AV News 186 - November 2011
C . J o h n D a w k in s FRPS - 1 9 1 5 to 2 0 1 0 - A n A p p re c ia tio n
By Richard Brown FRPS APAGB
AV enthusiasts who were around in the seventies and early eighties will be
saddened to learn of the death in December 2010 of John Dawkins FRPS, at
the age of 95. At a time when the interpretation of music and poetry was
highly regarded and beautiful dissolves and third images were the hallmarks
of quality, John Dawkins was a master of his art, probably the greatest
exponent of that style of sequence this country has ever produced.
Born in 1915 in Mandalay, the eldest of three talented brothers, Clinton
John Dawkins was educated at Marlborough and Oxford, where he read
botany. He spent his early career as an agricultural officer in Nyasaland,
punctuated by wartime service in the King's African Rifles. And there he might
have remained but for the bequest of a distant cousin whom he had never met
or even heard of, of the beautiful estate of Over Norton Park in Oxfordshire.
Returning to England in 1949 with his wife Jean, he ran the estate as a
working farm and the locality provided the inspiration for several AV
sequences over the years. John had a farmer's practicality and when his
interest turned to slide-tape it was natural that he would construct his own
dissolve unit. This remarkable and unique device used sliding polarising
filters, which were activated by wires pulled by turning a wooden handle and
held in place with rubber bands.
An anxious looking John Dawkins
setting up his rubber band controlled dissolve unit in 1972.
Richard Tucker FRPS looks on.
(Photo: Sir George Pollock Hon. FRPS)
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