It was just like the time when Bob Dylan took the morning off from polishing his Nobel Prize and accepted an invitation to go and jam with Showaddywaddy. Remember Showaddywaddy? Ever even heard of Showaddywaddy? Well yes, there’s my point right there. Even if something is stirring from your dim and distant past, I bet you’ve only remembered the long haired frontman called Dave Thingumywotsit. Or maybe something just rang in your head about a connection between one of the band members and Luton Town FC. And while Bob Dylan wrote songs that endured the test of time and became the weather vane of an entire generation, Showaddywaddy sang “Under the Moon of Love,” before disappearing into the murky depths of the cabaret club circuit forever. Probably.
Roll forward a few years and a highly accomplished photographer from the edges of Devon had agreed to meet up with three bumbling fools in a forest, fools who’d arrived from across the border, full of good intentions and ill chosen camera settings. In terms of bringing a wealth of expertise to the party, Nick was doing most of the heavy lifting, while we were just curious as to where he was spending all of his mysteriously moody Dartmoor days. I’d spent a couple of hours on Flickr searching for images from the moor taken by the clever souls whose work I follow, and had mostly ended up adding his clickbait to my favourites folder. A lone hawthorn here, a doom laden moor there, and a fogbound forest lurking in the shadows. He’s a man who knows how to deliver atmosphere in an image. But I was also conscious that he almost never shares the location in his posts. Ok so he did just once, with a high contrast stunner of Haytor. Then again, you can’t really disguise Haytor.
Although it hadn’t been expressly forbidden, I had no intention of spreading the details of Nick’s darkened corners. “Do we have to sign the Official Secrets Act before you show us around?” I asked. “I’ll bring three blindfolds,” came Nick’s reply. The fact that I was driving might make this challenging of course - after all I wouldn’t want to be having any unfortunate episodes with those Dartmoor ponies that wander the roads with little sense of fear. But I think he was joking. We were joined by Carl, another local photographer who I was meeting for the first time. Carl works for a company that provides services to the armed forces, so he’d already signed his vow of silence.
It was a good job I spotted the Iceland flag on the beanie hat worn by the man walking purposely towards Wistman’s Wood as we came away from our first assignment towards the end of the morning. Well if someone’s wearing an Iceland hat and they’re heading towards Wistman’s, it seems pretty likely that they’re part of our community doesn’t it? “I like the hat,” I chirped as he was about to pass us. “Are you Dom?” came the reply. We’d met our Bob Dylan, almost by accident. Apparently he’d left a message on my phone, but there’s no signal at Wistman’s - only mist and gnarly trees. He’d gone out of his way to come and tell us that the afternoon plan we’d hatched had been kiboshed by external events, but while there was still time, he was keen to show us one of his magical forests, where he promised as much fog and filth as we could manage in a single helping. Apparently we wouldn’t have to walk very far either. It had already been a fairly robust trek to Wistman’s and when daylight hours are limited, you don’t want to be spending too much of your precious time yomping about in the mire do you?
“I thought I’d find you here.” An hour later, I’d discovered a black flow in the dark spaces beneath the canopy. Even though this was our first meeting, he’d obviously learned enough about me to know I’d gravitate towards anything that looked like water. Generously, Nick had even shared some of his recently discovered compositions with us, before we’d all disappeared into our own corners of this silent woodland space, occasionally bumping into one another and examining shots on backs of screens. “I’ve found a lovely tree in the clearing!” I called as I saw Lee frowning at his Leica in the distance. “Oh yes, we saw that one too,” said Dave, hidden somewhere not far away. It wasn’t the same tree though - we’d discover that later. “See those trees there?” asked Carl. “They’re the ones I photographed last weekend that I showed you.” They did indeed look very familiar.
The meeting had been all too brief, but Nick’s seemingly unlimited knowledge of the moors had brought some enticing snippets for the following day. And I’d already resolved to return to this place too. In less than an hour I’d barely scratched the surface. So many secrets waiting to be discovered.
I very much doubt that Bob has heard of Showaddywaddy either. I don’t think he listened to any of their long forgotten hits when he was looking for inspiration for “Blood on the Tracks,” and nor is he likely to get excited by the knowledge that the lead guitarist’s son was a professional footballer. But we’d made some more connections with like minded souls, and that had been a good thing. I’ve met quite a lot of you now. In fact at this rate I’m going to be counting the names of those of you I haven’t met in person on the fingers of one hand. I should keep your head down if I were you.
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