Allan Weeks celebrates 90 years

ALEXANDRA local Allan Weeks recently celebrated his 90th birthday so it was time to sit down for a chat, to find out about his remarkable achievements.

Allan was born at Alexandra’s Kia-Ora guest house, run at the time by his father’s sister, a nurse. It was located near the railway station.

He initially attended Acheron Primary School because the state school teacher lived in Alexandra and drove past their door every day, in the days before buses. Later he moved to Alexandra Primary School, and at high school level, he attended Ivanhoe Grammar.

Allan’s interest in photography started while he was in the last couple of year of his primary school education, starting out using a Box Brownie.

Unfortunately, the first film he developed didn’t work out. He managed to improve through trial and error, and built a plywood dark room at the end of his father’s garage. As for his parents, “Well, they didn’t say I couldn’t do it,” he said laughing.

After high school, Allan worked on his father’s farm for a couple of years, before taking a job at the photography business, Granger Studios in Toorak, for two years.

He didn’t initially take photos but was a photographic assistant as well as working in the darkroom and proofing. It was in this role that he met a photographer with The Age. He taught Allan how to print thin negatives using a variety of techniques. This later came in handy in the air force, based in Laverton.

Allan said, “I put my name down to go to Korea [in 1954], but I was knocked back for no reason that I could at the time, but I think I heard later I was very good at producing photographs from a thin negative that you can hardly see anything on…  and the commanding officer wanted to keep me there as long as possible, until I left the air force.

In hindsight, who knows? You don’t know whether you might pick up a stray bullet there. Might be just as well I didn’t go.”

Allan first met Patricia when he was stationed at Laverton. He used to go with friends to the….