And The North 1981-83

My photographs were about poverty in the north-east of England, a story familiar to me from working on assignment for New Society magazine.

Also, while reporting stories about homelessness and youth opportunities for the Sunday morning TV show Getting On, I had met Bernard Hall, a social work team leader from Spennymoor, Co. Durham. The And The North commission enabled me to revisit the north-east and develop what I had learned. I chose to study one small area of Co. Durham, looking at it from the perspective of Bernard's team.

"The laminated panels, each containing considerable text as well as visual analysis were produced with the clear intention of laying bare some of the central issues with which care workers in areas of industrial decline throughout the north are faced."

Richard Grassick, Creative Camera, no. 299 p.1241, January 1984.

My fellow exhibiting photographers were Paul Graham, Charles Hall, Michael Harper, Nigel Inglis, John Malcolm, Roger Palmer, Martin Parr, Preston Photographic Group, Michael Sedgwick, Bill Stephenson, Janina Struk and Ian Roper.

Picture: some of the thirty panels that were my contribution to the show.