Campbell’s causes An adult life connected with photography has taught Angela Campbell to always look at the bigger picture
The Interview Aíne Ryan
A FEW YEARS AGO Angela Campbell was called by the Court Services to present herself on a panel for jury duty. She wasn’t chosen. Probably, for all the wrong reasons. She looks different. Doesn’t quite fit into any set niche.
Her flair for fashion – colour – causes her to stand out in a crowd. Maybe not on the high streets of London or Dublin. But in her home county, let’s face it, many people are still coming to terms with ‘difference’.
When the Swinford native returned home in 1996, after spending almost a decade living in London, she felt a strong sense of novelty. Palpably. This was despite her many memories of growing up adjacent to a busy pub and undertaker’s – the White House, a Swinford landmark, – the third child (a committed tomboy!) of Miceál and Angela (Snr) Campbell’s nine children.
“Coming back to Mayo was like emigrating to somewhere else. That somewhere else, I knew I had been there before. But it was different because there was a new me. My mind had broadened so much,” muses Angela Campbell. “I’m happy now but it took me a long time to settle,” she adds.
We’re sitting in the foyer of Day’s hotel, Castlebar. (This writer is distracted, momentarily, by her pretty orange pumps. She tells me she bought them on a visit to Euro Disney while on a visit with her four year old son, Oisín.)
But, back to London and that defining decade for the, then, 20-something student of photography. It was while studying at the University of Westminster and working as a staff photographer with the Irish World newspaper, that Campbell became politicised. (Okay, the radical seeds had already been sown back in Mayo, but more of that later.)
“I really hated Thatcher, she dominated so much of that period. Of course Blair turned out to be the biggest Thatcherite of them all,” she recalls.
During that period, herself and husband-to-be, Paddy Grimley – a former Maths teacher – were involved in a plethora of protest marches: Bush senior’s invasion of Iraq and the ensuing war, poll taxes, the widespread privatisation of Britain.
“The great thing about living in a city is that you can march about things. Back home in Mayo it’s not so easy to be yourself – if you are perceived to be different in any way at all, you stand out.”
Meanwhile, Angela’s brief was broad at the Irish World: ‘Take pictures of anything to do with Irishness in England’. And what underpinned Irishness more in the 1980s and 1990s in Britain than those two epic miscarriage of justice tales of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four.
“When the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four were released, I went to the Old Bailey and got my pics. I was still a student. I got used to the pushing and shoving; the media scrums. I remember at one of the releases, the nationals had plonked ladders all over the place to try and get good views. I spotted one of them empty – knowing me, it happened to be the highest and despite my sudden vertigo – I went up and stayed there, until I got good pics.”
Back in Mayo, Angela Campbell had grown up in a house suffused by politics: the news, radio bulletins and newspapers. Crucially, for the Campbells, politics held an integral relationship with justice, human rights and fairness.
“Dad was always mad into politics, he’s my biggest influence. Even if we disagree about lots of things. And just like him, I’m very much into the news. There are two newspapers bought in our house every day, The Irish Times and The Guardian, no matter how busy Paddy and I are.”
It’s not really surprising that, in recent years, Angela has turned her thoughts to the important role that Amnesty International plays in highlighting violations of human rights on a myriad of levels in society. Tellingly, though she cites her concerns about the gross excesses of the Bush administration in Guantanamo Bay and the conflict in Darfur – which has led to almost four million people to be reliant on humanitarian aid – as having very simple origins.
“I remember my Dad telling stories about my grandfather – he had a shop in Swinford – always handing our stuff to the poor, and my father too also helped people. I see my caring for human rights as having a simple root in that. Our parents always taught us to look out for other people.”
Two years after Angela and Paddy returned to Ireland they opened a shop in Castlebar. A decade later, Kodak Express – situated in the Castle Street car park, Castlebar – employs eight staff and is a resounding entrepreneurial success.
“Being a business person isn’t necessarily being a child of Thatcher. It doesn’t preclude you from being left-wing. I felt when I opened the shop I should transform into something else. I even bought a conservative suit, wore it for a week, then thought what am I at, and gave it away to my sister.” She’s laughing at the irony.
Angela Campbell stresses that the core success of her shop is ‘the personal touch’.
“Small town Ireland still exists, even though we could be living in a city in Castlebar. The customers want you to remember their names. People come from Achill, from Bemullet, from Foxford, on the bus. Little old ladies, they might want an old photograph cleaned up, it might be of somebody who has died.”
Positive and upbeat about the burgeoning county town, she observes: “Castlebar is like two towns. There’s the old town – the Latin Quarter ! – and despite what people might think, there’s still lots of people going into those traditional, small shops because they want that personal interaction.”
Well, there is one criticism.
“I wish somebody would sneak out in the middle of the night and paint white lines in the middle of the road all over the town. We need pedestrian crossings. Will somebody have to get killed before they do something about it?”
Last September, in her role as Chairwoman of the Mayo branch of Amnesty International, Campbell – along with Cathal Ruane (Treasurer) and Ryan O’Sullivan (PRO) – organised a public meeting in the Linenhall Arts Centre about Mental Health issues.
“People often don’t equate mental health with the notion of human rights. But, when you think about it, it is basic to leading a full life. Since 2003 Amnesty International has campaigned that every individual has the right to attain the highest standard of mental health and to have access to mental health care,” she argues.
“The whole subject of mental health is still taboo. Look at the language that’s used around it, it’s savage. ‘Pull yourself together’, ‘headtheball’, ‘are you crazy?’, ‘are you a lunatic?’. And look at the statistics for suicide, for depression and so much of it is still swept under the carpet.”
Notably, there are 650 members of Amnesty International in Mayo and 1,000 people have signed up as ‘contacts’. In the coming months, Angela Campbell is determined to help increase that number.
Well, when she’s not busy looking after her own mental health.
“Gardening is one of my big things, it’s a sanctuary for me. It might be hard work, but it’s so rewarding and gives total and utter peace. I’m a very energetic person but I get stressed easily.”
Furthermore, Angela’s love affair with the multi-coloured delicacies of nature means that she is presently preparing an exhibition on the subject matter. Some years ago the acclaimed photographer held an exhibition in Galway and Westport – Melodic Stills – of her broad archive of leading music performers. (Some of these photographs were bought by the owners of Westport’s Asgard and are still on view in the main bar.)
One musician that Campbell didn’t manage to photograph was the late John Lennon. However, his peace lyrics from his Imagine album provide a deep inspiration for this complex, passionate and highly opinionated Mayo woman.
The fact that Angela Campbell wasn’t chosen for jury duty – even after she challenged the Judge to explain ‘why not’ – undoubtedly, made her reflect on the price people pay for standing out from the crowd. Clearly, it has also made her more determined to change such superficial misconceptions.
