John Harold Lohmann, 1929-2002

Created 2002, last changed 20/10/2022, 15/03/2020

A photo I took of my dad at Winchelsea town National Garden scheme open day, John Lohmann June 1929 - January 2002. Both of us were probably using our Olympus XA camera's as you can see my dad holding his XA.

Visiting Hastings and some photos I took when dad and I were out together during his time in the nursing home.

Some photos of the Castle in The Rocks (St. Mary’s) Hastings & others dad took before his stroke.

Cactus flowered at Christmas 1996 - I think.

Queen Opens Priory (former Cricket Ground) shopping centre, Hastings

St Davids Cathedral

My father went on a number of VegiVentures holidays such as too Penryu, St. Davids at Christmas.

I found during my time visiting my father in a nursing home that if he said something was okay it was excellent and when he said it was good well VegiVentures is good

Some Picture dad took then processed and printed them in the 1960s and 1970s to teach himself photography: Typically mum who had learnt all of that never as a child had printed hundreds of photos as a teenager but never helped dad at all. When mum's mum visited and showed dad quite a lot of things, dads was very pleased. Mum never followed the example set in front of her by granny, but criticized dad.

1) When you are this small, your legs have to work hard to climb up the sand dunes (Woolacombe, North Devon). I thought I would not make it. ~1961 dad took this with granny’s old Agfa two and a quarter square formate portrait camera she had lent him. Dad said the lens was purposely slightly soft so that it was kind to the subject of the portrait.

2) Dad said Avril was very photogenic, and I had been when smaller.

3) This Chinese guy would carry anything even soil for a dollar a day in 1948/9, apparently.

4) Passport Photo of me.

My sister Avril in the 1970's. The camera may have been an Exa (lightweight Exakta) or Exakta (SLR), or his earlier Russian (Zenit) camera with coupled range finder and integral meter (not through the lens though). In about 1975 dad purchased his Cannon AE1, which is about the best camera I have come across, though I sometimes forget to set it properly before taking photos. Dad specifically lent both of them, and the Yashicamat permanently to me. The Yashicamat which is two and a quarter inch square format takes slides so sharp, dad said, that you can step into those pictures, but you should see the pictures he processed and printed many are at least a meter high, and can not be said to be kind to the subject (soft).

Singapore or Penang? Taken with dads two and a quarter square format Muyama. I think dad said this camera was a cheap Chinese copy of a German camera and at least as good.

North Devon in 1951.

Hope you find Dads photos printed in the 1970s entertaining, his mother-in-law (granny) gave him some professional family secrets on printing photos which he was forever grateful for. By the end of the 1980s dad’s photography and processing was the bees-knees. The camera may have been granny's 2 1/4 inch format Agfa.

My sister shared her lolly with me. That glass is larger than a pint and might be a litre.

My sister posing for my father and possibly one of the two Tunbridge Wells Camera clubs.

I cruised to the West Indies in 1976 and 1978 with P&O. To St Marten, Antigua, Barbados, and Martinique – they are I understand different to US Grenada. Significantly, Limbo dancing was just amazing at 9″ the dancers turn their heads and sideways and cleared the ground and the bar by an inch. The music is so powerfully, and everywhere, that it pulls you onto your feet and makes you dance. Children dive in the harbour for pennies – Bee Wee (British West Indies dollar) cents. Smaller children are brought up with no sense of money and give pennies they are given to other people, whilst hummingbirds fly between flowers at the edge of the wonderful sandy beach, and brightly coloured fish swim at your feet in the beautiful clear blue sea. The Rum punch and food were wonderful, And I still have the Straw hat and the flour sack t-shirt.

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