Alfie Brooks (not his real name) is the focus of Amelia Gentleman‘s recent Guardian article. Photographer Tom Wichelow spent 12 months with Alfie documenting his life:

It’s a project Alfie agreed to because he thinks it will be interesting to have someone document his life, to supplement the memories he has in his head with real pictures. His numerous friends have accepted the photographer’s presence without much surprise. This is a generation used to cameras, and Alfie, with breezy charm, waves a hand towards Tom and says, “That’s just my photographer.” He agrees to talk about his life to go with the pictures. “My attitude is, ‘Why not?’ People can learn about me,” he says. “I don’t know if people will be interested in me.”

During those 12 months, Alfie was sentenced to eleven days in prison (for stealing 400 balloons). It was his first stay in prison. Alfie intends it to be his only stay in prison. He was bored.

Prison was an ordeal for unexpected reasons. He spent most of the time in his cell watching daytime television. “It was like being in an old people’s home, but everyone was young.”

A coffee table at his flat, on which are instructions on how to use the curfew tag he has to wear. © Tom Wichelow

To the journalist, Alfie is simultaneously endearing and frustrating; he delivers pearls of wisdom and then childish logic. More startlingly, sometimes the two are the same – and we, the reader, need to rethink our perceptions and expectations of a younger generation without the same future-oriented behaviours we value and reward.

As someone who puts his hood up the moment he leaves his home, Alfie is offended by the demonisation of hoodies. “It’s like me calling a disabled person a wheelie leg. It is a disgusting stereotype,” says Alfie.

Alfie is affable and greeted warmly by folk about his hometown. He isn’t violent and has never stolen from an individual, only shops. It is a code he justifies. He has also smoked marijuana for as long as he can’t remember:

“Marijuana, I don’t see it as a drug. It is a plant, the same as nettles. Nettles hurt people much more. Why don’t you criminalise nettles and stop them from stinging people?” he says, with a teenager’s petulant logic.

He thinks he started smoking cannabis before he was 10, but he can’t be sure. “I haven’t decided yet whether marijuana has hindered me or not. We’ll have to wait and see.”

AMELIA GENTLEMAN

For me, Gentleman’s piece is not a ground-breaking piece of journalism, but it is unique. It takes the time to look at a young life that could be the norm for more young lives than we’d like to admit. It really spells out for us the drifting uncertainties of life for youth who’ve opted out of formal education, but are still bright, articulate, playful and “clear with ambition”. Gentleman has a fondness and hope for Alfie which is appropriate and understandable.

TOM WICHELOW

Gentleman’s piece is well supplemented by Tom Wichelow’s photo essay, A Year in the Life of Alfie Brooks. His year long study of Alfie is a nice counterpoint to other work in his portfolio, notably his work on CCTV in the Whitehawk housing estate, Brighton, You’ll Never be 16 Again and 2000 portraits.