(Just Like) starting over. Melody One. Our Introduction to being together
We stayed some months and weeks in Kitzbühel, Austria , when we arrived to the European continent. This story extends, particularly, soon. 1971We made it to London after an astonishingly beautiful winter in Switzerland with friends who work on ski lift maintenance in Andermatt. This was Bob Beattie and his partner. Bob's dad was a journalist in Montreal. ( Bob gave us our Kali. ) We had been four month in South East Asia and the Middle East Continent. Then Austria. Then London. The next year we went across to Western and Eastern Canada to meet David's family. Then, down to Mexico and back via a USA middle America route. Travel to northern B.C. Canada. Back to England. Back to Austria for the 1973 summer. On to Greece.
1972Canada was a major step. It was my new family to meet. David’s mum, Laura, and her mum Bertha in Ontario. David’s sister Sheila, her husband Bill and their three children, Heather, Bruce and Megan, up in Northern BC, some months later. The family became a thrilling gift to me. Whilst staying with mum I worked at a Caltex shop on the main road out of Simcoe. I recognized the winsomeness of the Greek restaurateurs wanting to serve grilled zucchini and having to suffice with truck driver guests wanting turkey mash and gravy.
David and Stephanie Simcoe. Ontario. 1972
MEXICO
David wanted me to meet everyone that he knew in Mexico.We drove there from Canada in 1972.
A drive from Canada to Mexico and back became three months of tortillas and swimming, bullfights in Guadalajara, and music, reading, eating, talking. On that trip, I got to meet and know an artist who lent me his darkroom. This was John Frost. The many first photos I practiced printing in black and white began my transition to still, framing and reason for composition or grab. The practice took hold for me. My first experience in Mexico was that I made photos of the odd stranger emerging just after siesta time and I had been quietly wandering for hours. In those months we swam daily in a pool outside of the village. There I met my first screenplay writer. He was Finnish. David and I went up to Tapalpa and bought sarapes.
Photographs by Stephanie Beth. 1972. Jocotopec and Tapalpa.

1966

1966 David ( center) had been with Bernie Evans, a friend for many years( Bottom right). as minstrels to Jocotopec. Mexico. Top right. Joan Frost next to Dave Bennet. Centre. Judy Bennet. Two American travellers unknown. Photograph by John Frost.
At the Bullfights in Guadalajara, I saw flowers tossed to the town madam. I heard the ‘boos’ to the Spanish matadors, the cheers to the locals. I walked around the back of the ring - saw the carcasses being stripped, ready to be distributed as meat to orphanages. Those times really were then. Covid sped the ending of this ‘sport’ in many Spanish speaking cities. In the morning, I was often woken by the gentle sound of hand slapping fresh chapatis coming through the walls.