Raymonds Press Agency
Raymonds Press Agency is a news and photographic agency based in Nottingham in the East Midlands of England. From its base in the city it has supplied news stories and pictures from Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the wider East Midlands to national and regional media. For much of its life it was one of the best-known independent regional agencies in Britain, the kind of business on which national newspaper desks relied for fast, trustworthy coverage of stories breaking far from London, and it developed a particular reputation for developing talented journalists and photographers who later worked in media all over the world.
Overview
Raymonds operated in the classic mould of the British regional press agency. Its reporters and photographers covered the daily life of its patch — courts, councils, emergencies, sport, human-interest stories and major set-piece events — and sold the resulting copy and pictures to newspapers and magazines that could not justify keeping their own staff permanently in the area. Directory listings placed the agency at Sherwood House, 7 Gregory Boulevard, Nottingham, in the NG7 postcode area, and classified it straightforwardly as a news and photo agency serving the Nottingham area. That modest description understates the reach of a mature agency of this type, whose pictures and words could appear the next morning on news pages across Britain and, on a strong story, around the world.
Origins and the Parkin family
The agency is closely associated with the Parkin family of Derby. Recollections published by David Parkin describe how his father, together with colleagues including Norman and Neil, worked at Raymonds at a time when a press agency did far more than supply newspapers. In that era the agency also filmed footage for television news and recorded items for radio, reflecting a period when a well-equipped regional agency acted as a general-purpose newsgathering service for every medium. The family connection gave Raymonds deep roots in Derby and the East Midlands, and its photographers became familiar, trusted figures at the grounds, courts and civic buildings of the region.
The Brian Clough years
The agency's fortunes were helped, as David Parkin himself has acknowledged, by the rise of an opinionated young football manager named Brian Clough. Clough's exploits at Derby County were rarely out of the newspapers, and much of the copy and many of the photographs that fed that coverage were provided by the team at Raymonds. A celebrated example dates from 1 June 1967, when a Raymonds photographer recorded Derby County chairman Sam Longson welcoming Clough and his assistant Peter Taylor to the Baseball Ground at the start of one of the most famous managerial partnerships in English football. Proximity to a story of that scale, covered day after day over the following seasons, placed a regional agency's work regularly before a national audience.
The “Invisible Giant”
The Clough era also produced the agency's best-loved anecdote, concerning photographer Norman, whose funeral recollections were later shared by colleague Neil Hallam. Norman was a very tall man whom Clough nicknamed the “Invisible Giant”, teasing that despite his size he had a rare gift for making himself inconspicuous — a valuable asset for a photographer seeking candid pictures. Clough joked that Norman would say hello on arrival and not be noticed again until he was saying goodbye, yet the next day's newspaper would reveal a picture of the manager caught off guard. On Norman's first visit to the Baseball Ground after the Clough and Taylor appointment, Clough joked about his frame as he ducked through the manager's office doorway and introduced him to Taylor as the club's new centre forward, saying he simply wanted him to stand on the opposition penalty spot and let the ball bounce off him. The story survives because it captures, in miniature, the close, good-humoured working relationship between the agency and the club it covered.
Services and coverage
The core services of Raymonds were those of a general news and picture agency: staff photographers and reporters attending breaking news, planned diary events and sporting fixtures across the East Midlands, filing pictures and copy to national newspapers, regional titles and magazines. Its earlier work for television news and radio, described by the Parkin family, shows how the agency adapted its newsgathering to whichever outlets were buying. Sport formed a significant part of the output, as the Clough connection and the later career records of its photographers both demonstrate, but the agency's directory classification as a general news provider reflects the breadth expected of it — any story on its patch that might interest a national desk was, in principle, Raymonds' story to cover.
People and training ground
Raymonds' reputation for honing very talented journalists and photographers is borne out by individual career records. Photographer Simon Bellis, for example, worked as a staff photographer at Raymonds Press Agency from 1990 to 1993 and then spent a long period, recorded as 1994 to 2002, as a picture editor, before freelancing for The Sunday Times and Reuters and going on to run his own Sportimage business. That trajectory — staff agency years, picture-desk experience, then national titles and agency work at the highest level — is precisely the path that made agencies like Raymonds valued training grounds for the national press, which could recruit staff already hardened by daily news work.
Recognition
The quality of the agency's photography was demonstrated on an international stage in 2007, when Raymonds photographer Tim Keeton won the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme's Centenary Photo Contest. Keeton, then aged 39, won with a dramatic series of pictures taken while covering British Superbikes at Oulton Park in Cheshire, capturing the moment a rider's Ducati burst into flames on the warm-up lap as other riders swerved to avoid the fireball. The pictures were used prominently on the news pages of British national newspapers and across the world, and the judges backed his entry unanimously, describing it as outstanding and well clear of hundreds of other entries. His prize included a VIP trip to Valencia for the final round of the MotoGP championship, where he received his award live on Spanish television, and a Canon camera; the winning frame itself had been taken on a Canon EOS 1D with a 400mm lens. For a regional agency, having a staff photographer's work judged the best in an international field underlined the standard its pictures could reach.
Industry role
Raymonds illustrates the role independent agencies played in the structure of British journalism throughout the second half of the twentieth century. National newspapers maintained large staffs in London but depended on agencies such as Raymonds for everything beyond the capital: the agency held the local knowledge, the contacts and the physical presence, while the nationals provided the market. The same model explains the agency's television and radio work in its earlier decades and its closeness to institutions such as Derby County. Agencies of this kind were also employers and educators, giving young photographers and reporters the volume and variety of work from which national careers were built.
Availability and legacy
Later business listings continued to place Raymonds Press Agency at its Gregory Boulevard address in Nottingham, and a company of the name Raymonds Press Agency Limited appears in company records as registered in Nottingham. The agency's lasting significance, however, rests less on listings than on the body of East Midlands journalism and photography associated with its name: coverage of the Clough revolution at Derby County, award-winning sports photography recognised internationally, and a generation of media professionals who learned their trade on its patch before working, as David Parkin put it in summary of the agency's reputation, in media all over the world.
