Introduction; Strood May Day

In 1945 a thirty-four year old engineer called Dudley Blount expanded his interest in industrial photography   by opening his own studio at 11 Watts Place Chatham. He expanded his repertoire into social, wedding,
portraiture, medical and commercial photography.

In the 1950s he was forced to leave his premises as Chatham Town Council had plans to demolish the area
to build a department store. I believe he spent a period of his career working from under the stage at the Theatre Royal, and during this time he covered the productions that took place there.

Somewhere between these two places a few boxes of negatives went missing (which included coverage of

a Dickens Festival in Rochester). One day they may come to light and I hereby claim their possession!
In the early 1950s he bought a property, previously Percy Hedgecock gents' outfitters, opposite what was then Rochester railway station.

In 1961 Philip Towner joined him there, having served an apprenticeship with Sloman and Pettit in Pudding Lane Maidstone.  Dudley died in 1962 at the tender age of fifty-one.

Penelope Robertson joined the Company there in 1965, and they married in 1970. After thirty-two years of marriage he died in 2002, at an auspicious time in the history of photography, as digitalisation had arrived.

Using the new technology I put together a collection of the archived photographs and published a tribute to
Dudley Studios and all who worked there through the years.

It was well received and I felt satisfied I had done my bit, but with so many other photographs that folk might be interested in, I felt it my duty to share some more of them.  Nostalgia is not age-related, and old photographs on facebook pages are constantly stirring memories and imaginations of both young and old.

The rise in popularity of social media jeopardised possible sales of the book, and I am constantly witnessing breaches of copyright. This has caused me to reconsider a previous decision to produce another one. Time and money spent on research is wasted when someone breaks the law by copying and displaying a treasured photograph without even a reference to its' origin. At the end of the day, in my gathered experience, most people just want to see an old photograph. This is what I am offering, and the viewer can opt to disregard my ramblings if they so wish!

The Dudley Studios Collection is privately owned and is an inheritance for my children and theirs. One of them may wish to use them quite differently in the future; therefore each image is embedded with an obvious, but hopefully not intrusive, copyright symbol, which should not spoil your viewing pleasure.

Abuse of this copyright will be dealt with under the copyright law.

Comments and discussions will be welcome - indeed appreciated.

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Just to whet your appetite I'm kicking off with appropriate photographs selected from the annual May Day celebrations at Temple Farm Strood in 1953, the same year as our 90 year-old Queen Elizabeth was crowned.

                              Future postings will be irregular but varied, so watch this space