Ken Spencer & Chris Steele-Perkins, 1970, 20 mins

One of the joys Amber has recently been able to digitise from its film archive, John Smith follows a Newcastle rag and bone man, possibly one of worst street accordionists ever to scratch a living from an instrument. A well-known Tyneside character at the time, from the moment he scratches himself, waking up in a squalor you can almost taste, there is a compulsion to follow his story. The tactics in the Northumberland Street accordion wars are a joy to behold.

Documentary photographer Chris Steele-Perkins has had a long relationship with Amber and Side Gallery – most recently bearing fruit in the 2006 exhibition Hinterland, work which was later published in his Northern Exposures (Northumbria Press, 2007). John Smith dates from the earliest days of the relationship. According to a new article by Peter Thomas of the University of Bedfordshire, Amber received funding for John Smith in 1970 from Northern Arts Kine Club. It may have been towards the making of the film, it may have been for the print – which Chris and Ken think is the only one in existence. Ken Spencer is now at Hull University’s Centre for Educational Studies.