In the early 1980s the photographer Tom Martin began a project to record Britain’s seaside piers, and a few in Europe too. Apart from the piers themselves, Tom was fascinated by the people playing and working on piers. Tom completed his coastal odyssey in 1984, calling the finished collection ‘Britain’s Threatened Victorian Piers’. He then moved to the USA and the brilliant images were lost from public view. Just before he left Britain, Tom presented the Brighton West Pier Trust with copies of 500 of his 35mm slides shot using Ektachrome colour film. Tom’s pier pictures provide a fascinating, colourful and often humorous record of Britain’s seaside piers four decades ago.
Fred Gray is the honorary historian for the Brighton West Pier Trust. Since the 1980s he has been fascinated by the architectural and cultural history and contemporary character of seaside resorts in Britain and other Western countries.
