Photographer ‘over the moon’ with second Bradford exhibition

Bradford photographer Victor Wedderburn had to wait 40 years for his first public exhibition – but now he has his second in as many months.

The self-taught snapper’s Frontline 1984/1985 show captures life in Bradford’s African Caribbean communities in the 1980s.

His images first appeared in the Loading Bay art space during an exhibition ending in May, with a selection now on show at the National Science and Media Museum.

Discussing his latest exhibition, the 70-year-old photographer said: “It’s just unbelievable, I’m over the moon with it.”

The Lumb Lane area of the city was known to many locals as “the Frontline” at the time the photos were taken.

“We didn’t have mobile phones so if you wanted to meet anyone you’d go to the Frontline,” said Mr Wedderburn.

“That’s why I called my pictures Frontline 1984/1985 because those were the main years that I was working in Manningham as a photographer.”

“As the years go by we seem to be getting less and less and people get moved around,” he said.

“That place doesn’t exist anymore and I just happened to have made a record of it.”

Mr Wedderburn arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 1971 at the age of 16 to join his Windrush generation parents.

He was later made redundant from his driving job at Crofts Engineers but used his pay off to buy a second-hand camera and kit to develop colour film.

Armed with his Praktica camera, he set about documenting everyday life in Bradford as he saw it around the BD8 area.

“I didn’t make any money, even though that wasn’t the plan then,” he said.

“But now it ends up that I’ve documented the history of the Windrush generation really.”

He had to find other work to pay the bills and only recently retired after decades working as a psychiatric nurse.

Mr Wedderburn, who still lives in Bradford, carefully kept more than 1,500 negatives of his images, with his first exhibition arising from an approach by the Bradford UK City of Culture team.

Rebecca Land, the National Science and Media Museum’s head of communications, said: “We hope that Victor’s photographs can be preserved.

“I think digitising those images would be incredible so they could all be enjoyed.”

Frontline 1984/1985 is running in the museum’s foyer space until the end of October.