In memory of my grandfather and father

Leo Ellegard-Adda

With Egypt in the news so much of late and having such a personal connection for me and my siblings, it has reignited our desire to discover more about our grandfather, Leon Ellegard-Adda. As I wrote in a previous blog, he was born in Cairo and died there having moved back when he and our English grandmother – who was a Tiller Girl dancer at the Folies Bergere when they met – split up.

 My younger brother, Paul, has now scanned in the only pictures we have of our grandfather, which were sent by a friend of his after he died in May, 1956 – when I was almost two years old.

Granddad Leo with Tommy by the Sphinx and Pyramids

 One in particular shows Leo, as he was known, with our uncle Tommy on horses in front of the Sphinx and Pyramids. It was taken when Tommy was on leave from the Army while serving in Egypt in the Second World War. Having stood on that very spot myself to take pictures of the Sphinx, it is especially poignant for me.

Sadie, Leo and my dad as a baby, in France

Sadly, our dad never got to see his father again after he and Tommy were brought by our grandmother, Sarah Anne (or Sadie, as she was known), back to England from France, where the two children were both born and spent their childhoods. Dad was just 12 at the time.

Leo remained in Cairo for 20 years until he died, just prior to the Suez Crisis – producing films in both French and English. Apparently, he wanted to come to England to visit his sons when they first came to England but was not allowed to. Having just found some papers including some letters he sent his sons, it would appear that the relationship between him and them, certainly my dad, was strained. He talked about coming over to England after the war, but in the end he never did.

Today has been something of an emotional rollercoaster for me, as it was 14 years ago on this very day that my father died. I was in Tanzania on safari in the Serengeti with my wife at the time. It was a traumatic time, as heavy and unseasonal rains prevented us from flying out of the camp in a light plane for a couple of days, resulting in us missing the connecting flight back to London and then going on to the coast to stay in a new hotel until the next flight. We were the only guests and were waited on hand and foot. But I just felt empty inside and simply wanted to return home. 

Dad as a National Fire Service motorcycle despatch rider 

My dad inspired me to become a journalist. He was a wonderful photographer who worked as a freelance covering news and events for many publications including all the national papers. He hadn’t always been a photographer. Prior to the war breaking out, he joined the National Fire Service but was too young to be a fireman, so he became a despatch rider for a year or so until he was old enough. Even then he was dabbling in photography, something that he would turn to full time on leaving the fire service at the end of the war. 

Neville Chamberlain

Only today, while going through some papers with my mum as we reminisced, I came across a wonderful picture he took of the then Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, with his wife. It must have been taken in 1940 or before, as Chamberlain died in November that year. So my dad would have been just 17 or younger when he took it!

We also came across a photo of a flooded road in 1953, taken by a colleague. Dad is in the picture, having taken his trousers off and waded into the middle to get closer shots of the cars trying to negotiate it.

He was always coming up with ingenious ways of getting the best shot. After the tragic floods of 1952, he chartered a plane to get aerial pictures of Foulness, Canvey and other inundated parts of the Essex coast. When pirate radio stations which were broadcasting from ships and wartime forts off the Essex coast were in the news after being outlawed by the British Government, dad bought his own boat so that he could go out any time and get the shots – and also cine film footage, as he was by now filming for the BBC, ITN and American broadcasters – without having to find a local boatman. Needless to say, he was always first on the scene.

Dad, far left minus trousers, getting close to the action

 

He even had a police radio to monitor their transmissions, for which he got a slap on the wrist once when he turned up to a crime scene before the police did! And he pre-empted the age of the mobile phone by paying a local taxi firm to let him have a two-way radio so that if he was out on a job he could be contacted immediately, using his callsign of Romeo, and likewise he could check in to let us know where he was. And this was over 50 years ago! He truly was ahead of his time.

My brothers and I were often used as models when he needed children playing in the snow, like when the Thames froze over at Southend in the bitter winter of 1962/63. And I always used to like watching him in his darkroom, turning celluloid film into beautiful and evocative pictures after working his magic with the enlarger and developing trays.

He gave me a Box Brownie one year and that started my own love of photography. I would go off to Southend Airport and air shows around the country in my early teens, returning to his darkroom to create dogfights by superimposing aircraft onto pictures of others. Like my older brother, John, I went into the writing side of journalism, and I followed him onto the local paper, the Evening Echo, as a reporter. I never lost my love of photography, though, and would often take pictures for myself while on assignment.

When I joined Travel Trade Gazette, aka TTG, 12 years later I got the chance to travel overseas and experiment even more with my photography. I had many pictures published – first in TTG and then for a photo library supplying tour operator brochures, newspapers and magazines, and also directly with tourist boards. 

Dad always judged my work, and that of my brothers and sister, critically.

He never gave praise lightly, and when the Seychelles Tourist Board chose my pictures to use as posters for a nationwide advertising campaign and the Government of India Tourist Office used one of my pictures as a full-page gatefold in the Sunday colour supplements for its memorable Indiahhh campaign in the early 1990s, it was the same. 

The best I got when I showed them to him was: “Not bad.” But it made me strive for perfection, and undoubtedly is why I am now my own harshest critic. Just good enough is not good enough for me.

A few months before I went freelance, just over nine years ago, I came second overall in a photographic competition for all the worldwide offices of United Business Media. I also had six other pictures as category winners or runners up, out of a total of 34 winning pictures from 650 entries. One of the category winners was a picture of lion cubs, taken in the Serengeti. When I found out the time my father died after I returned home from that trip, I realised that I must have taken it at almost precisely the same time.

I use that picture on my business card as part of my logo. Every time I look at it, it reminds me of my dad. And I wonder whether I managed to capture some of his spirit in it. 

I have been lucky enough to win several other awards for both my writing and my photography since then, including Travel Photographer of the Year for 2009 in the inaugural Travel Press Awards. They mean a tremendous amount to me, but what would have meant even more would have been to be able to share in that success with my dad. My inspiration, my mentor, my hero.

If it was possible to turn back time, I would have three wishes. One would be that I could have met and known my grandfather. The second would be that my dad could have spent the time with his dad that he was denied when he was growing up. And my final wish would be that I could have had them both together to share all the ups I have had in my life, and help me get through all the downs. Rest in peace, Dad, and Granddad. I miss you both.