Sat on a Carpet in an Airplane Hanger

September 8, 2024

Whenever I’m asked for a random fact about me, my usual go to answer is “UHHH, I was on the front cover of a book once”.

When I was 8, my Mum signed me up for a local modelling and casting agency called Euro Kids so I could hopefully make some nice pocket money. I found the whole idea of it a little weird as a kid, why would someone who isn’t my family want to take photos of me? The nice part about this though was that my Mum got me lots of nice new clothes, including a trademark 90s style Demin jacket.

I had no idea what I was doing, but I got lots of cool shit.

We’d have to do a bunch of photoshoots to show off how I look, so that the brand people could choose the right kid to advertise their stuff, whatever it was.

I remember no work coming my way for quite a while, but I finally got my first gig doing billboards and catalogues for Ethel Austin, which went into administration not long after, totally unrelated I’m sure :’D. It was a pretty cool experience honestly, I was paired with a girl who was a few years younger than me, and we’d do those cheesy back to back pictures, showcasing the new clothes from that brand. I ended up getting a couple of hundred pounds from that, and for a 8-9 year old in the 90s was pretty damn nice. I never got to see the output from that work sadly as apparently it was all in Scotland.

Fast forward to a year or two later, I was asked to be on the front cover of a book. I had no idea what it was for, I kind of lost interest at this point (Which is a recurring theme with me, even later in life…). I was told to bring old fashioned looking clothes, and some specific things like a waistcoat and jacket. Luckily my best friend at the time David had these things for some reason. My Dad took me to the location, which looked like an airplane hanger, and when I walked in the room was dimly lit and there was a carpet on the floor. Yeah, it was pretty fucking weird. I had no clue what they wanted me to do because I was so focused on how creepy everything looked. So I put on the hat and scarf they gave me, sat down in the middle of this carpet and watched as this stranger took pictures of me. In retrospect, this was perfectly normal, but at the time I was really weirded out by the vibe of this place and the guy taking pictures LOL. You can see it in my face, he was complaining because I wasn’t smiling or doing exactly what he asked. You’d think something like this would’ve netted me quite a bit of money, but it was less than £20. Still really cool that I got to do something like that. I’ve still never read the book. It didn’t go on to be very popular or successful to my knowledge, but it’s safe to say my face was in some book shops and probably still is which is pretty neat.

“Wtf am I doing?”

The last gig I did was for Roundtrees. They wanted someone matching my appearance to do a TV ad for their new ice lolly, which is something I never thought was possible for the sort of work I was doing. The problem is, it was in London which was a bit of a pain to get to. We turn up, and there’s a long corridor of people who looked eerily similar to me. Me and my Mum took a seat and not long after, someone came out to say someone had already been offered the part, GREAT.

(I’m pretty sure this was the ad, there were several similar ones at the time)

After that I didn’t do anything else, I’m pretty sure we unsubscribed me from their services.