Tish Murtha, the prodigiously gifted Tyneside-born photographer, died in 2013 on the day before her 57th birthday.
Since then, daughter Ella has worked tirelessly to promote her mother’s legacy.
There have been exhibitions around the country, high-profile national newspaper and magazine features, and two critically acclaimed books of her photographs, Youth Unemployment and Elswick Kids.
On Tuesday, a kickstarter campaign was launched for a third book called Juvenile Jazz Bands.
From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, the streets and playing fields of North East housing estates would resound to the unmistakable sound of kazoos and drums.
This was the golden age of home-grown juvenile marching jazz bands when songs like When The Saints Go Marching In and the theme tune to TV’s Z-Cars were high on the repertoire of any self-respecting band.
Juvenile Jazz Bands will be published by Bluecoat Press in the same limited-edition hardback format as Youth Unemployment and Elswick Kids and they will form a brilliant trilogy of Tish’s work in Newcastle .
Although this will be the third published book of her work, Juvenile Jazz Bands was actually her very first exhibition and an important part of her story.
The series of images was captured while she was employed through a Youth Opportunity Programme at The Side gallery in Newcastle and shown there in 1979 before touring.
Although she travelled with official jazz bands to local parades and carnivals to photograph the kids in all their finery, Tish also focused her camera on the youngsters from the back streets, imitating the bigger kids with their ‘’toy bands”. The pictures would be displayed side by side in her exhibition.
The charm of the “toy bands” to Tish was the way they used their imaginations to emulate the big bands - clubbing together to create their own equipment from unwanted household items.
They would use an old tablecloth for a banner with their chosen name drawn on - held up with old broom handles, use old pans as drums with the lids for cymbals and then practise fiercely.
At the time Tish was photographing, Newcastle was undergoing massive physical changes and houses and neighbourhoods were being demolished all around - a fitting background to the anarchy of the ‘unofficial’ jazz bands.
Ella says of her mother’s work: “Her images capture the joy and freedom of childhood at a time when it was normal to play out in the street, in a way that has been largely lost today.
“The landscape may be rough, but the kids are making the most of what little they have. They have a humour and resilience that shines through every picture.”
You can pre-order a copy of Juvenile Jazz Bands via this link from 10.30am, Tuesday March 3: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/408499994/juvenile-jazz-bands
