TV’s Graham Norton got wind of the new calendar and featured it on his show. Within weeks, 100,000 copies had been sold around the world. It spawned other calendars, including ‘Best of British Roundabouts’ and ‘Roundabouts of the World’, plus books devoted to them – one of which Beresford now hands me, autographed by no less a figure than Sharon Osbourne.
Nowadays, he and fellow members of UKRAS – usually six of them – meet twice a month to talk about roundabouts.
Clocking my alarmed expression, he explains: “Artists have always been fascinated by the mundane. Think Andy Warhol and Campbell’s Soup Cans, Tracey Emin and My Bed…
“There’s nothing more expressive than a roundabout: it’s English in its good manners, with people giving way to each other, whereas a set of traffic lights is fascist in its demands that you stop and go only when it allows you to.
“Roundabouts also boost your spirits on a tedious journey. I’ve seen them with statues, trains, planes and even a cricket pitch [Basin Reserve in Wellington, New Zealand, if you’re interested] on them. London’s Marble Arch and Paris’s Arc de Triomphe are both in roundabouts.”
At this rate, Beresford is at risk of a seventh member joining his bi-monthly UKRAS sessions – right up until he lapses into jargon: “We call a roundabout with a flower bed on it a Titchmarsh and one with a dwarf wall a brick ringer.”
The roundabout we subsequently photograph him on has both, making it a Titchmarsh brick ringer – a condition no one would want.
Away from roundabouts, Beresford’s calendar ‘Roadworks of Redditch’ is back for a second year.
“I like to see the positive in something negative and roadworks are not only necessary but also put people to work, earning a wage,” he explains.
Another popular calendar is ‘Car Parks of the UK’ – an idea inspired by a job that Beresford did for the AA in 2006, when the motoring organisation commissioned him to travel the length of the UK for a book celebrating them.