Photography of Watford

By Nick

Ode to the thistle

What I want is for squadrons of bees to come visit me and take my pollen off to distant fields.

I want soft clay / loam soil to dig my roots deep into, to grow big and strong and to make a great pong so the children and old ladies will come sniff me.

I want to grow up into the sky and to see birds fly by.

I want cousins and aunts to admire the plants and in autumn to pick me and dry me.

Till in spring I’ll grow more and next summer I’ll be about three times bigger than that flippin’ Tulip who thinks he’s the bees knees.

Ode to A Thistle – inspired by someones photo from Cheslyn Gardens – Watford

© copyright by nick on 29th August 2007

This page was added on 15/08/2007.

Comments about this page

  • Re Gregg Couper, what a fascinating history. I have a few old family photos taken at the studio.

    By Celia Savage (23/11/2017)
  • I used Gregg Couper, or rather, its owner Basil Sargant extensively between 1968 and 1971. The firm was then owned and run by Basil who had been apprenticed to Gregg Couper before WW 2. In the RAF during the war, Basil was employed as a photographer, an eyesight issue, I believe, prevented him training as a pilot. He was based for a time at RAF Medmenham, involved with reconaissance and photographic interpretation, in an establishment almost entirely staffed by the Womens Royal Airforce. He always said he had a good war!
    Well before the D-Day landings he helped photograph Normandy beaches from a Lysander and nearly fell out when the pilot avoided enemy fire.
    Sometime after the war he bought and ran the business as a commercial photographic studio from his house in Essex Road, Watford. One of his bigger clients was Scammell Lorries Limited, also in Watford, for which firm Basil was effectively the official photographer until his sudden death in 1971. He was a good friend, and excellent and very creative photographer. He’d won a scholarship to Slade School of Art before the war but hostilities got in the way. He left a widow and a son by a first marriage. His was a fascinating story and the above doesn’t do it justice.

    By Robin Dickeson (17/11/2017)
  • Hi,
    Im looking to trace this photogrphers
    Gregg-Couper & Co (aka Couper, Gregg & Co)
    13 Parade
    High Street
    Watford
    Year around 1960s

    By Navil (21/01/2017)
  • As someone born in Watford I found this page interesting, but it would be helpful to have the place names included.

    By Celia Savage (28/08/2009)

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