Debby Besford's Roller Skating Portraits Head to Great Yarmouth's Time and Tide Museum

A new exhibition at the Time and Tide Museum in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, showcases over 40 photographs by award-winning documentary photographer Debby Besford that capture young British artistic roller skaters in their home environments. Titled The Art of Roller Skating, the show runs from 26 September until April and features images of skaters wearing their sequinned competition costumes while positioned in ordinary domestic settings—living rooms, bedrooms, and against floral wallpaper or beige carpets—rather than at the rink. Besford, who grew up in Great Yarmouth, trained as an artistic roller skater in her teens and later became a national skating judge. Her decade-long project documents skaters from East Anglia as they train toward British and World Championship levels. The exhibition also includes The Jump Series, comprising still images and slow-motion videos that capture skaters mid-air, highlighting their strength and determination. A historical archive of posters, programmes, newspaper cuttings, and championship sportswear from the 1960s onward traces the sport's 1970s and 80s heyday and its local significance, referencing venues such as Gorleston Rollerdrome, the Winter Gardens, and Breydon Arena, as well as the Retro Skating Academy. The show argues that artistic roller skating, which encompasses figure work, free skating, and disco routines, remains undervalued and overshadowed by ice skating despite its demanding nature.