England: The Last Hurrah
English
By (author): Dafydd Jones
...the panorama of a self-forgotten milieu. Monopol
Toffs behaving badly: 1980s high society in photos. The Times
The pictorial equivalents of Evelyn Waughs sentences. The New Yorker
Modest though he is, Dafydds photographs will endure for having perfectly captured a society on the brink of decline. Unmissable listening. Country & Townhouse podcast
Wonderfully ironic, every point in the picture ignites and knows how to entertain very well. Lovely Books
Dafydd catches those moments of genuine exhilaration, wealth and youth. The Hollywood Reporter
I wondered if the party guests Id photographed were just re-enacting a nostalgic fantasy, an imaginary versionof Englandthat already no longer existed. Dafydd Jones
Throughout the 1980s, award-winning photographer Dafydd Jones was granted access to some of Englands most exclusive upper-class events. Now, the author of Oxford: The Last Hurrah presents this irreverent and intimate portrait of birthday parties and charity balls, Eton picnics and private school celebrations.
With the crack of a hunting rifle and a spray of champagne, these photos give an almost cinematic account of high-society England at its most riotous and its most vulnerable. Against the backdrop of Thatchers Britain, globalisation, the Falklands War, rising stocks and dwindling inherited fortunes, Jones reveals the inner lives of the established elite as they party long into the night-time of their fading world.
Praise for Oxford: The Last Hurrah
Sublime vintage photographs... Hermione Eyre, The Telegraph
In The Last Hurrah...we see familiar faces from British high society poised on the brink of adulthood. Eve Watling, Independent
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