Derek Gardiner

Sadly, Derek Gardiner passed away on December 19th 2024 at the age of 100.  Besides my parents (and the hospital staff), Derek knew me longer than anyone else; he'd come to take pictures of my mother's new-born when I was just a day old.  He was one of the most extraordinary people I've had the privilege to know.

Conscripted into the army at the age of 18, he served as a photographer in India for the two years before the war ended. After demobilization, he began working in the family business, Walter Gardiner Photography, founded by Derek's grandfather.  During the 1960s he transitioned the business away from the retail shop and D&P to focus on commercial and industrial photography. He built a studio in East Worthing with enough room to photograph cars and the like, with processing and printing on the premises. The business flourished for 30 years under his ownership and management.  

Not only was he a shrewd businessman; he was also a highly talented artist. Derek was named Ilford's commercial and industrial photographer of the year in 1984. He took up wood carving in the 1980s and created several striking wood sculptures. But photography remained his principal medium After retiring in the mid 1990s, he continued to push boundaries with homemade pinhole cameras, and homemade photographic papers and dyes.    

He was one of the most immensely curious people I've known, always reading, extraordinary knowledgeable about everything from world affairs to classical music and jazz to modern art, and culture.  In his late 60s he enrolled in the Open University and earned a degree in geology.    

Thanks to his devoted wife, Betty he travelled widely to places few people visited at least at the time they made their trips to Eastern Europe (Hungary, Romanis, Yugoslavia) ,China, Tibet, India, the Silk Road, and several countries in South and Central America.    

Betty passed away six years ago. Despite deteriorating eyesight, he managed to live out his final years in the house he and Betty had built in the 1980s. He remained active throughout, walking regularly on the South Downs, always looking for some new artistic endeavor.   

I remember fondly the spirited conversation he (and Betty) would have with my parents whenever they came to dinner (which was probably at least once a fortnight). Memorable events with Betty and Derek and my parents included Peter Shaffer's Equus at Chichester Festival Theatre in 1973 and David Hockney's sets for Mozart's The Magic Flute for the Glyndebourne Festival in 1978.

While I didn't get to know him well until well into my 40s (he was such an intimidating figure for me as I was growing up) Derek was, and will be, an inspiration and a role-model.