Skip to content
Things To Do

New book of unseen photos captures 1980s nights in New Brighton area

Tom Wood's And Love Comes in at the Eye returns to the club and its twin venue, The Grand, between 1979 and 1986.

New Brighton Beach.
The book will capture the seaside town in the 1980s, at a specific venue.

Table of Contents

A new book that now has what's considered vintage shot of new Brighton is being released, with previously unseen photographs of the town in the early 1980s.

Photographer Tom Wood's And Love Comes in at the Eye captures nights at Chelsea Reach and The Grand between 1979 and 1986, the Wirral Globe reports.

Wood became closely linked with Chelsea Reach through his first book, Looking for Love, published in 1989.

The new 156-page collection goes back to the club with a completely unseen body of work. Many of the pictures were taken at The Grand, its twin venue, after 1am.

Wood said most of the clubbers had no idea why he was taking their picture. "The Chelsea was just dead ordinary people, none of whom had a clue why I was doing it," he said.

"And no one had cameras themselves. Importantly, no one had phones either."

Chelsea Reach opened in the early 1970s and stayed part of New Brighton's nightlife until 2001.

The book is the first from Wood's own imprint, Photieman Editions. The first edition is 1,000 copies, with a numbered special edition of 50 that comes with a darkroom print.

It costs £45 and has been on general release since 1 July.

Did you go to Chelsea Reach or The Grand? Tell us your memories in the comments!

We previously reported that photographer Martin Parr was being honoured with a mural in the area for his own 1986 photo series, The Last Resort. Parr took photos of New Brighton locals between 1983 and 1985, although the series was controversial.

Comments

Latest