Scrambling the north-east’s hidden beaches and forlorn concrete commercial sites at midnight may not be for everyone, but some of Andy Martin’s photos were apparently found on the internet, and fast forward some months, there’s a small gallery of maybe 8 of them, hung with an emphatic lack of pretension or ceremony, in a sunny corridor in the local sports centre.
Bulldog clips. We’ve written about them before. Marvelous things.
The pictures themselves are really worth seeing: poster size prints on soft museum rag style paper, of milky long-exposure seas and blue hour skies enclosing the crumbling debris of the once-prosperous commercial heart of a changed city. This one, or one like it, with less colour, was a favourite:
They look to be Holgas or Dianas, with that heavy vignette, although many of them are also made with a V Series Blad, some are polaroids, and lots are transparency film. Andy is young, and seems happily bemused by this success – film is coming back, as Graham Lowe (and I) keep saying. And showing a sample of your work in the huge new sports centre, with a footfall most galleries would die for, is inspired, too. People will see it, the people who play 5-a-side footy, the fitness fanatics and the swimmers. Great.
The hardworking people at Back on The Map seem to have had an outburst of cultural flowering and have employed a couple of wideawake new resident consultant/artists to create a better buzz around the place. In an initial chat, I misinterpreted what was being said and made some comment about finding a local photographer on the beach, and for that I unreservedly apologise. Working in the area, and with all sorts of complex bureacracies, must present considerable difficulties.
Hendon is the strip of Sunderland from Ryhope Road eastwards, towards and including the beach, with gasometers, bits of dock, the occasional battered Victorian manufactory, the once-familiar lone pub stranded in a blitzed acre of rubble. It’s had a raw deal in recent years. In the 60s and 70s, Commercial Road carved its slice through from the docks to Vilette Road, housing all the country’s mail order catalogue employers. Janet Fraser, Littlewoods – every order from each big fat book that thudded onto pre-internet doormats throughout the land was filled by the women of Hendon.
Now a second, brand new ‘link’ road joins this empty stripe of commercial dereliction, this and the railway line creating great linear swathes of nothing at all but the occasional lost car zipping between snug blocks of trim terrace and sturdy brick semis, and the sea. Even the Raich Carter Centre faces away from the people of Hendon, the nouveau flatpack architecture turning its back on them all.
It’s a road built from an urban planning model so outdated, so void of humanity, that credit crunch or no credit crunch, its rubble-strewn verges will stay potential and empty for many years to come. Footballing hero Carter also has a road named after him in Hull. Who knew?
As well as this lovely wee exhibition, there’s also a Hendon history talk with old photos collected from people living and working in the area, on Thursday 24th September at the Holy Trinity Church from 6.30. Map below, so you have no excuse. Go and support these lovely people.
View Holy Trinity, Hendon in a larger map
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2 Comments
Brenda – Just spoted this and thanks for posting it up, a great read. Nice to meet you the other day too! Andy
Absolute pleasure. Keep me posted with what you get up to.
Did you go to the history talk? I was compelled to go see John Davies’ magnificent new works instead, but would love to see what photos the Hendonites came up with.