Paradise, Never Found.

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11th October, Benidorm, Spain – I talked to an Englishman called Tom, he was out walking his dog. Well, the dog was walking, he was riding a mobility scooter. Tom lives in a permanent caravan in the campsite next to the one I’m on.

This is what Tom had to say (this is quoted, verbatim, and contains strong language) –

“There’s an old Scottish woman living down on the same camp site you’re on, she did have a husband, but he died not long ago, they moved into a caravan after their business went down the shit-pan. They bought a pub down in Benidorm about ten years ago, paid nearly a hundred grand for it, which was a fucking piss-take. They put all their money in to it, poor fuckers… worked at it, hard, for maybe four years, but nobody ever went in, he used to just stand outside saying hello to everyone, she’d be inside making butties and British food that nobody ever bought. They even shipped Hovis bread and tins of Irn Bru over… must have cost them a fucking fortune. The silly fuckers lost everything. I felt a bit sorry for them, but you’d do a bit more research wouldn’t you? If you were chucking your life-savings at it? Poor fuckers. They say Benidorm is Paradise lost. I don’t think any fucker ever found it here in the first place!”.

All images made using a Fuji GW690III 6x9cm camera, Vivitar 283 flash and Kodak Portra 400 film.PK201015EX004099-03 PK201015EX004099-06 PK201015EX004101-01 PK201015EX004099-07 PK201015EX004101-05 PK201015EX004101-07 PK201015EX004101-08 PK201015EX004101-06 PK201015EX004100-03 PK201015EX004099-02 PK201015EX004099-04 PK201015EX004101-04

5 responses to “Paradise, Never Found.”

  1. This. This is what I was looking forwards to. Brilliant. There’s a huge body of work and reporting, within this area alone and stories that need to be shared.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. PHIL!!!!!! It’s Beth! The mental hitchhiker! Thank you, so so much, for picking me up and for all your kindness that day, I will never forget it, or you. You made me laugh and cry, both of which I hadn’t done for a long time.
    Your work is incredible, quite incredible. x

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Hi Phil, you were in Benidorm for how long? A week? And you managed to produce a body of work like this? – this is an incredible feat. Do you have an agent? I’d really like to look at getting a lot of your past, present and future work published and out there.

    I’ve emailed you, please check your spam (my work emails sometimes end-up in junk files for some reason). If you don’t have an agent, please hang-fire until you’ve read my email 🙂

    Like

  4. Great images and a great tale. You wonder how many dreams die every day and every year when people realise that work is work no matter where you do it.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. World class photojournalism

    Liked by 1 person

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