AS fire swept through a Barrhead street, Stephen Mansfield grabbed his camera and jumped on his bike.
The year was 1973 and, at the time, Stephen was aged just 17.
From his home, he could see smoke billowing from the blaze in nearby Gladstone Avenue.
Stephen sped to the scene to take a picture which had the potential to change his life.
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He managed to sell the photo to the Barrhead Pictorial, receiving a cheque for £1.
Stephen’s next assignment saw him take snaps for the opening of a new season at a tennis club where his dad’s friend was the captain.
And that job led to a long and productive working relationship with the Barrhead News.
Stephen, now 63, recalled: “I handed the tennis club photo in at the Barrhead News. I was a bit shy, actually, so I just posted it through the door.
“Then Alice Grieve, who was the editor, phoned me up and asked to see me, saying they were in need of a photographer.
“That started the ball rolling.”
Stephen began helping out as a snapper in the evenings and at weekends but, after a year, gave up his job as an apprentice roofer and went full-time.
He would remain with the Barrhead News until 1990, attending numerous events and capturing incredible moments in the town’s history.
These included the finals of the Miss Barrhead contest, the closure of the Royal Oak Pub, the demolition of the old George Cinema, countless gala days, visits from celebrities and children’s first days at school.
He said: “I took pictures of everything. I don’t think there was a church group or a club I didn’t visit. I was quite well known, I think.
“It was a good learning curve for me. Things are much easier nowadays, with digital photography, but back then it was all black and white film.
“I had to develop the negatives, print them out in the darkroom – which was a spare bedroom in my house – and then I’d give them to the boys on the paper, who would photograph them again to make a screen-print.
“It was all rather complicated.”
Over his 17 years with the paper, Stephen took thousands upon thousands of pictures and, remarkably, saved all of the negatives, retaining an incredible photo archive, stored in two filing cabinets.
Some years ago, he began uploading his archive to the internet.
Although his website contains hundreds of pictures from the period, he reckons he has barely scratched the surface.
He said: “I held onto just about all of it. I don’t think it was very common among the photographers at that time to hang on to all of their negatives. I was probably one of the few who can still access stuff.
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“I would scan about 24 negatives in one go and that’s how I started my website.
“I decided to begin building an online archive after I parted company with The Scotsman, which was the last paper I worked for.”
As well as working for the Barrhead News and The Scotsman, Stephen took pictures for The Gazette, Clydebank Post and others, all contributing to his amazing archive.
He said: “The job involved 16 hours a day, seven days a week, so that meant a lot of photographs.
“There’s tons of stuff I still haven’t looked at. It’s really interesting to go back and look at old photographs.
“I’ve forgotten so much but you start to remember things – people and places – when you look through all of these photos.
“It brings back good memories. It’s been hard work but I enjoyed it.”
Stephen, who now lives in the Ayrshire town of Darvel, said there has been a lot of interest from people who are keen to buy his old photos.
He added: “Much of that interest has come from people who recognise themselves in old school pictures I took.
“We’re talking about pictures that were taken 30 years ago, so most folk don’t remember me photographing them.
“When they go on Facebook and see themselves in the photographs, they’re a bit shocked.
“I think Facebook has been more useful than anything. I used to make a point every Sunday of publishing the pictures from that week 30 or 40 years ago. I would do that, have dinner and, within half an hour, the comments would come in thick and fast.”
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