I need to keep my false teeth I'm fidget
I'm 27 I've been tattooing for six years
and I work in Dharma in London and skin
yard and southend-on-sea my name is doc
price I'm 85 years old I've been
tattooing in Plymouth the last 50 years
I've earned my living every day since
then so what got you into tattooing
where is your motivation a few different
places my dad is heavily tattooed he was
a he was a biker and then he joined the
paratroopers and he's got tattoos from
all over the world so I used to be
really obsessed with his tattoos when I
was little and then I was just super
into the idea of Prison tattoos and gang
tattoos and that kind of thing my story
is and I don't know Atreides anymore was
such a long time ago but I work with a
guy that I the butterflies sat in the
back of his and I thought I was amazing
how can you and being make something to
fit in a human beings and it worked like
that and that was a little tick of a
beginning yeah then when I saw the
tattoo of sign of old Billy nights
tattooing that's where I had to go and
get a tattoo I couldn't write know me
very well when I was young like a draw
yeah that was my information what were
apprenticeships like because there's the
term of having an old-school
apprenticeship which is what I've always
said I've done an old-school
apprenticeship none no none at all how
did you learn how to tattoo you clean
you glean you've met fellow artists and
you follow like Al but you would learn
as much as you could from one another
some of the best activists in this area
I used to come to my shop and lean and I
used to say oh that looks good how did
you do it and I wouldn't tell him and
then I tell him eventually and things
like that
most of the tattoos I knew were
self-taught and we thought we could make
a livin because I can do 20 tattoo is in
the day if you were doing after 15
shillings ready to go like a rabbit yeah
so that was the way it was you simply
made a living
you didn't we're never going to be rich
but afford to keep your kids you could
have quality per house and that would
have been my status that's very
different there oh absolutely yeah
would you think so you know that well
tattoos only incredibly expensive
there's two different groups isn't there
there's still like working-class trade
street shops where you can get the more
affordable side of tattooing and then
it's like custom tattoos good work
attracts customers customers attracted
to good work it's the simplest sign so
it would have had to have been word of
mouth word of mouth nice and also you
would see the visual you would see
somebody's at war I like that
traditional person I'd i don't really
like modern things so this does kind of
ever take me slightly but you can be not
very good at tattooing but you've got a
very good Instagram following nowadays
that can be enough to be like our famous
tattooist as just as long as you've got
the good numbers on Instagram you're all
set great so yeah yeah what is your
style of tattooing because mine was
always color as always the popular thing
and now it were very very bespoke work
now I don't do anything traditional
really at all I do a lot of girls faces
and girls with pregnant bellies with
like scenes and their bellies and things
in it and do a series called the
drowning girl series which is just like
a little girl's head submerged in water
and I do a lot of them I do but do women
like breastfeeding pigs and things like
then that's the kind of stuff I yeah I'm
doing I do rolls rolls roses front
Dementors
what would tattooists like as people to
be around like if you were in someone
else's studio or whatever do you think
that the tattoo is actually anybody
else's tattoos you know stood upright
you rather go in on your knees because
they were so jealous and so violent
towards one another that sounds crazy no
it's completely different to that yeah
I'm talking about olden times if you
went into a tattoo shop
you said to the guy I'm tattooing can I
open a shop up the road from there you
would like to get a bullet in the head
or kick up the ass or both yeah I
remember seeing Johnny Thompson in a
terraced house window tattooing with a
with the machine in a buttermilk bottle
for the death of a height of hygiene
yeah do you still clean your knee toes
with a toothbrush in their sink in the
back I in a bucket a bucket of pigs
you still got your machines or setup
hanging on the wall from the last person
ready to start the next one that Billy
Knight actor really came out with a tray
and the needles of bone and they heard
like hitman Oh though that because you
can guarantee he's been using them for
ludie days and weeks before I'm starting
yeah it's silly to think that you can
use the same needle on somebody else
knowing that this person might be in
fact it was a serious serious illness if
you in fact anybody in this modern age
you should go to prison for it yeah
when I was a young man I used to go to
the bank and say can I borrow 4,000
pounds raised to say what you do for a
living I say a tattooer and you could um
book that happen in your mister
yeah and that was the most anybody got
tattoos criminality everybody's tattoos
although it's great that people want to
get tattooed because then I get to
tattoo people I kind of preferred when
it was something that you didn't see
like when I was a child
or even when I was an early teenager
just people being tattooed in general
was like something shocking that you
never saw and it was magical and
interesting and I feel like that is kind
of dead yeah that doesn't really exist
anymore
everyone's so tattooed that it's kind of
that whole exciting part of it has kind
of disappeared in a way yeah but that's
all related to the quality of work is
available and they have to be done now
the popularity has created the qualities
and the qualities created popularity
mm-hm
so it's a two-way effect yeah I guess
yeah I think people that aren't good
tattoo should be shamed themselves I
think everyone should have what I'm deaf
like that yes and I should do them all
how did you see the future of tattooing
if rice is imposed you were the zenith
of the popularity of touchscreen now if
you're going to talk to you nobody on
the planet but it will go it will go I
agree I think that it's getting so so so
popular but I do feel like that which
peak and then I'll start coming back
down again I don't know when that's
gonna happen I don't know how popular
it's gonna get before that happens but I
do think that everything comes in waves
in your lifetime you may see it when you
back to where I saw it when I began
where people used to say you can't do as
rules you criminal you've got people
stop more of an outsider thing episode
but much longer we got on this there's
anyone oh my god on bloody page