I’ve started work on a project that involves (in part) searching through some old VHS tapes mostly from the very early 1980s. This was not long after my father – Ian Graham Ellis – had bought a portapak style JVC video camera (consisting of a large handheld camera connected to a shoulder-pack that housed the VHS tape). Among taped TV shows and documentaries*, I stumbled across this footage of me practicing tennis down the end of our street in Masterton, New Zealand. I reckon I was 11 or 12 years old, and this wall was my home away from home – Dad and I even painted a tennis net on it, as well as a service line on the road itself. Any tennis aficionados out there will note the semi-western forehand grip (I suspect I was mimicking the legendary Bjorn Borg who played with a full western grip) which was coached out of me … and my forehand never recovered.
* Truth be told, there was a LOT of footage of me practicing tennis. Sorry Dad.
The thing about walls……they never miss a shot and they don’t talk back, i can’t work out if this makes them perfect practice partners or not, probably not. I blame my lack of fore hand on being made to go from a double handed player to single and the fact my dad always insisted on calling me ‘poppet’ from across the net. Thanks for sharing