Shrewsbury daughter of top photographer in major legacy bid
[gallery] He photographed The Beatles, Winston Churchill's funeral and the Vietnam War – and now the daughter of an eminent 20th century photographer is attempting to ensure his legacy lives on in Shropshire.
Cara Spencer, of Bayston Hill near Shrewsbury, took over the running of her late father Terence Spencer's photo archive after he died in 2009.
His extraordinary life saw him serve as a World War Two pilot, before becoming a photographer for Time-Life magazine – covering everything from "swinging London" in the 1960s to civil wars in Africa.
Cara is starting to run private displays of his work at her home, while also working on a longer-term plan to turn the county town into one of the country's best-known photographic centres.
Miss Spencer said her globe-trotting father's work had been hugely diverse. Over the years, he photographed the likes of Muammar Gaddafi and Yasser Arafat, as well as Richard Branson and Bob Dylan.
And she said she had been the inspiration for him covering The Beatles in their early years as they began their ascent to worldwide fame.
"He used to ask me and my mother to suggest stories. If they accepted the story, he would give us £50," she said.
"I said 'Dad, there is this amazing group called The Beatles'. He rang the editor of Time-Life in New York, who said his daughter was interested in The Beatles as well.
"In those days, it was much easier to get close to them before they went to the States and got really famous. They accepted him as part of the furniture and he spent several weeks following them around. He didn't have a bad word to say about them and said they had a lovely sense of humour."
Miss Spencer said her father even got the band to record a message for her, which she played to her friends on the school bus. But the tape was accidentally wiped.
The majority of his pictures of The Beatles were sold at auction to Bloomsbury Publishing for £75,000 in the early 1980s, with the images used to make a best-selling coffee table book.
But Miss Spencer retains 13 colour images of the band taken by her father.
Over the years, Mr Spencer also photographed the likes of Freddie Mercury, Sting and Boy George.
He also covered numerous conflicts, including the Vietnam War and the Congo revolution.
"He said compared to the Congo, Vietnam was like a playground. The violence was horrific," she said.
Mr Spencer was also responsible for covering Sir Winston Churchill's funeral in 1965, with his US-based employers even sending an aeroplane across to London with an on-board processing laboratory.
"The pictures were processed across the Atlantic and were in the magazine the following day," his daughter said.
Miss Spencer added that since recently moving to Shropshire, she wants to help mark her father's memory by making Shrewsbury a major photographic centre for the UK.
She said the town could follow the model of Arles in France, where a major annual photographic display runs each summer across the town.
Miss Spencer said introducing a similar event in Shrewsbury could bring in huge amounts of national and international tourists. She said she was hoping to speak to town leaders about the idea in the near future.
She is selling copies of "Living Dangerously", the autobiography co-written by Mr Spencer and her mother Lesley, that tell some of the tales from his extraordinary life.
For more information about the book and the private tours of his work, call Miss Spencer on (01743) 871118.
