An amateur photographer who spent a very working class life, living in Newcastle. A bachelor for his whole life who only gained recognition for his work toward the end of his life.
It is understandable that Forsyth's images did not attain recognition until very late in his lifetime. This is simply because this is a man who photographed the most simple things everybody observed every time they left their home and walked down the street. It was not until time past and change came to the area that this style of photography is appreciated.
Personally I feel the ability to shoot the most mundane of events on your own local area, is brilliant. To produce this kind of work, the photographer requires a great deal of understanding and appreciation of history, human behaviour and hindsight. He had an understanding of change. Born in 1913 he would have almost certainly have served in the forces, possibly during WW2 and the difficult years that followed.
Nick Wapplington did a similar style of imagery from the 1970's in his own working class environment.
The brilliance of this type of photography is as we get older, we spend more time looking back than forward. We see images of the most simple subject matter that takes us all back to our childhood and adolescent years. Similar to the reason people collect objects from the past( toys etc). I had a basic camera in the 1980's but I would have thought shooting local people doing normal every day things far to unadventurous to pursue.
If their were no photographers like Jimmy Forsyth we would not be able to view our own history from a neutral and honest view point, instead we would subjected to images provided by the self interest of the media only. The works of people like Forsyth are a national treasure. It is sad by the very nature of the work, time is the requirement for appreciation.