For three decades from the early

1950s, from his base in a shop on

one of Hackney's main roads, Ron
Gibson photographed hundreds of
weddings, work parties, Bar
Mitzvahs, outings and christenings.
Also, people came to him for
individual and family portraits,
recording key moments in their
lives.

Gibson was a meticulous record-

keeper and the archive of negatives
stayed intact in a cupboard in the
studio even after he sold his
business on.

But in the main, the log-books

linking the images to the people
featured have been lost.

Hackney Archives, which holds the

collection, has been sharing images
in the hope that people who
recognise themselves or their
friends and family members will
come forward.

Some have been tracked down.

Ray Potts
For three decades from the early
1950s, from his base in a shop on
one of Hackney's main roads, Ron
Gibson photographed hundreds of
weddings, work parties, Bar
Mitzvahs, outings and christenings.
Also, people came to him for
individual and family portraits,
recording key moments in their
lives.

Gibson was a meticulous record-

keeper and the archive of negatives
stayed intact in a cupboard in the
studio even after he sold his
business on.

But in the main, the log-books

linking the images to the people
featured have been lost.

Hackney Archives, which holds the

collection, has been sharing images
in the hope that people who
recognise themselves or their
friends and family members will
come forward.

Some have been tracked down.

Ray Potts
Ray Potts still remembers the blue
windowpane check suit and brown
brothel-creeper shoes he wore to a
party night at Barrie's dance hall in
1952.

"If you didn't have a smart suit and a

clean shirt, you never got a girl," he
says. "They'd never even look at
you."

He would get two suits made for him

a year, putting aside money at the
tailor's every week to pay for them.

Capturing the atmosphere at

Barrie's, above a clothes shop on
one of Hackney's main shopping
streets, was an early commercial job
for Gibson, who was 24 at the time.