From the archive
Nigel Atherton looks back at past AP issues
21 September 1921
One hundred years ago this week AP was extolling the virtues of a break in Brittany, which could be ‘most conveniently reached from this country by the regular boat service of the London & South-Western Railway, between Southampton and St Malo.’ The favourable post-war exchange rate of 60 francs to the pound made it cheaper than a similar holiday in the UK. What’s more: ‘the Bretons are the most hospitable, homely people. One soon feels at home amongst them, and the presence of a camera is never resented, which is more than the writer can say about some parts of his own country.’ The visual delights on offer included market day in Quimperle, when peasants would ock into town from the country districts. If one found a spot on one of the many bridges one could capture the local blanchisseuses washing clothes in the river. One of AP’s most popular columns of the day was the weekly Piffle column, a comedically curmudgeonly diatribe written under the name ‘The Walrus’. Discussing a friend who had been recuperating from an illness, he wrote: ‘I suddenly realised that his case was very much worse than it seemed when he said that he had lent one of his best and most expensive pocket cameras to a lady who wished to try her prentice hand at photography. That showed a very serious state of things. I tried to imagine how ill I should have to be before I lent one of my cameras to a lady, and the mere thought forced me to go and lie down till I had pulled myself together a bit.’