About

Ionian Photo Tours

Peter Harris - Proprietor of PhPhotos, pronounced fphotos as in "for photos" said quickly.

Education - Harrow, University of Westminster, and University Centre Weston-Super-Mare .

Work

Arthur Sanderson & Sons. This is where the production of William Morris's designs both machine and hand printed first inspired me as to how colour and the way it was used, could so affect moods and change images. It was here that my interest in photography first developed. William Morris, was a towering figure of design in the 19th century and leading proponent of the Arts and Crafts movement which is echoed today by the Mingei movement in Japan. These are some of his designs.

Sanderson also produced a large number of Art Deco designs. These are a reflection of how massed production of many consumer goods enabled many more people to have modern, functional homes.

Refuge: Asian immigrants arrive at Stansted Airport (Image: Getty)

A moment of pride for Britain if we had not sown the seeds of this crisis fertilised the soil and watered it. See More

I was working at Sanderson during 1972 when the Ugandan Asians crisis occurred. I was very proud to be part of a company that took a number of these refugees on to help them assimilate into Britain and for my part taught one of them to swim. It's a shame that Britain has no similar cause for pride these days.

This concern for people by the board of Sanderson was I suppose not surprising for a company that insisted that people only worked their contracted hours unless they were paid overtime. That they took a full hour for lunch in a heavily subsidised canteen. That they made as much use of football and hockey pitches, a pitch and putt course, bowling green, snooker tables and bar as possible. Subsidised entertainment was also provided at weekends in the extensive club facility, and the grounds were surrounded by dwellings built for pensioners

Ted Goodman the Managing Director was normally first at work, usually arriving at 7.00am. All he did at that time was to walk round the factory talking to the men as they got the machines set up. He knew just about all 2000 by name and something about their families. They don't make employers like that any more and after leaving Sanderson, things gradually went down hill.

J Henry Schroder Wagg & Co.

This is where I learnt about money and how it can be used against you. Schroder are a Merchant Bank and I worked for the computer department. The managers of the computer department wanted to form an independent company so they could get outside business and make lots of money, but the bank wanted the department's undivided attention, After some altercation, the bank realising that big main frame computers were on the way out, agreed! The department became a limited company, got some external clients, moved to Bristol and about a year later got exported to Sweden, the Bank having gone to a distributed desktop system, no longer needing main frame computing.

Traveller's Fare

This is where I learnt about food and travel. The food was actually very good, The sandwiches (seen as a laughing stock) were in the main tasty and freshly made ready for the next train. Best of all was the entitlement I had for tickets to travel throughout the UK and continent. One weekend with some work colleagues we went to Pisa for a pizza.

Amongst places visited were Yugoslavia just before everyone started playing kill your neighbour. A girl on a bus asked us what we thought of Yugoslavia. We said very nice. She said "You think so. Everyone is just waiting the starting pistol and the streets will run with blood". And they did. But if she knew, then everyone in Yugoslavia knew. and every government in Europe knew. So why did everyone sit on their hands and do nothing. Putting deranged old Serbs on trial isn't going to make it right.

I've spent most of my working life as an accountant and though retired, still run a small cleaning company I picked up when one of my employers went bust. Perhaps I wasn't as good an accountant as I thought.

I am now putting the years of practical experience and the academic study being undertaken to work as a photographer.

Address :- 25 Scotch Horn Close, Nailsea, North Somerset. BS48 1TE

Phone:- 07916135106 Fax:- 01275-857032