#7 CAMERA Book Review: Stuart Griffiths - Pig's Disco

A look at ex-soldier Stuart Griffiths' autobiographical book Pig's Disco on his tour of duty in Northern Ireland as a teenager.

Stuart Griffiths' Pigs' Disco combines photographs, personal documents and autobiographical writing to examine his experiences as a young paratrooper serving in Northern Ireland between 1988 and 1993. Published by Ditto Press in 2013, the book takes its title from the nickname given to the monthly discos held on British Army bases where local women were invited to socialise with soldiers. Rather than presenting a conventional military memoir, Griffiths uses his own photographs and recollections to document the everyday realities of army life during the final years of the Troubles.

The work moves between military patrols, life inside the barracks and the emergence of acid house and rave culture, revealing how many young soldiers occupied two contrasting worlds at the same time. Griffiths explores themes of boredom, violence, fear, masculinity, drug use and military culture through the perspective of someone who experienced these events directly. By combining documentary photographs with handwritten notes, illustrations and personal narrative, Pigs' Disco challenges conventional representations of military service, presenting a complex account of youth, conflict and identity during a period of political violence in Northern Ireland.

Stuart Griffiths
Ditto Press

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