The War Years (Angus McBean)

. . . I was sweeping along Ebury street when a tall bearded silhouette passed me by. . . The stranger retraced his steps to where I stood. 'Who are you?' I asked and he replied, 'I am Angus McBean. Who are you?' I hurriedly explained that I was nobody but added, as an extenuating circumstance, that I knew plenty of people to whom his name was sacred. There and then he said he would photograph me. . . A few evenings later he took about a dozen pictures of me in three-quarters of an hour. . . Though it was something that he did every day Mr. McBean longed to take photographs as fervently as I desired to be photographed.

I asked him what portrait photography was all about he said, 'It's simple. They want to be beautiful.'

Perhaps the best exposition of his technique is contained in this story. Dandy Nichols, the cockney comedienne, when I mentioned Mr. McBean's name, said, 'I must go to Angus and have some mugs done.' Later I asked him if a certain Miss Nichols had visited his studio to 'have some mugs done ', 'I saw that was what she had come for,' he replied, ' but I did cups and saucers.'

Of the pictures he took of me, my friends said, ' I see you can go down in history as a famous beauty whatever you happen to look like.'