“We were filled with horror and disgust” – The real story behind photo comp’s winning entry

Last November, MediaTel joined forces with Yahoo! and Flickr in a photography competition to celebrate the great British summer, which saw both the Diamond Jubilee and the 2012 Olympic Games.

The competition invited amateur photographers to capture Great Britain in a single shot, and it was Posterscope’s Adam Cherry who won the grand prize with a photograph of two elderly ladies eagerly awaiting the passing of the Olympic torch, deckchairs up and Union Jack flags in hand as they glare on with pursed lips and furrowed brows.

Frowns aside, everybody seemed to come out on top. The patriotic pensioners got to watch the once in a lifetime passing of the flame and Adam Cherry had his winning shot framed and sold for charity, as well as leaving with £100 worth of camera vouchers in his hand.

However, it recently came to light that not all was sunshine and smiles in the Hertfordshire town on that landmark day.

In January, the Hertfordshire Mercury launched an appeal to uncover the mystery identities of the two women in the photo, and surely enough, they stepped forwards. Mary Whitby and Kitty Welch responded to the Mercury’s appeal to shed some light on the photograph, explaining the serious expressions on their faces.

“Just before the photo was taken, we were all so happy and full of anticipation. We were doing high-fives and waving our flags and it was a lovely atmosphere,” said Mary, who had been sat waiting patiently for an hour before the Torch came to pass.

“The torch was just coming into view and all of a sudden a lady outside the picture who had been on the kerb stepped into the road and completely blocked our view.

“We were filled with horror and disgust. That was the expression on our faces in the picture. That’s why we look like two grim women – which we are not.

“I think the photographer was very clever to have got that shot. Happy photos would be quite common and everybody was happy up to that point.”

The women have since been given a frame of the winning photo, and Adam Cherry was the one to hand it to them, saying that he was “thrilled that the ladies were happy about me wanting to track them down to give them the frame.”

So all’s well that ends well in Hertford Town.

See more of Adam Cherry’s photography on his new website.