NOT bad as workplaces go, huh? Young Yorkshire Evening Press photographer Keith Massey climbed to the top of one of York Minster’s West Towers in June, 1966, to photograph stonemasons at work replacing pinnacles 225ft above the ground.
Keith, who went on to become a noted TV news cameraman, later admitted that he hadn’t unreservedly enjoyed the experience. “Cameraman Massey climbed – rather shakily, he confesses – to picture stonemasons with a formidable head for heights at work on York Minster,” says the photograph’s caption. But what a view... Look carefully and, just to the right of the pinnacle on which the stonemason is working, you can see Bettys and, beside it, the Mansion House. On the top left of the photograph, meanwhile, you can make out Clifford’s Tower.
And the stonemason in the picture? We believe it to be Michael Thompson, whose father Reg was a stonemason before him, and even had a stonemason's shop on Tower Street...
Stephen Lewis
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