Dispossessed

The former industrial heartlands of the North-East of England are now among the most deprived in Britain. Communities still struggle to come to terms with the end of industry and with Brexit on the horizon these areas are almost certain to be hit again.

For over a hundred years the valleys and hills of the North-East of England reverberated to the sounds of industry, of coal and steel, of power and machination. The skylines were dominated by the engine houses and giant wheels of coal mines and the streets by hundreds of terraced pit-cottages filled with the families of those that toiled deep below ground. Now the mine is long since closed and the once flourishing Colliery towns like Easington and Boldon are devastated; the mist rolls in from the sea over boarded up houses, there is mass unemployment and a feeling of hopelessness.

While globalisation changed the world in many ways for the better, one industrial heartland like the struggling North-East feel like its victim. In June 2016 the people made their voices heard when the communities there voted in protest for Britain to leave the European Union, laying their grievances at the door of Europe, blaming immigration and a consequent lack of opportunities for their pervading sense of futility and loss. Now fore Brexit is hard, as it no doubt will be, they will be hardest hit.

Modern day deprivation in areas like this, in otherwise rich countries like the UK, is a subtle and insidious thing. It manifests itself in a lack of education and ideas, a desperate paucity of opportunities, of horizons and dreams. There are no real jobs or investment, just low-skilled factory positions – often soul-destroying work for people who see their contemporaries in other parts of the country as better off than they.

Perhaps the only constant in these fragile communities is love and family; the one thing they have known that has been a positive in their lives. As communities died and peope were forced to move away looking for work elsewhere, those that were left supported each other. There is a high number of young parents and many are single parents. But with few jobs and low incomes, it is not easy to bring up families and the cycle of deprivation is repeated. This work aims to highlight the everyday challenges and beauty of these long forgotten places that were once the UK's industrial heartlands and now lie almost completely forgotten, struggling alone.