Bob
Today, I met Bob.
I’ve said it before, but here it is again: the further from the road you meet people, the more interesting a story they are likely to tell.
It is a relative thing. In this case, merely two miles. But two steep miles. And the first two of many more for Bob, who’d caught a bus, run to the top of Great Whernside - where Kim and I met him at the trig in glorious autumnal sunshine - and would continue alone for many more across the Dales before catching a different bus home. Bob is 70 something.
Bob asked if I was a fell runner. He clearly was. The conversation turned to races. My legs were heavy from Langdale the previous day. We knew some of the same people and doubtless many of the same hills, though the discussion changed course before we got that far.
Bob asked if he could take my photo. He did so in an unassuming manner, in a way entirely unlike I had previously encountered. Not that I am asked such things frequently - this might actually be a first - but I felt no sense of intrusion. Only a warm curiosity, an interest in the lives of others, that sense of humanity so often found to be lacking amid the anxious rush of life less far from the road.
But then Bob has proved me wrong. For over a decade, he has taken a photo every day, of one person he meets along the way. The project - Face by Face - began on the streets of Shipley, a dilapidated industrial backdrop of mills and canals lending itself to his purpose and style: B&W street photography. But it is about more than photography. It is about people. And we all have a story to tell.
The conversation turned to books - it turned out we had both written one. Earthdream - The marriage of reason and intuition is the title of Bob’s book. I have not read it yet. I only met Bob today. But perhaps I will. It seems to me that while Bob’s book is a far weightier tomb than my own, one which wrestles with religion, quantum physics, sociology and psychology and ultimately the environmental crisis both our lives have born witness to, we were driven by the same inspiration to write. And beneath our words, the same message - the need to reconnect, to participate with care and respect, to paraphrase, with our world.
I don’t have a picture of Bob. He was not interested in pictures of himself. So I’ll leave you with a quote from his website instead:
“The quality of life—all life—on our planet is dependent upon a rediscovery of our original sensuous participation in the world.”
If you are interested in Bob’s story, visit:
Earthdreamery – Writing and Photography by Bob Hamilton
I think he was a pretty handy fell runner too. And if I’m doing what he’s doing in 20 years, I’ll count myself blessed.