“There were about 100 people who ran the 1960’s in England and I was fortunate enough to meet, work with and/or photograph virtually all of them”
~ Robert Whitaker
“Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow”~ John Lennon
Yes I came of age in the Swinging 60’s in London and in a way this simple but moving image sums it all up for me. Bob by accident met the Beatles manager Brain Epstein when the Beatles were touring Australia in 1964. They all hit it off and he became the official in-house photographer for Epstein’s music empire Nems Enterprises.
For those of you who don’t know the area, Weybridge is a very posh town in Surrey outside of London mostly inhabited by stock brokers and bankers. It also became popular for working class kids who had made it through the entertainment industry. They set up homes there as a kind of giving the finger to the establishment for trying to keep all these newly minted millionaires in their place. Their best form of revenge was to live in their enclaves and upset the old locals who would refer to them as "long haired ruffians.”
Yes the English were the inventors of the "Class System". But certainly one of the great all time Lennon images.
This photograph will be included in our next gallery exhibition, “The Flower Show”. More details on this new exhibition, opening June 17th, 2023, coming soon.