Peter Dench's best photograph – drunks kiss and throw up at the Epsom Derby

‘It was a decade when the English were drinking longer, faster, more cheaply and more dangerously than ever before’

The Epsom Derby is one of the biggest events of the English summer. I’d heard it was quite lairy, quite boozy. So, since I was documenting the drinking habits of the English, I thought I’d head there for the day.

People hire open-top buses and come in from all over Surrey and beyond. They start celebrating early, sometimes at nine in the morning. I went to where all these buses park. There was a lot of activity there.

The adverts still show it as a slow-motion waving, classical music grand day out, with the posh frock

Continue reading... February 07, 2018 at 11:06PM