Abandoned Migrant Workers Camp with Eviction Notice.

Carscapes

Carscapes - How the motorcar reshaped England. A major exhibition by English Heritage examines the  impact the motor car has had on the physical and psychological landscape of the country.

The show includes my picture of the M62 at night as traffic passes around the Stott Hall Farm, one of the few signs of human habitation on the moors.

Legend had it that the motorway was built around the property because the farmer Ken Wilde refused to sell his land to the Government, and waged a war against the roadbuilders. The truth, however is more prosaic and was, in fact that because the farm sits on a geographic fault which meant the motorway had to be constructed around it. 

About 90,000 vehicles pass by each day on the road which runs from Hull to Liverpool.

Mr Wilde lived at the farm from when he was five until aged 76 when he died in 2004, whereupon a new tenant took up residence.

To get the picture I spent several hours hiking around the moors until I found the right location.  I waited until dusk, about 9pm shooting two rolls on the now discontinued 35mm Velvia slide film. I think it was about a  ten minute exposure. This was one of about three frames that looked right.

Carscapes runs until 6th July 2014 at The Quadriga Gallery, English Heritage, Wellington Arch, Apsley Way, London W1J 7JZ

Sklep

The Market Trader's Lunch

Sunset by the A31 New Forest Dual Carriageway, Surrey

St Nicholas Tavern

#holidaysarecoming

The Chip Van

Shift Change

Boston Market

Gypsy Bridesmaids

Low Winter Sun

European Market

War Memorial,Grantham

The Mourners

The Chip People

Family

Girl Selling Rhubarb, Beckton, London

Who ate all the swans?

Something strange is happening in the Fens of East Anglia. A grass roots movement against open door immigration is under way and unlike past protests it seems superficially at least to be absent of the usual far-right ideologues like the BNP & EDL.

Migrant workers from Eastern Europe picking leeks.

Organised by local man  Dean Everitt they've been held in Boston, Spalding and last weekend Wisbech. Depending on which paper you read it attracted between 150 - 300 people.

Wisbech Immigration Issues protest.

If you don't know Wisbech it's a town of around 20,000 people in  Cambridgeshire. The big employers are the industrial farmers providing us with fruit and veg via the supermarkets. In the last decade or so people from Eastern Europe have formed a large proportion of the agricultural workforce, perhaps increasing the population by up to 30%.

This was fine when the economy was buoyant and everyone seemed to doing well but since the financial crisis in 2007 there has been increasing tension between the English residents and the new arrivals as they compete for jobs and services in an unacknowledged depression.

Migrants looking for work.

Wisbech has also been subject to several national media reports that have portrayed the English population as feckless and lazy.

In the run up to the event there was a lot of chatter on social networks - particularly the Facebook page Wisbech Immigration Issues about the possible opposition to the protest. As it went  the event it passed off peaceably although it was attended by dozens of special police constables, for whom this was clearly the highlight of their week.

The main speaker, Everitt is an articulate and engaging.  more convincing as he is clearly uneducated in the ways of conventional political presentation. I suspect he doesn't know it but his philosophy is basically old-style clause 4 Labour - before that party became more interested in lawyers than labourers. He advocates protectionism, re-nationalisation, and working class solidarity - all decent Socialist  principals.

In fact , he has more in common with Arthur Scargill than Enoch Powell. Unusual for issues that you might associate with the Right of the political spectrum.

 Dean Everitt

Representatives from party of the moment UKIP   were supposed to be appearing but cancelled at the last minute, due it was said out of a reluctance  of being associated with racism. This left a gap in the schedule in which local organiser Sharon Jardine gave the opportunity of the audience to speak.

As you might expect some of the audience were of the  'send em all back' variety for whom the modern world must seem a confusing and frightening place - including one person who accused the migrants of 'eating all the swans'.

But notable in particular was one speaker, Victoria Gillick who talked about how  business  interests in the town have been able to override local democracy by exhausting the Council's resources through the legal system. This was in reference to the amount Houses of Multiple Occupation and alcohol licenses that have been granted in the town.

There were also voices of opposition. One from a lady called Liz, a retired mid-wife who said that any anger should be directed towards Government rather than those who were acting perfectly lawfully.

