Peterborough photographer Chris Porsz reunites subjects from city's 40-year-old pictures to recreate nostalgic scenes

An amateur photographer has amazingly tracked down people he snapped on the streets of his hometown almost 40 years ago and painstakingly recreated 134 pictures in a remarkable new book.
Pink Mohican Wins Pizza Eating - Original Pic 1985/ Reunion Pic July 2016
Punk Badger Farcue can still remember winning the Pizza Eating Competition
in Cathedral Square in Peterborough in 1985. The contest was organised by
Stefan Malajny, who ran the Papa Luigi pizza restaurant. Stefan said: "I
remember Badger managed to eat his pizza in about two minutes, which was
very fast." Badger was 20 at the time of the contest and worked as a
labourer, building dry stone walls. He said: "My friends encouraged me to
enter and we had to try and eat a 12-inch cheese and tomato pizza as
quickly as possible. I won and got a round of applause and front page of
the local paper." Badger, who has five children, moved to Somerset in 1991 and now tarmacs roads.Pink Mohican Wins Pizza Eating - Original Pic 1985/ Reunion Pic July 2016
Punk Badger Farcue can still remember winning the Pizza Eating Competition
in Cathedral Square in Peterborough in 1985. The contest was organised by
Stefan Malajny, who ran the Papa Luigi pizza restaurant. Stefan said: "I
remember Badger managed to eat his pizza in about two minutes, which was
very fast." Badger was 20 at the time of the contest and worked as a
labourer, building dry stone walls. He said: "My friends encouraged me to
enter and we had to try and eat a 12-inch cheese and tomato pizza as
quickly as possible. I won and got a round of applause and front page of
the local paper." Badger, who has five children, moved to Somerset in 1991 and now tarmacs roads.
Pink Mohican Wins Pizza Eating - Original Pic 1985/ Reunion Pic July 2016 Punk Badger Farcue can still remember winning the Pizza Eating Competition in Cathedral Square in Peterborough in 1985. The contest was organised by Stefan Malajny, who ran the Papa Luigi pizza restaurant. Stefan said: "I remember Badger managed to eat his pizza in about two minutes, which was very fast." Badger was 20 at the time of the contest and worked as a labourer, building dry stone walls. He said: "My friends encouraged me to enter and we had to try and eat a 12-inch cheese and tomato pizza as quickly as possible. I won and got a round of applause and front page of the local paper." Badger, who has five children, moved to Somerset in 1991 and now tarmacs roads.

Paramedic Chris Porsz spent hours walking around the city of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire in the late 1970s and 80s, taking candid shots of punks and policemen, siblings and sweethearts, traders and teenagers.

Three decades later, Chris, known as the “paramedic paparazzo,” decided it would be fun to reconstruct a handful of his favourite photos from the past.

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Incredibly some of his long-lost subjects recognised themselves after he published their pictures in local and national papers, on his website and on Facebook.

The reconstructions were such a success he was determined to do more and has spent the last seven years tracking down the people in his pictures and persuading them to pose once again.

His hard work paid off and he has now published his photos in a new book, “Reunions,” which comes out tomorrow (Fri Nov 4) and is believed to be the only one of its kind in the world.

“This book has been nearly 40 years in the making and I believe the project is totally unique. I don’t think anyone else has tracked down so many strangers and recreated photos in this way before,” said Chris.

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“It has been very hard work and I’ve had lots of setbacks along the way, but I always believed this could be something really special and was determined to do at least 100 reunion pictures and it has been a labour of love.”

Picture titled Eating Chips  Original Pic 1983 School friends Martin Coulson (left) and Andy Randall were eating chips bought from the arcade which has now been replaced with Wilkinsons in Peterborough.. I think it must have been a Saturday and wed been to the chip shop. The chips were a bit like McDonalds fries and were always good, said Martin, who was a warehouse manager and is currently re-training. He is married with two children. Andy is a telematics engineer and is married with three children.Picture titled Eating Chips  Original Pic 1983 School friends Martin Coulson (left) and Andy Randall were eating chips bought from the arcade which has now been replaced with Wilkinsons in Peterborough.. I think it must have been a Saturday and wed been to the chip shop. The chips were a bit like McDonalds fries and were always good, said Martin, who was a warehouse manager and is currently re-training. He is married with two children. Andy is a telematics engineer and is married with three children.
Picture titled Eating Chips  Original Pic 1983 School friends Martin Coulson (left) and Andy Randall were eating chips bought from the arcade which has now been replaced with Wilkinsons in Peterborough.. I think it must have been a Saturday and wed been to the chip shop. The chips were a bit like McDonalds fries and were always good, said Martin, who was a warehouse manager and is currently re-training. He is married with two children. Andy is a telematics engineer and is married with three children.

