He lives in the master’s shadow, but the cycling cameraman shines light on the great Edward Chambré Hardman, whose museum opens for the season next month. David Charters reports

HE WAS two seconds away. The fluttering flags of glory beckoned. Sweat rinsed the roots of his dark hair, the competitive juices surged through his slim being and his thighs swelled, as the scenery passed in a blur. The balls of his feet pressed the pedals, harder and harder, and the wheels spun so fast on his Viking bike that you couldn’t see the spokes. “Come on Bill! Come on!”

But the other fella got there first. Maybe it was a just a shaving of time in the cycle of life, but those seconds were enough to decide the race.

Well, many years have gone since then and that racing cyclist, Bill Ellis, has learned that triumphant moments can be held forever in a magic box called a camera, fitted, of course, with a concertina front. When he pushes the button, time stops. Everyone’s a winner.

And one of the great masters of photography gave him many ideas on how to do that – so that yesterday’s smile is tomorrow’s history.

In return, Bill, 80 next Monday, is the oldest volunteer room guide at Mr Hardman’s Photographic Studio, at 59 Rodney Street, which opens for the summer season next month. This is the museum in the former studio home of the man, who died in 1988. It was here that he created his wonderful images of people and places, which are now of international renown.

Bill, the oldest steward at the National Trust museum, still lives in awe of Mr Hardman’s art, but he was pretty good himself.

Maybe he is living in the shadows of the master, but Bill doesn’t mind that. After all, few people understood light and shadows better than Hardman, who, along with Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) and a few others, raised photography into the realms of art.

But thoughts of beauty and art weren’t much on the minds of Liverpudlians when young Bill released his introductory belch in 1929, the year of the Wall Street Crash. This meant that he grew up in the Great Depression at Albany Street, Everton, before moving to Ripon Street, off City Road, Walton.

His mother, Ethel, died when he was five, and his father, Bill, a warehouseman for Boots the Chemist, in Lord Street, Liverpool, died the following year. By then he had married young Bill’s Aunty, Polly Jones, but they had very little time together.

Both big Bill and Ethel had been suffering from TB, then generally known as “consumption”, though sad neighbours, shaking their heads in a resigned manner on the polished door-steps would often speak of someone having the “decline”, a word which echoed coughs in the night.