When she started speaking Liz was booed by the audience, but by the time she finished she was given a round of applause.

'Liz', a former mid-wife speaking up for the migrants.

Just before the event closed Everitt spoke again and said that if you are working class the main effect of open borders immigration was  to introduce another element of competition, creating a sandwich with the company's shareholders on one side trying to push down costs and the non-unionised migrant worker population on the other willing to put up with low wages and poor working conditions. This, he said left British worker pressurised from both sides.

'Ellie', a local resident speaking about apparent pressure on local services due to open door immigration.

In the UK children are quite rightly taught to aspire academically, and encouraged to invest in their education. If after all that  commitment and cost the only job you could get was for the minimum wage working in a field without a toilet you might be angry too.

Anti-Abortion Vigil, Belfast

Charity Shop, Long Sutton, Lincolnshire

St George's Day, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Cerberus

On the Dodgems

Outcalls Only

Swimming with Sharks

Last  week   I  was  fortunate  enough  to  visit  one  of  the UK's fastest growing businesses.  Across the UK they have 325 depots, and in the city of Norwich alone they have just opened their fifth  branch.

In a time of double dip recession you might think that  this was something to celebrate, perhaps with a visit from the local MP to cut a ribbon, but you'd be wrong because these are foodbanks and they are a testament of successive government's inability to provide the economic and social conditions that enable people to provide for themselves.

  Hunstanton, Norfolk

Foodbanks are not on the high Street. No-one wants to be  seen taking handouts in the full glare of people they might know.  Instead they're often tucked away on anonymous trading estates or   secondary retail areas  within walking distance of the town and city centres.

Social stigma is a powerful motivational force.

                                                                                                                         

Baby food on the shelves at a Norwich foodbank.

Foodbanks are intended to be an emergency resource for immediate relief of hunger and provide three days worth of balanced food. They are not intended to be part of the benefits system, but as the BBC has reported Job Centres and benefit advisers are increasingly people referring directly to them because the claimants cant make the money go far enough.

Boxes being packed with three days of nutritionally balanced food by workers at the Trussell Trust.

In his 1992 publication The End of History, the economist Francis Fukuyama said that capitalism as we know it in the UK  only has a future where the majority of the population can participate in its benefits.

The  Soviet Union he  said served as a  brake on the excesses of  the market, providing the  theoretical possibility of an alternative economic system should capitalism become too unruly. With Communism gone he speculated that the Western economies might become de-stabilised  and anarchic, emboldened  by the moral victory of  free enterprise.

You can today go along to any high street today to see examples of what he meant by anarchic capitalism - payday loans companies  charging huge amounts of interest on unsecured loans. The one in the picture below   is 1410% APR. That means if you borrowed £100, at the end of the  year you would owe £1410. The Guardian  recently  reported on a legal money lender charging 16 million percent. An unsecured loan from a high street bank is usually around 9%.

Payday loans company in King's Lynn

Payday loans firms are businesses specifically designed to exploit the desperate. For some these are the last resort before the loan shark. The payday loans companies may harass you with phone calls and letters, but at least they don't come round your house late at night and smash your windows.

But despite knowing the dangers some people still go to loan sharks.   Sometimes out of ignorance or because of the anonymity they  apparently  offer. There are no credit checks or employer references and the sharks themselves are often neighbours.

Like Foodbanks they're not on the high street. No one you might know will see what you're up to.

Illegal lending is now such a problem in some parts of the UK that councils, housing associations  and police have  set  up initiatives and reporting hotlines  in an effort to educate the public.

Loan shark education campaign outside a supermarket .

When I was at primary school we learnt about the Tufty Club and how to cross the road safely. Now they learn about the dangers of borrowing money from gangsters.

Sid the Shark teaching schoolchildren about loan sharks.

Even judged by it's own standards the Government's austerity policies to reduce the debt and the deficit are not working. It now looks like George Osborne will be forced to borrow more than £61 billion than he originally budgeted for. As he turns to the markets to raise the cash he does so in the knowledge that UK's credit rating is likely to be downgraded for a second time, making borrowing at a national level even more expensive and increasing the risk of the country spiralling further into recession as debt repayments hamper any prospect of recovery.

Radicalising Our Children

Farewell to the Flower Queen

 "You know what?   Life is one  beauty contest after another. School, then college, then work..."

