EJ: Skins has become a cultural artefact in its own right, at the time did you ever feel as if you were in the midst of capturing history? My pictures went unseen until years after when they were discovered in a box amongst thousands at a community darkroom facility which I used to make prints. They were selected for a book about youth culture. And that’s when it all started, my first book was published and I was part of a street style exhibition in the Victoria & Albert Museum. But I wasn’t prepared for any form of success, it all went over my head.

Over the years, Watson has insisted that he doesn’t feel sentimentally attached to his photographs, but if his work isn’t close to his heart then perhaps it’s simply too close for comfort. “I literally had no involvement in the editing [of the new book], because it’s so personal,” he clarifies. “And if someone pissed me off at 16, they’re not going in my book. I know it’s petty. So that’s why I don’t edit stuff. Because other people see things that I’ll never see.” Instead, his friend Rini Giannaki took on the hefty task of editing the book, which features images that had been carefully archived over the years by his father. EJ: That’s amazing. I want to touch on music again briefly because it’s such an integral part of your work… A decade later, when Shane Meadows made This is England, I was able to deal with what I’d created. He discovered my book and made a story out of it — it’s very close to the bone, like watching my life. Watson’s work is notable for a few reasons, not least the tenderness he lends to a group long vilified in the media. His pictures feel real because they bring us inside a circle of friends the same way we might experience life: variances of closeness and distance, a metered consistency of looking, tinges of sentiment belied by pragmatism. In short, the end of youth.Lindeque, Mia, Kalenga, Aurelie. Agrizzi 'saddened' by Watson's death, Eyewitness News, 26 August 2019. Retrieved on 26 August 2019. It was like it disappeared out of sight': Omid Scobie admits he was confused Harry and Meghan DIDN'T mention 'racist royal' scandal in Netflix doc or Prince's memoir Spare - as he claims Duchess and King Charles STILL don't 'see eye to eye' over issue Nothing has changed. It’s got a lot more solidified. I used to feel isolated about how much bullshit was out there that we saw through at an early age. We had to rebel. I’m glad the next generation woke up and started to piss off these people in power – it’s beautiful!” First published in 1994, Gavin Watson’s inimitable publication Skins is one of the most renowned documentations of British sub-culture to date. Beginning his career aged fourteen after impulsively purchasing a camera at Woolworth’s, Watson’s photographs have inspired films, exhibited globally and most importantly, been shared between the people who stood before his lens three decades ago as a reminder of their glory days. Toyota Corolla in which Gavin Watson died was not his ‘normal car’. The Citizen, 26 August 2019. Retrieved on 26 August 2019.

The vicious royal assassination that shames even Harry and Meghan's odious cheerleader: MAUREEN CALLAHAN - who's read Omid Scobie's Endgame so you don't have to - is horrified at its unblushing cruelty What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer, so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.” – Shane Meadows (Director of award-winning film This Is England). For Watson, the presence of skins in such communities defies the skewed perception of the subculture as a breeding ground for white nationalism. “It goes against the narrative so hard,” he explains. “It just goes to show that [being a] skinhead’s not about race, it’s about a working-classness, a comradery, and that is universal. That’s why, whenever there’s a strong working-class culture – regardless of religion – you’ll find people listening to ska music and you’ll find people dressed as skinheads.” Bosasa mystery deepens. Valence Watson: "My (now late) brother Gavin is innocent" ". BizNews.com. 26 August 2019 . Retrieved 26 August 2019.Northern soul was a music and dance movement that grew out of the British mod scene in northern England in the late 1960s, largely inspired by the faster tempo and darker sounds of mid-60s American soul music. Records emerging from the Northern Soul scene became known as ‘stompers’ for their soulful vocals and heavy beats. Watson first encounted the Two-tone movement – which fuses ska, punk, and new wave – when he was 14, when he caught Madness on TV in 1979. 40 years on, Watson has come full circle with his new book Oh! What Fun We Had (Damiani), which launches at Donlon Books tonight and features never-before-seen photographs chronicling the rough-hewn kids who transformed skinhead culture into a global phenomenon. Watson and his friends were part of a concentrated, local community of skins with its own particular identity. “The council estate over the road was sort of the boundary. Our town was tiny. Our minds were tiny as well,” he says. “The skinheads in Aylesbury would be very different from the skinheads 15 miles away. It was very insular until we went to gigs and then you’d meet up with people.” Sain, Raahil (3 September 2019). "Jacob Zuma says Gavin Watson's death is mysterious". IOL. Port Elizabeth . Retrieved 4 September 2019.

The photographs make it look like a movie, but it wasn’t! It was boring and mundane.” Life for photographer Gavin Watson wasn’t a crazy whirlwind growing up, in spite of what his immense photographic archive suggests. He and his friends would do “what most teenage boys from 14 to 18 would be doing in a rural council estate…. We’d hang out, listen to music, and obsess about girls and relationships, and where our life is going to go, and what we were going to be doing at the weekend.” But it’s in these moments where the magic lies. In England, there were two waves of the skinhead cult. From its inception, the skinhead subculture was largely based around music. The first group appeared in the late 1960s as an offshoot of the mod subculture and largely died out by 1972. He had a big heart': Family pays homage to Gavin Watson at memorial, IOL, 30 August 2019. Retrieved on 30 August 2019. a b Angelo Agrizzi claims Gavin Watson tried to ‘buy his silence’ with R50m. Retrieved on 26 August 2019.Moment father, 50, protects his son as they are ambushed by gang armed with machetes and zombie knives at a KFC drive-thru before being fatally stabbed Early northern soul fashion included strong elements of classic Mod style, including button-down Ben Sherman shirts, blazers with centre vents and an unusual numbers of buttons, and brogue shoes. Later northern soul dancers began wearing lighter, loose fitting clothes for easier movement on the dance floor. This included high waisted baggy Oxford trousers and sports vests with leather-soled shoes. Laurence Fox denies 'brutal' divorce from Billie Piper turned him into a 'weaponised anti-woke bad boy' as he claims tweets branding him 'racist' were an 'organised pile-on' to destroy his career Underhill, Adriaan Basson, Yolandi Groenewald, Glynnis. "Prisons graft: Bosasa's empire of influence". The M&G Online . Retrieved 26 August 2019. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)