I took this photo in March 2004 while a small team were struggling to erect the hut.* Weymouth has long had a posse of these stripy huts selling fast food and essential seaside tat. There were precise council specifications about building materials and colour and width of stripes.
The huts generally were erected at the beginning of the “season” and dismantled at the end. Except for this hut, which remained standing continuously from March 2004 as the owner, Pete Townsend, liked to trade over the weekends out of season (either that, or he couldn’t be arsed to take it down every year).
It was decided this year that the red, white and blue designs were a bit too loud and Non-Olympic, and had to be replaced by new designs. Weymouth beach was to get a Gok Wan style makeover. This hut was the last stripy hut standing, but was smashed up a couple of weeks ago. The day after, I rescued some small wooden red, white and blue remnants.
These valuable heirloom seaside artefacts from the last standing hut are coming to an eBay auction near you, with prices starting in the mid-thousands. Any takers?
*The photo was featured in the RPS’s International Print Exhibition 2005, which was my only success in this competition despite entering about 45 million times. In the end it dawned on me that they were only interested in pictures of poor people in India, diving seabirds and portraits of famous people. But that’s another story.
3 comments:
What a pity .. I love these stripes and I remember your photo well
could it be that the colors refer to the french national colours?
Cheers, Connie
I really like that photograph.
(Going to spare you random Leica-Hipshot-comment.)
Connie - I'm pretty sure the colours aren't a reference to the French!
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