Chris caught the photography bug after buying a camera when his first child Simon was born in 1978.

Soon family photos were not enough for him and on his days off, Chris, who was working as a casualty porter at Peterborough District Hospital, started walking the streets for inspiration.

He took pictures of punks with colourful hair, siblings playing in the streets, shopkeepers selling their wares and even policemen carrying out their duties.

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Chris, who often only had one chance of getting a particular picture, would develop his photos in a dark room at home and put the best ones in an album.

Picture titled Eating Chips  Reunion Pic August 2016  School friends Martin Coulson (left) and Andy Randall were eating chips bought from the arcade which has now been replaced with Wilkinsons in Peterborough.. I think it must have been a Saturday and wed been to the chip shop. The chips were a bit like McDonalds fries and were always good, said Martin, who was a warehouse manager and is currently re-training. He is married with two children. Andy is a telematics engineer and is married with three children.Picture titled Eating Chips  Reunion Pic August 2016  School friends Martin Coulson (left) and Andy Randall were eating chips bought from the arcade which has now been replaced with Wilkinsons in Peterborough.. I think it must have been a Saturday and wed been to the chip shop. The chips were a bit like McDonalds fries and were always good, said Martin, who was a warehouse manager and is currently re-training. He is married with two children. Andy is a telematics engineer and is married with three children.
Picture titled Eating Chips  Reunion Pic August 2016 School friends Martin Coulson (left) and Andy Randall were eating chips bought from the arcade which has now been replaced with Wilkinsons in Peterborough.. I think it must have been a Saturday and wed been to the chip shop. The chips were a bit like McDonalds fries and were always good, said Martin, who was a warehouse manager and is currently re-training. He is married with two children. Andy is a telematics engineer and is married with three children.

“I would often be drawn by certain expressions on people’s faces, or a fleeting moment. It became quite addictive,” said Chris. “I liked taking photos of people who stood out from the crowd, things which were a bit different, quirky or fun.”

But by 1986 Chris had got a new job as a paramedic and with three children life was busy and he had less time to devote to his hobby and his albums started to gather dust.

Then in 2009 he came across his old pictures and sent some to his local paper, us here at The Peterborough Evening Telegraph. The readers loved them and soon he was getting letters from readers who recognised themselves in the photos.

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“I had never taken anyone’s phone numbers or names and never expected to see any of the people in my pictures again, I just took them at random,” said Chris.

Picture shows Out from behind the Curtains  Original pic 1980 (left-right) Shehnaz Begum, her twin sister Rukhsana and their older sister Itrat were spotted sitting in the window of their house at 100 Cromwell Road in Peterborough in 1980. We often used to perch in the window and watch what was going on in the road, said Shehnaz. My twin sister and I were about seven and Itrat was nine.Picture shows Out from behind the Curtains  Original pic 1980 (left-right) Shehnaz Begum, her twin sister Rukhsana and their older sister Itrat were spotted sitting in the window of their house at 100 Cromwell Road in Peterborough in 1980. We often used to perch in the window and watch what was going on in the road, said Shehnaz. My twin sister and I were about seven and Itrat was nine.
Picture shows Out from behind the Curtains  Original pic 1980 (left-right) Shehnaz Begum, her twin sister Rukhsana and their older sister Itrat were spotted sitting in the window of their house at 100 Cromwell Road in Peterborough in 1980. We often used to perch in the window and watch what was going on in the road, said Shehnaz. My twin sister and I were about seven and Itrat was nine.

“Then I realised it would be fun to recreate some of the pictures and I became determined to find more people.”

His first reunion was Tony and Sally Wilmot, a couple who Chris photographed saying goodbye at Peterborough Railway Station in 1980 and who are on the cover of the new book.

The pair, who had no idea their picture had been taken, went on to get married and have two children. They got in touch with Chris after Tony’s father spotted the picture in the local paper.

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After that Chris became a man on a mission and used every means possible to track people down.

On one occasion he found Ricky Clarke, a man he had photographed in a derelict house, after responding to a 999 call.

Chris said: “Ricky rang 999 as he was unwell and as a paramedic I was called to his home. Whilst treating him he said that I had taken his picture 30 years ago. I couldn’t believe it, it was a million to one chance.

