War Stories

Like most professionals, photographers have war stories from the various projects they have worked on. A few from Trevor's career are included below provided by people or colleagues who knew him.

The Let It Bleed Shoot (as told to A Flatmate From Hull)

In the late 1960s Trevor was Don McAllester's assistant on the cover of the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed album which features before and after images of a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn the legendary hard living graphics designer. It also features a cake baked by the then little known Delia Smith. On another historical note it was the last Stone's album to feature bad boy Brian Jones before he was fired from the band.

At the shoot itself Brownjohn was apparently never without a can of lager in his hand as it was part of his self-designed drug withdrawal program and Trevor later related what happened when the time came to transform the pristine version of the sculpture photographed for the front cover into the scene of destruction that would appear on the rear cover.  To Don's horror Brownjohn volunteered to smash the sculpture with his bare fist which was a million miles from what meticulous Don McAllester had in mind. Fortunately Don dissuaded Brownjohn and then he and Trevor dismantled the set one tiny piece at a time. In the light of his later work this incident perfectly illustrates how well suited Trevor was to be Don's assistant and how well suited Don was to help Trevor develop his own style. 

What happened to the original sculpture seems to be a matter of some dispute but it can be authoritatively asserted that the broken fragments of the 'album' appearing on the rear cover graced the wall of Trevor's flat for many years afterwards.

Virgin Records & The Sex Pistols (as remembered by Brian Cooke)