ABOUT

"Africa's been good to me"
- Gordon Cassidy

A flippant, off-the-cuff remark my dad said to me at the dinner table in Botswana, but stays with me till this very day.

In what way had Africa been good to him?

Born in Glasgow in 1945 my dad grew up poor in its tough Castlemilk district. By the time he was 19 he had already lost both of his parents.

In 1968, responding to an advertisement that he had seen in the local Glasgow newspaper for the role of ‘Junior Accountant’, Dad left Glasgow behind and set off for Ndola, Zambia. 

On his way he met several fellow Scottish expatriates who were to become some of his closest life-long friends.

In 1970 he met Rita, who became his wife on the 24th of November, 1973. Together they had three sons: Fraser, Stuart and Martin (that’s me). Over time he developed incredibly close and loving relationships with both his mother and father-in-law.

In 1987 the Cassidy family returned to Britain where they lived until 2008 when he came back to Africa to work.

Sadly, on September 14th, 2011, Dad passed away from a heart attack in Johannesburg, South Africa. It’s always seemed fitting to me that my dad died in Africa. 

It reminds me of a line from Ernest Hemingway's ‘Green Hills Of Africa’ : 

“Where a man feels at home, outside of where he’s born, is where he’s meant to go.”

My dad loved Africa. It was a love that was with him for all of his adult life. And what I think he meant by "Africa's been good to me." Is that it had given him everything he held closest to his heart: a fulfilling career, precious friends and a loving family.

Every time I photograph in Africa, my dad is with me somehow. It’s to him that I owe my love affair with this continent, as well as everything else in my life.  

If you can feel my pride and gratitude in the shots I take, then I will have gone some way towards repaying him.

All my love, Martin x