In 1984, Melanie turned 18. Margaret Thatcher was prime Minister and the UK was mired by the seismic Miners’ Strike (here, here, here and here). Home to Leeds for the Christmas holidays, Melanie’s daughter Victoria Gill was going through her stuff when she spotted two old boxes of photos under the bed. She found they had all been taken around 1984. In a new photo book, Melanie & the Miners’ Strike, Victoria shares some of these ‘owned’ photos.
“The subjects I usually focus on are cultural capital, mobility and playing with social norms,” says Victoria. “They give you a slice of Leeds that you may not have seen otherwise. Hopefully they say something about looking at new things from people who didn’t go to art school or who on the surface may not be working in the region you see yourself in.”
“We know parts of the north have never recovered from the Thatcher years,” says Victoria. “My mum and her friends happened to turn 18 that year. It is especially important to me that these pictures were taken outside of the lens of going to university or art school. That they were taken by my mum and her friends on their average weekends.”
– Victoria Gill
“I already had a firm undercurrent of how important my mum’s mates are to her. We are very close and she is still best friends with Jane, who features heavily in the book; there is not a Sunday where Jane is not round at the house. I also had tiny snippets of information from what my mum had written on the back of some of the photographs, like ‘Annette’s, ear – morning after, Jan 1985’.”
– Victoria Gill
“‘Finding my mum’s old friends, who may have changed their names since getting married, was the real highlight. Introducing myself with,’“Did you go out in the mid-1980s and [do you] remember Melanie – well, I am their daughter, can I ask you about this time?’, I was nervous, I was ready to be greeted with resistance, but instead I was met with some real excitement about seeing value in these images and many stories.”
– Victoria Gill
Buy the book here: www.ideanow.online/minersstrike
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