Professor Arthur K Covington APAGB – Died 29th December 2017
The sad death has been announced of our Honorary President and founder member Arthur Covington. Arthur died on Friday 29th December 2017 following a stroke and a short stay in hospital.
Arthur played such a big role in the development and running of PPS and gave outstanding service for over 30 years; for this achievement he was awarded the Award for Meritorious Service (APAGB) on his retirement from the Committee in 2010. A quiet unassuming man, Arthur quietly and efficiently ran the Society for what has been more than half its life, designing the programmes each year and passing on his extensive photographic knowledge, whilst always keen to recognise others’ work. Arthur steered the Club through several difficult periods including when the High School premises were burnt down and PPS moved to Merton Hall where Arthur also served on their committee.
Arthur and Geoff Willey founded PPS out of an evening group formed at Ponteland High School in 1978 to make use of its new darkroom printing facilities. Initially the club working with B&W and then later colour printing with Ilford Cibachrome. In the early 1990’s, Arthur organised evening classes with a tutor brought from Sunderland to learn hands-on computer manipulations with Adobe Photoshop 5.5, which led to the ‘encouragement” of many PPS members to address ‘the digital age’. It is no overstatement to say he was one of the founding fathers of Ponteland Photographic Society.
The picture below, taken by Mike Sadler at a Party in the Park event, shows three of our senior members, sadly no longer with us, left to right, Geoff Willey, Frank Thomson and Arthur Covington.