John Fawkes's Story

Once described by a national newspaper as ‘The Fawkes Guy’, John Fawkes is unusual for being descended from the infamous Gunpowder plotter of 1605. “My grandmother was very definite that this was the case”, John says. Next to the Daily Mail article is a wonderful photograph of the younger Mr. Fawkes with an enigmatic smile and his arms around a smoking barrel!

But, unlike his ancestor, John has no quarrel with the Crown. In fact, for many years he was a member of Her Majesty’s armed forces, and it was while abroad in the 1960s as an Exchange Officer with the US Army in Atlanta, Georgia, that this picture was taken.

“Some of my friends recommended an American photographer, Hendry Betts, to take a photograph of Margaret, my then wife. As he was an award-winning artist I agreed; and he subsequently entered the photograph into a Southern states competition and won a prestigious prize for his work. I’m so glad we did this, for only a few years later sadly she died, yet we have this wonderful record of her in her prime.”

As the years went by, the beautiful and prize-winning original photograph acquired a dull, green hue, caused by the various dyes in the printer’s ink fading at different rates. John, though, discovered that picture restoration is possible and approached Restoring Glory to see what could be done. Whilst the colours had unfortunately faded beyond repair, it was possible to paint them back in (a process known as colourising); and John was delighted. Intriguingly, the keys to discovering the original skin tones were the small patches of still-in-tact pink that the photographer had himself painted in by hand to perfect his image - proving that airbrushing is a great deal older than Photoshop!

“I am very, very impressed with what you have achieved,” John said “- and I'm not easily impressed! I actually think that the photograph looks better now than it did originally, before it faded.”

If you have a treasured old photograph, contact Restoring Glory today to start out on your own amazing journey.