THANK YOU, LILIBET AND YOUR AMAIZING LAND

 

THANK YOU, LILIBET AND YOUR AMAIZING LAND

by Wladimir Weltman

Thanks to Elisabeth II I got my first cover story as a professional journalist. I and my best friend, the Brazilian/Argentinian photographer Sergio Zalis were living in London and send our stories to Manchete Magazine, the most important weekly outlet of the time, and to Jornal do Brasil newspaper, the second most important daily nationwide. Today Sergio posted the cover picture he took of the Queen passing by in her carriage on the day of her Jubilee in 1977 with amazing reactions from the readers, so I decided to do my part e tell how this great photo was taken to show my appreciation to the Queen and her country, which I love. Coincidentally, I'm working on my memoirs to leave to my son and hoping some editor in Brazil decides to publish them. This is the excerpt from the book in which I comment on that very special day in 1977...

"THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE

Our second big story we sent from London to Manchete magazine that end up getting the cover was about the Queen’s Jubilee. The headline by the magazine's director, Roberto Muggiati, on the magazine's front page, reported that 1,500 photos of the jubilee coverage from news agencies and international magazine offices had reached the editorial staff that week, including some by master Photographer Henri Cartier Bresson. But in the 11 pages of the report, there were 14 of Sergio’s photos, in addition to the cover picture, which he took over my shoulder, in the middle of Trafalgar Square’s crowd. I wrote 10 pages of text, which, to make room for the photos, did not exceed 50 printed lines, that is, 2 pages... It didn't matter to me, in the two-page opening photo, it was there registered my name as the author. With my chest puffed out with pride, I turned and turned the pages until I was tired. This photo with the Vieira brothers and Sérgio was taken that day, shortly after the Queen's carriage had passed by”...

Later in the book I wrote about Adolfo Bloch, the owner of Manchete, reaction when we met him months later in Paris, at the company’s office, and mentioned that we were the team responsible for the Queen's Jubilee in London. Mr. Bloch remembered this issue of the magazine very well:

“WHAT A PIECE OF…!

We arrived in Paris on July 21, 1977. Shortly after, we went to visit Manchete’s office on Place de La Concorde, facing the obelisk. The famous square where, during the French Revolution, the nobles of France had their heads guillotined. That day I felt exactly what they felt when they arrived there.

We were welcomed by the friendly branch chief Sylvio Silveira. But the general atmosphere of the place was tense. It's just that on that day they were receiving another illustrious visitor. The owner of Manchete, Mr. Adolfo Bloch. I already knew him from Brazil, which doesn't mean that I felt comfortable in his presence. Mr. Bloch was an unpredictable figure... When I saw him there, I greeted him, introducing myself and telling him that Sérgio and I had done the cover story of about the Queen’s Jubilee in England. To which Adolfo reacted with just one word: “What a great piece of shit!”

We almost fainted right there. Mr. Bloch felt that he was a little too heavy in his words and explained himself: “The article was good, but the magazine didn't sell anything. It was the biggest flop.” For him, the journalistic value had to be proportional to the commercial one. Despite Sérgio’s cover photo being the only one that showed Queen Elisabeth among the people – the covers of Paris Match and Life magazine only showed the carriage from afar – for Mr. Bloch, the ideal photo for the magazine’s cover would be a beautiful woman scantly dressed. Only a girl would ensure good results. So much so that his fights with the magazine's management when choosing the cover photo were anthological. There was one time he even chewed the negative of a photo he didn’t want to be printed on it.”

My affection for the Queen and her country proceeds from the fact that both of them have always been very generous to me. I don't know about you, but I believe that, as Don Juan, the Indian witch from Carlos Castaneda’s books use to say, there are “places of power” that welcome and favor us. For me, England has always been like that. My dearest journalistic stories were made on this rainy island. A place that is full of tradition, legends, and great stories. It was there that I found subjects like Punk Rockers – a youth social phenomenon from the 70s, which included a kind of aggressive and noisy music, as well as a sui generis fashion. Plus, their unique English Pubs, Squatters, and so many other articles I wrote at that time. All of them were well documented by Sérgio’s photographs.

And, in the 1980s, I returned to the land of Lilibet for a series of tourism articles for O Globo newspaper, with photos by my wife, photographer Gaby Atherton. Stories that included ghostbusting in England; a real fox hunt; a visit to Richard III's battlefield; William Shakespeare's teddy bears and a London tourist guide for children.

Because of all that, I bow here for the passage of this great queen and welcome the new monarch of my dear English friends and their wonderful land of dreams and stories.

God Save the King!