Flashback Friday - friends and conventions...

My family and friends will attest to the fact that I'm something of a documentarian, especially in the sense of taking lots of photographs.  I started writing a daily diary in 1981 and kept it up until 1991, then sporadically kept one over the years before starting again in 2007.  My diary is often stuffed with photographs, notes, tickets, menus and all manner of ephemera, not because I think my life is of interest to anyone (necessarily) but because I think it's important to keep of record of what happens.

Photographs are key for me though, a visual record of family, friends and places that link and bind us together.  I was looking through some the other day and found some old Convention pics - ah, con pics! - and they made me smile, at the camaraderie in them and the good friends I've been photographed with so I thought, for this Flashback Friday, I'd post some up here.

The first Terror Scribes Gathering I ever went to, in the Howard pub in Sheffield, July 2000.
Me, Simon Bestwick, David Price and Simon Clark

Me and Stuart Young, at a BFS Open Night, The Princess Louise, Holborn, December 2003 (where Rainfall Books launched not only my "Strange Tales" collection but also Stu's "Spare Parts")

FantasyCon 2005, Walsall, Birmingham (the year "In The Rain With The Dead" was published)
Marie O'Regan, me, Rob Rowntree, Lisa Negus, David Price, Paul Kane - front - Matthew Holness (Garth Marenghi himself!) and Gail-Nina Anderson

FantasyCon 2010, The Britannia, Nottingham.  In the bar, admiring Gary's ARC for "Pretty Little Dead Things"
Gary McMahon, Shaun Hamilton (hiding), Stephen Bacon, Simon Marshall-Jones, me, David Price, Simon Kurt Unsworth

At NewCon 5, The Fishmarket, Northampton, 2010
Sitting on the signing line with Donna Bond and Neil Bond (Alan Moore not pictured)

Terror Scribes Gathering, Chesterfield, 2011 - me, Selina Lock, Simon Bestwick, Stephen Bacon

FantasyCon 2012, Brighton - in the dealer room, Selina Lock, me, Richard Farren Barber & Stuart Young

FantasyCon 2012, Brighton - at the Hauntings signing.  Me and Alison Littlewood have a laugh, Paul Kane and Adrian Tchaikovsky keep it professional, Stuart Young looks on

WFC 2013, Brighton - in the dealer room with Stephen Volk, El G Gard Goldsmith, Paul Finch and me

WFC 2013, Brighton - Stephen Bacon, me, Stuart Young, Simon Bestwick & Cate Gardner

All of my Convention reports can be found at this link