is for 1 x pair of tickets.
Only winners who have LIKED the FB page will be entered.
The winner will be notified by email on the afternoon of the 11/05/12.
This prize is not transferable.

The Little Girl Giant is on a quest to receive news about her father, a stowaway who died on the ill-fated Titanic.  The next stop in her search is Liverpool, a city which she sees as a hub of creativity, with passionate friendly people and rich in maritime heritage and beautiful architecture.

Unbeknown to the Little Girl Giant, her Uncle made a promise to scour the ocean floor for the shipwreck and put his brother to rest, and in doing so discovered a letter written by him to his beloved daughter.  For the past 100 years he has walked across the ocean floor with the sole purpose of delivering the letter to its young owner. And now he’s set to emerge from the depths of the Mersey…

But as they cover 23miles, roaming the city in search of a family connection, will they find each other?

Text insert courtesy of Visit Liverpool

“Hello.”

“Hi Peter,” even over a not wonderful mobile connection I could tell it was the laconic low-slung bass icon himself. “it’s Jon Bounds from Fused.”

“Yes, right… would you mind calling me back in five minutes? I’ve got to pick the wife up.”

“Sure, no problem.”

To kill time I make a cup of tea and take the dog outside for a wee. I’m staying at a very well turned out holiday flat at the base of the Shropshire hills. It’s perfectly placed for me to indulge my AE Housman poetic fantasies—in a modish leather-look jacket and Adidas hi-tops of course—but without a garden that the brown and white dog sharing it with me can just pop out to unaccompanied.

I’m breaking a conspiracy of silence here, not all interviews with rock gods are conducted over gin-soaked weekends on tour in uptown New York. Not all interviewers fly out first class and share hotel rooms and VIP sections with their quarry. We may strive for intimacy, but get maybe twenty minutes on the phone. I’ve not seen Lady Gaga go to the toilet. I had to carry a plastic bag for a poop scoop around the corner in case doggy number ones turned more solid outside Terry Jones’s Travel in Church Stretton. Trying to get that intimacy—or at least a bit of matey bonhomie—I tell Peter what I’ve been up to when I call him back.

“It’s nice that we’ve got normal things to do isn’t it? Picking up the wife, taking out the dog…”

“I always have loads of normal things to do Pete, I’m not a rock star.”

You get the impression that Peter Hook has lots of normal things to do too, and giving humorous, affable, honest and conspiratorially indiscreet interviews is one of those. In fact I’m pretty sure that he’s given enough of those to fill the pages of this magazine many times over, but you never tire of hearing them. The man has many stories to tell and tells them well, it’s how others may tell them that is concerning him right now. He’s just finished writing a book called Inside Joy Division, which tells the story of being inside Joy Division. Being one of only three living people that could really know must give him the insight to do that, and it’s a story not well told and that’s been he feels passed over by the others and not given enough time.

“When we started we didn’t have luxuries like a camera… it’s been hard to find photos, not like with New Order.
We started New Order the Monday after Ian [Curtis]‘s funeral…Bernard didn’t like the intensity of Joy Division which is why he doesn’t like playing those songs.
Our manager Rob Gretton held a wake for the band and he said ‘don’t worry Joy Division will be big in 10-15 years. That was the was he put it to say that the music would last forever.”

At the moment Hooky’s new band The Light is playing Joy Division albums in their entirety.  And it seems to be going well, despite what he says was a cynical reaction when it was first announced (there were some “sarky barbs”, which sounds fantastic in that familiar North West burr).

“I thought it would be just fat 50-year-old blokes that came to see us, but it was 19-year-olds and I thought ‘wow, the music lives on’. The themes are the same as ’77… I wrote it so I’m biased but there’s still an appeal.”

I ask him if that’s something to so with the country being in a similar state now to that which it was then: I’m thinking something about the unemployment, the distrust of authority, the cold. I’m thinking mainly of the cold as it snowed unexpectedly last night and despite my tea I’m still not warm, I can see the grey sleet sliding down the hillside roads.

“I don’t think so, I’m not sure. The appeal of the music hasn’t changed. Also it isn’t  nostalgia, it’s not a tribute band. Doing the LP as a whole gives it purity. I’ll leave that to the  likes of Joy Revision. It’s got credibility, we’re not pretending to be Joy Division. Not like the others pretending to be New Order.
People remember the records but not the band. I was listening to the records and thinking what a genius [producer] Martin Hannett was—the records are sort of a cross between Joy Division and Martin Hannett. Joy Division live were much more raw, post punk.”

Yesterday we took a rough path straight up a hill near the Long Mynd, it took not minutes to get to a point where civilisation vanished. If you look the right way you can see not human invention before the sun breaks your sight over the horizon. If you look the other way, there’s a golf course; flattening, landscaping, commercialising what was once a force of nature. It’s the course designer’s take on reality. We’re most of us lucky that no-one feels ownership of our pasts, but if you’re part of cultural history you don’t get that protection due to lack of interest. I mention that Peter is the only person I’ve ever talked to that I’ve seen being played by actors in two different films.

“Ha. I didn’t recognise myself in 24 Hour Party People. It was obviously a comedy, they wanted to make Carry on up the Factory and they did. The funny thing was that Ralf Little who played me had worked a lot with my ex-wife so you’d think he’d have picked up a few tips.
It broke my heart watching Control. Anton wanted to bring out the tragedy, he’d known us for a long time. I knew he’d get it right.”

The end of May marks the 30th anniversary of the Hacienda, and it must be built. Again. By many other people, in clubs around the country and even in museums. The V&A are to host a ‘facsimile’ recreated by original designer Ben Kelly, but Peter and friends have a more fitting tribute perhaps.

“The Hacienda is coming back. The people that own the flats that are now where the Hacienda was are letting us have the car park for one last rave. I wasn’t sure, but I was told. You’ve got to do something for the 30th, you might not be around for the 40th.” You don’t get the impression he had to be persuaded too hard.

I get the feeling that Peter Hook is enjoying being in control of his own story, he tells it well and in many media. Only a couple of days later I’m sitting round a friend’s kitchen table and being shown a spatula bearing the scrawl “Happy Beating! Peter Hook”. Hooky, king of bass, guardian of history, autographer of kitchen implements. The past is safe in his hands.

Peter Hook and The Light play Unknown Pleasures at venues across the UK this May and June. Check here for dates and venues.

Words: Jon Bounds

Best known to TV viewers as the charismatic captain of the flagship BBC panel show Have I Got News For You, Paul’s razor-sharp wit and penchant for the surreal have earned him a reputation as one of Britain’s best-loved comedians across the years.

Away from his favourite desk, this brand new show sees Paul re-unite with original improv chums Richard Vranch (Whose Line Is It Anyway), Suki Webster and Lee Simpson (The Comedy Store) for an evening of sketches, music, magic, variety and dancing girls’ (well…two of them aren’t girls) so book now to ensure you can see everything you want to!

Sun 6 May, 8pm
Tickets £23
Wolverhampton Grand Theatre
Box Office: 01902 42 92 12
Website: www.grandtheatre.co.uk