Photographer Nick Hedges has built up a wonderful archive of pictures chronicling the cities and people of industrial Britain. Perhaps his best-known work resulted from a commission he undertook for the housing charity Shelter in the late Sixties, to document the state of the nation's slums, and the wretched living conditions so many people had to endure.
I've featured his photos before. Here are some more:
A Liverpool 8 alleyway encounter, 1970
Alleyway, Leeds back-to-back housing, 1970
Boy standing in the rain, Forster Street, Bradford, 1969
Child crossing wasteground, Salford, 1969
Children and fence, Bradford, 1969
Children playing in a derelict playground, Newcastle, 1971
Children walking home on a council estate, Newcastle, 1972
Child skipping in a street of back-to-backs, Leeds, 1970
Crossing wasteland from back-to-back housing to railway line, Leeds 1970
Elderly couple left in semi-derelict property, Manchester 1972
Elderly woman standing in slum clearance site, Liverpool 8, 1969
Families walking across slum-clearance site, Newcastle, 1972
Football above the power station, Bradford, 1969
Housepainting after work, Salford, 1969
Returning from work across clearance site, Liverpool 8, 1969
Sheffield playground, 1969
Street scene and corner shops, Salford, 1970
Street scene, Manchester, 1970
Street scene, Salford, 1970
Street scene, Salford 1970
Terraced house backs, Salford, 1970
[Photos © Nick Hedges]
I really liked "Football above the power station, Bradford, 1969".
What strikes me about the picture of working class Britain I see is that there are no trees on the streets. It's all just bricks and pavement.
Posted by: Recruiting Animal | October 16, 2017 at 07:15 PM
It's remarkable that despite how dreary and run-down everything looks, overall the scenes are very tidy. In many of the pictures there is almost no garbage.
Posted by: David | October 20, 2017 at 01:29 PM