My SP1000 arrived this morning.
I bought one of these as a YTS student, my first "sensible" job after running away to London. I lived in a little bedsit in Plumstead, and earned £27.63 a week but was allowed to claim housing benefit. My local camera shop (I think it was at the top of Greenwich Park, or maybe Blackheath?) had an SP1000 just like it in the window. They must have taken a shine to me, because they let me buy it in installments over six weeks. I lived on nothing but tinned tomatoes on toast for those six weeks to pay for it.
It was my pride and joy, and I carried it everywhere. My work placement came with a free travelcard, so I explored all of London with this camera in hand. I was too young to enjoy it, and spent my whole time there desperately lonely, but it taught me a lot about how to look at things.
I dropped the camera on a road trip round Eastern Europe a couple of years later. I was gutted. I bought other, fancier cameras, then I had no cameras. But there was nothing as good as that old Pentax.
It all came full circle when this one arrived. I'm made up.
It needs a service though.
