Welcome to Britain: A Celebration of Real Life [Hardcover]

Jan Williams (Author), Chris Teasdale (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2005

Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale are on a mission to record the ordinary and extraordinary details of leisure, landscape, and lifestyle in 21st-century Britain. With a wry eye to the humor of their subjects, their book covers locations from across the British isles in themed sections exploring such aspects of Britishness as gardening, shop fronts, seaside resorts, and our national love of dogs. The appeal of the photos in the book is the familiarity of their subject matter and their celebration of overlooked detail, revealing the reality of contemporary Britain. Over the past five years they have exhibited the photographs around the country in a 1969 mustard-coloured caravan—The Caravan Gallery—and the photos are accompanied by quotes from the gallery's visitor book.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jan Williams studied Fine Art in Portsmouth and works in a wide range of media from her studio at Art Space Portsmouth. She exhibits widely both in the UK and abroad. Chris Teasdale has worked in education, the travel industry and as a stained-glass artist before collaborating with Jan in a number of art- and travel-related projects and commissions. Their shared interests inspired them to set up The Caravan Gallery in 2000. Since then they have been touring the country, communing with the great British public, and exhibiting photographs and postcards made in response to places visited.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Headline Book Publishing (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0755314476
• ISBN-13: 978-0755314478
• Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 8.9 x 7.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 23.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,273,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars This septic isle, this mundane paradise, November 12, 2005

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Welcome to Britain: A Celebration of Real Life (Hardcover)

Continuing in the tradition of the 'Crap Town' books this very wry and funny book captures the essence of the real Britain in a few hundred color photos. Originally on display in the Caravan Gallery, a mustard-colored 1969 home-from-home that tours the country and presents to whoever feels like stepping inside an affectionate look at our endearing shabbiness.

The two authors have scoured the land for some wonderfully offbeat images including little trains, markets, dogs, bins, derelict garages and shops, seaside, burnt out cars, picnics, toilets, food, litter or graffiti. A spread just called Chicken has eleven photos of premises such as Hentucky Fried Chicken, Chicken 'U' Like, Chicken Cottage and Chick 'O' Land. The chapter on Smut shows two street signs, Canal St. and Morgan Street both are missing the first letter of each word.

Scattered throughout the pages are several of the Caravan Gallery parody postcards like AWARD WINNING PORTSMOUTH with four photos including the recently torn down Tricorn Centre, RELAXING BRACKNELL showing four sad looking public benches, GARDENS OF ENGLAND: predictably suburban flagstone and concrete gardens and don't forget the dead conifers.

Wonderful though these photos are I thought it was unfortunate that they were let down by the book's design (so four stars). Magnum photographer Martin Parr in his book 'Think of England' (ISBN 0714839906) took a similar photographic take on the cliché of Englishness but in his book the images work so well because they were presented in the formal format of the photobook. I think Williams and Teasdale's work deserve a much better presentation than the bland layouts and dull typography in 'Welcome to Britain'. It is sort of ironic that these two brilliantly capture the ordinariness of British life only to have it presented in a very ordinary looking book.

2007 UPDATE The Caravan Gallery has issued another book: 'Is Britain Great?' (ISBN 0955025818) fortunately in a proper photobook format.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.