 Michael Arndt - Little Miss Sunshine 2006

  

Driving up to Spalding on a Friday evening I saw a hitchhiker  on the A17, hoping to catch a ride home. It's dark and  raining. I pull  over and flip  the passenger door - more out of a sense of guilt than altruism.

We make our way North, falling in behind the slow moving HGVs and mud covered tractors. The hitcher says he's going home after being sent away early from a  shift at McDonalds. 

Signing on for 8 months before landing this job he's employed under a 'zero hours' contract which requires him to turn up for work every day at the appointed time, but allows the manager to dismiss him at anytime without payment if there is not enough work to be done or his performance is considered unsatisfactory.

Spalding Flower Parade 2012

He makes about £25 a week more than signing on and the job centre are happy because he can be chalked up as one off the unemployment figures, despite the fact that he's only moved from Job Seekers Allowance to Working Tax Credits.

As I make my way into Spalding, passing the closed up pubs and houses for sale it occurs to me that an hours drive along a main road tells you more about contemporary Britain than you might like.

*************************

Spalding has been Britain's flower capital for nearly a century. Every year the town's people rejoice in  the fertility of the soil with a flower festival.

The  Flower Parade celebrates the first harvest of May and the return of life to the landscape.

With it's origins  the 1920's, the depression of the 30's, the war years and 1950's austerity. All the way until 2013 when  the parade became just another expense that could be done without.

And with it goes the Flower Queen, a girl chosen annually from town's young women who could become a symbol of renewal, fertility and a promise of  prosperity for the future.

Flower Queen finalists, Inca Peekaboo Honnor (17), Heather  Turner (17), Florence Butters (19), Rachel Perkins (17), and Shelley Wilson (24).

The Flower Queen heads the parade and represents Spalding throughout the year both at home and abroad, undertaking to promote both the commercial and cultural life of the town. 

Which is why on a cold night in March five finalists are here, competing for the honour to be the last Flower Queen. 

For the winner there will be flowers, gift vouchers,  foreign travel, and perhaps opportunities that lie beyond Spalding, but first they must be subject to the scrutiny of the judges who will assess both their appearance, their character and their suitability to represent the Spalding to the world.

Being pretty is not enough: Florence Butters is quizzed by the judges.

Consolation for the losers will be the chance to accompany the Queen's attendants on the final parade through the town before the event is relegated to history and memory.

The finalists are interviewed by the local newspaper.

Being pretty is not enough anymore and the contestants know this; Florence Butters is a National Apprentice of the Year, Heather Turner raises funds for cancer research, Shelley Wilson is a published poet, Rachel Perkins is a potential hockey Olympian and Inca Peekaboo Honnor teaches dance.

As each contestant is called there is a palpable sense of tension as they make the  short   walk into the chamber.  The double-doors are shut behind them and the interview commences. 

The judges make detailed notes on each finalist's achievements, comparing one against another behind closed doors in a underlit wood panelled Victorian drawing room. All the while overseen by oil paintings of the good and great of Spalding's past.

Amy Harrison, Flower Queen of 2012 shows off the Queens dress and talks to the finalists about the duties and responsibilities of the role.

When they re-emerge, flushed and blinking under the lights all eyes in the room turn to them as  a glass of champagne is thrust into their hands and they exhale,  relieved that the ordeal is nearly over.

9 year old Millie Weller, Flower Princess admires the finalists' dresses as they wait for the judges decision.

After  the finalists have been interviewed  there is an unbearable wait which seems to go on and on. Then  a  whispered conversation between a judge and the compere who taps his microphone to announce  that after careful, difficult consideration  Inca Peekaboo Connor is the winner!

There are gasps and tears - not just from the finalists. It's difficult not to get caught up in all the emotion.  

Inca will lead the parade in May as it make it's way around Spalding for the last time, before going on to fulfil her duties as queen in the coming year. 

What happens after that is anybody's guess. Maybe the Flower Queen will return at some point or maybe it will  just become a detail of the past as austerity and Tesco-towns  increasingly come to dominate the landscape and mentality  of the UK.




Good luck Inca!

Inca Peekaboo Honnor, Spalding Flower Queen 2013.

Thanks to Kenyon Communications.