Teenage Kicks: Feature on British youth culture exhibition for BJP

© Gavin Watson

Presenting images, objects and personal stories by professional photographers as well as the public, the extensive show documents lived experiences of young people from the 1920s to today

As a teenager in the early-80s, Normski would walk down his street in Camden, armed with a stack of magazines and a bag of 10 pence pieces. He was headed to the phone box: “my office”, as he refers to it. There, he’d call up photo editors: “Did you have a journalist reviewing the Whitney Houston gig last night? I took some fantastic pictures. Would you like to see them?” Then he’d jump on his bike and rush to the publication’s post room, where he’d drop off a brown envelope of prints and get paid the princely sum of £15 for a quarter page, or £25 for a half page.

Grown Up in Britain: 100 Years of Teenage Kicks runs until 12 February 2023 at The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry.