How the photographer liked to paint a picture with the apprentices

YOU can always tell when photographers fake paint smudges on someone’s face – they can’t resist putting a blob on the end of the nose.

The smiling victim here is Deborah Strachan, 19 years old in 1988, who was a regional finalist in Crown Trade Paints Apprentice Decorator of the Year. Good to see that the contest is still going.

Deborah, employed by Strathclyde Regional Council, was the only girl in her class at Cambuslang College which is why the photographer felt the need to have her fellow classmates menace her with paint brushes. The brushes in the picture have no paint on them so there is no explanation for the paint on her face, but perhaps I am being too prosaic, and should just enter in to the jollity suggested here by the photographer.

Alas the picture was taken before the Scottish regional final so we don’t know whether Deborah went on to win the contest.

Cambuslang College where she studied has gone through a few changes. It developed other campuses in the area until it was renamed South Lanarkshire College, then over the years the older campuses closed and now it just functions in East Kilbride where it is now South Lanarkshire College East Kilbride.

Still, at least painters and decorators like Deborah would have been busy painting all the new signs over the years. Her then employee, Strathclyde, was later broken up in local government reorganisation.

Copies of our archive photographs can be purchased by emailing photoenquiries@heraldandtimes.co.uk or via our website www.thepicturedesk.co.uk