Conflict of Interests

Dixons were our competitors, but there don't seem to be any photos extant of Photomarkets, so bugger it - it's a camera shop.

Back in 1978, I'd left college and worked over the summer for a contract hire firm. I managed to get a proper job as a salesman at Photomarkets in the Bull Ring in Birmingham. I was only there for six months, but in that time I managed to become the third highest seller throughout the whole UK chain. I was earning a basic salary of just over a grand a year.

Saturdays were always busy, with a mix of our frequent-flyers: the geeks who in those days liked to hang out and talk technical stuff with the staff; and very often tourists looking for their holiday purchases.

A couple of occasions stand out for me. Once we had a Japanese visitor and his wife roll into the shop, enquiring about gear. All of us, however were transfixed by the camera the guy had around his neck. It was a Canon rangefinder camera, common enough then; but the lens on it was the legendary 50mm f0.95. None of us had ever seen one let alone used one. I think every man jack of us wanted to buy it off him, but I don't think my budget would have stretched anywhere near it at the time.

The second memorable Saturday for me was when an American tourist turned up wanting to buy the best 35mm camera we had. Fortunately, I got in first and proceeded to instruct him in the benefits and joys of the Nikon F2 system. After about an hour of demonstration and instruction, he agreed to buy around fifteen-hundred-quids-worth of gear from me: about 1.5 times my annual salary. He also payed by Mastercard, which was unknown in this country at the time and took several phone calls to various agencies to verify that the guy was legit. Eventually the sale was completed and the American walked away with a stupendous bag of goodies. The personal commission on the sale was pretty reasonable, but I was berated later by my manager for being too pushy and selling too much and not leaving more for the other staff. That was the very first time I experienced the contradictions that underlie the daily operating practices of most big companies, and it was the last time I worked for a firm that large until I joined BT in 2004. I did exactly what my job description prescribed - selling goods to people in return for money - and I was in the wrong, somehow. The twisted logic of it still makes me angry, over forty years later.