Teen's lost city archive found after six decades in attic

In 1963, 17-year-old Elizabeth Tyler wandered the streets of Coventry capturing images of the city's bomb sites and abandoned buildings.

The teenager, from Leamington Spa, had just lost both of her parents suddenly leaving her homeless, and said photography offered an escape from her own circumstances.

Now, aged 80 and living in southern Sweden, Tyler rediscovered the box of pictures, which has resulted in her first-ever photography exhibition and book.

"[Photography] helped me forget about my own situation," she said.

"I could just concentrate on what I saw through the lens."

She found accommodation at the city's YWCA, which was "cold and damp, everything smelt of mould, but it was the only home I had then," she explained.

With her first wages from an evening job as a waitress, she bought a 1933 Rolleicord camera and enrolled as a student at the Coventry College of Art.

Mornings were spent looking for interesting subjects to photograph, and she would develop the films each afternoon in the college's darkroom.

"I didn't really know much about aperture, film speed or shutter speed," she said.

"But that didn't bother me, I found inspiration in everything I looked at."

Much of her photography focussed on the Hillfields area of the city, where, 20 years after the blitz, there was still devastation.

"The people who still lived there fascinated me," she explained. "It was a real eye-opener for me."

Some of the images show children playing among rubble-strewn streets.

Others capture empty rooms in abandoned buildings that the student explored as a curious teenager.

"I was quite brave," she recalled, "I went into some of these buildings just to see what they looked like."

After completing her studies in 1965, she left Coventry for an au pair job in Stockholm, taking the box of images with her.

Unable to afford the cost of developing the negatives after leaving college, she turned to drawing and painting.

"I could afford a block of paper and a pen, so I did these ink drawings instead," she explained, a change that would help shape her life.

In 1966, Tyler had her first art exhibition in Istanbul, before becoming a successful artist with her work shown in many cities across the world.

The images from Coventry survived being moved to four different countries, over six decades, and remained untouched in a box in her attic, she explained.

"One day about six months ago, I thought maybe they're up there and it could be fun to see what they look like now," she explained.

After eventually discovering the box and digitising the images, she explained how she had started sharing them on a Coventry local history Facebook group.

"I just put up one photograph, and a lot of people commented, and so I put up another and then one photograph per day for two months."

The images are on display in an exhibition until 8 October as part of Coventry Then & Now at LTB Showrooms in the city.

The exhibition proved so popular it was extended, the venue said.

"I think it's great," the photographer added. "I would have loved to have been there."

She has also donated digital copies of the images to City Archives at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum.

In addition, the public can view the prints in the museum's research room.

The images have also been published in a book, Elizabeth Tyler — Coventry 1960s, by Cafe Royal Books.

The original Rolleicord no longer works, she explained, but had been gifted to her eldest son who became a photographer.

The box of images had survived 20 years in Denmark, eight in Finland and 30 years in her Swedish attic.

"My whole family are all very proud of me," the grandmother of three added.

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