Picture shows Out from behind the Curtains  Reunion pic January 2013.  (left-right) Shehnaz Begum, her twin sister Rukhsana and their older sister Itrat were spotted sitting in the window of their house at 100 Cromwell Road in Peterborough in 1980. We often used to perch in the window and watch what was going on in the road, said Shehnaz. My twin sister and I were about seven and Itrat was nine.Picture shows Out from behind the Curtains  Reunion pic January 2013.  (left-right) Shehnaz Begum, her twin sister Rukhsana and their older sister Itrat were spotted sitting in the window of their house at 100 Cromwell Road in Peterborough in 1980. We often used to perch in the window and watch what was going on in the road, said Shehnaz. My twin sister and I were about seven and Itrat was nine.
Picture shows Out from behind the Curtains  Reunion pic January 2013. (left-right) Shehnaz Begum, her twin sister Rukhsana and their older sister Itrat were spotted sitting in the window of their house at 100 Cromwell Road in Peterborough in 1980. We often used to perch in the window and watch what was going on in the road, said Shehnaz. My twin sister and I were about seven and Itrat was nine.

“The first 50 photos took around four years to do, but social media made it easier and soon I was struggling to keep up, sometimes doing 10 reunions a week.”

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His reunion photos have seen him reunite old friends and relatives, some who had not seen each other for decades. Other pictures proved harder when people had moved abroad and some were particularly poignant when people had died and relatives stood in as a tribute.

“It has been enormously satisfying to do so many reunions and seeing the smiles on people’s faces as they met up with old friends again. I’ve felt very privileged,” said Chris.

Chris’ reunion photos include brother and sister Rose and Stuart Budnik, who were parked in a pram outside the Tourist Information in Peterborough when Chris took their photo in 1982. Now Rose has three daughters and Stuart is a policeman and has a son.

Sisters Anna and Emma Hankins posed for a picture blowing bubbles with Hubba Bubba chewing gum in Bridge Street in Peterborough in 1980.

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Anna was 11 and Emma was 13 and the girls were waiting for their mum whilst she was shopping.

The siblings, who both went on to have careers in hairdressing, are now married and have families. They still live in Peterborough and see each other regularly. “It was hard trying to blow bubbles again after such a long time and took quite a few tries,” said Anna.

Chris spent months arranging his sweet stall picture after managing to get in contact with both Annette Hart, the market seller, and five of her customers.

Annette, who is now married with three children and six grandchildren and ran the stall for 32 years, said: “It has all changed now, a lot of the old traders have gone. It was not easy work, especially in the winter. All the customers in the photo were regulars and I still see them around Peterborough.”

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Another picture shows homeless Scotsman Michael Ross, affectionately known as Nobby, who lived in a bus shelter in Peterborough for 15 years in terrible conditions after his house burnt down. Chris photographed him again 35 years later after he had moved into sheltered housing.

In another photo Steve Osborn, known as Metal Mickey, can be seen on crutches in both his original and reunion photos.

He broke both his legs in a series of motor biking accidents in the 1980s and had plates and bolts put in them. Steve, who now uses walking sticks to get around, lives in Spalding, Lincolnshire and is married.

Five boys running to the chip shop in their school lunch break have now organised a school reunion after Chris tracked them down and took their photos.

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Andy Jackson, Richard Hillson, Devinder Singh, Tony James and Aaron Meadows were around 15 years old in the original picture. Richard, who is now an electrician in Peterborough and is married with two boys, said: “There were only about 70 of us in our school year and we were all really close, they were happy times.”

Layla Gordon, who was pictured drinking her daily bottle of milk at Queens Drive Infants School in Peterborough in 1983, is now a housewife with a long-term partner and two children.

Whilst Genesio (Gino) Borrillo has swapped from selling ice creams in 1980 to serving pasta and is married with three children and four grandchildren.

Chris added: “Recreating the pictures has brought back lots of memories for all of us and it has been really fascinating to see how the people have changed and what they are doing now.

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“Some people have hardly changed and others have changed completely, some have lost hair and others have gained hair. Some have changed their lives around and others have fallen on hard times.”

Martyn Moore, a freelance film-maker, photographer and writer, who has edited Reunions, added about the book: “Nothing else like this exists and if somebody was to start now, they might have something almost as good in 40 years’ time. Except they won’t, because nobody does planned haphazard quite like Chris Porsz.”

Reunions costs £15 plus p&p and is available from www.chrisporsz.com. It is also available for £15.99 at the following stockists in Peterborough: Coleman’s in Cowgate, Shrives in Westgate, Art in the Heart in the Old Arcade, Tourist Information Centre and Waterstones in Bridge Street.