I am a South African photographer, writer and researcher now living in London. My working life has focussed on social issues, health and HIV. (CV) “We are all apprentice old people.
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Self portraits at home 1978, 2024
In the foothills
About the time of life, described by Leonard Cohen as “the foothills of old age”. I review current research, evidence and experiences of ageing. Dr Kyra Neubauer, a senior consultant physician with 30 years’ experience in elderly care medicine, has contributed as co-author and guest blogger.
Staying connected
“Our friends and families literally keep us alive,” writes gerontologist Prof Rose Kenny, who heads TILDA, an ongoing study on ageing in Ireland. So far, the study has shown that social engagement is protective against poor physical and mental health in older age—and that the converse is true. Loneliness is toxic, and it kills.
Walking and wandering
According to my activity tracker, in the past four years I have walked the length of the Great Wall of China. This has been achieved, not by great adventure, but largely by pounding the streets of London.
Living with dementia
Dementia has replaced the 20th century terror of cancer and the narrative of despair around this disease makes living with dementia a greater challenge than it needs to be. By speaking out about her life with dementia, the courageous Wendy Mitchell (1956-2024) has shown us a constructive approach that gives hope.
The wilds of London
Explorations of the quotidian: lost rivers, rural London and much, much more…
Where rivers meet
My obsession with London’s lost rivers all began with the Covid lockdown.
Every morning, at first light, I would pace around Clissold Park—1,000 steps from my front door—alongside likeminded walkers, dog people and huffing hipsters.
Rivers lost and found
An 1180 account of London describes the settlement as having flowing streams and surrounded by “excellent springs; the water of which is sweet, clear and salubrious”. Indeed, until the mid-nineteenth century, London was traversed by more than a dozen rivers, which have since disappeared underground.
The New River Head
Returning to my investigations of the New River, I forgo the walk from Canonbury to its terminus, choosing instead to take the Number 19 bus.
Alighting at Sadler’s Wells, I find Myddelton Passage, a narrow street that leads directly to the New River Head.
Missing pieces
Investigations of my family history, which illuminates huge themes and burning issues—race, class, migration, globalisation, war and peace. “Missing pieces” is both about the making of white South Africa and the making of me.
Peace wantonly disturbed
My fourth great-grandparents, Willem Jan and Aletta Klerck, kept a large and luxurious house in a des-res neighbourhood of the Cape settlement. Included in their possessions were 40 enslaved people. But between the ending of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 and the abolition of slavery in 1834 a series of laws gave enslaved people new rights, and those in the Klerck home were determined to use them. By 1829 Klerck was complaining that the good order in his home had been destroyed “so that from well-behaved persons, which they formerly were, they are now become riotous and disorderly.”
Enter the Klerks
The ancestors whose portraits graced my childhood home represent the only branch of my family who came from patrician stock. Their bearing spoke of confidence in high office and they occupied a place of pride in our humble suburban home.
Eternal light From slavery to a modern fairy tale
In 1995, while directing a documentary series on the Christian missionaries in South Africa (God Bless Africa), I visited a chapel in the grounds of a five-star hotel outside Paarl, which was being used as a venue for intimate, upmarket weddings.
Photography, writing and film
During the 1980s I was active in the social documentary photography movement in South Africa, working largely for educational organisations, trade unions and other civil society organisations. As apartheid became more complex, I began to use the written word to bear witness.
Photography >
Books >
Reportage >
Film >
Communications
I have a wide range of skills and many years of experience in translating complex knowledge into plain English text and accessible communications products, working for Mott MacDonald on DFID programmes and multilateral agencies such as UNAIDS.
© 2024 by Lesley Lawson. All rights reserved.