Good Friday Pilgrimage

On Good Friday a lot of people from Bolton and the surrounding area walk up Rivington Pike to the north of the town. There is a small fair selling things like candyfloss and balloons- a bit incongruous on top of a hill. Some people had brought hard boiled eggs to roll, whilst local teenagers had brought hard boiled eggs to throw at each other.

Exhibition at Bolton Museum

photographing the natives

 

 

A Dutchman once told me that his country had no uneasy relationship with its colonial past, that in fact it had no colonies and was no where near as bad as 'your country'. He was talking shit; leaving aside the bizarre festival of  Black Peter and the whole being the centre of international slave trade thing; the new god, wikipedia has them down with eleven colonies. This relationship is explored at the amazing Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, which may tread an uneasy line but is indisputably entertaining. What's this got to do with 1930's Bolton? Ethnography, anthropology and photographing the natives. 

How to hold a Surrealist Exhibition 1

Marcel Duchamp 'Mile of String' 1942

The Man who listened to Britain

A documentary film about Humphrey Jennings, one of the founders of Mass Observation, who went on to make some remarkable war films for the Crown Film Unit during World War 2. As the documentary observes they are intensely patriotic visions of a time when  Britain became almost a socialist state during the levelling of the Blitz.

Christmas Eve Shopping

Tom Harrisson's suggestions for initial Mass-Observation study

Behaviour of people at war memorials.

Shouts and gestures of motorists.

The aspidistra cult.

Anthropology of football pools.

Bathroom behaviour.

Beards, armpits, eyebrows.

Anti-Semitism.

Distribution, diffusion and significance of the dirty joke.

Funerals and undertakers.

Female taboos about eating.

The private lives of midwives.

Winter Bolton 2010 vs. Summer Blackpool 1937

Not too much in it...

Tim Brennan's English Anxieties

Tim Brennan's response to a commission to explore the Mass Observation Archive takes in the nature of the material as a collage, and the story of how T.C. Lethbridge, archaeologist and explorer thought that he had found traces of enemy occupation in coded rubbish trails in Cambridgeshire. More information available on the John Hansard Gallery website here

Bonfire Night display at Leverhulme Park

Music played by Bolton FM's live DJ included:

'Saturday Night' by Whigfield
'Fix You' by Coldplay
'The Greatest Day' by Take That
'Angels' by Robbie Williams

 

"Although full of Nazi propaganda they were very decent fellows..."

Dear Sir,

May I first excuse myself for the late arrival of this letter, as I have very little to write about. The holidays have not been very eventful, the only "high spot" being the fortnight spent at the Anglo-German Camp at Llanddulas, near Abergele. The camping ground was well-situated, climbing and sea bathing both being near. Here we became acquainted with nine members of the Hitler Youth party. Although full of Nazi propaganda they were very decent fellows and were the cause of many long discussions. We quickly became the best of friends and went climbing, bathing and visiting Rhyl, Colwyn Bay, etc. together. The end of camp came much too soon and we left with both parties looking forward to the Christmas camp in Bavaria. The rest of my holiday has been spent in Bolton and my time has been spent in playing cricket, football, tennis and ping-pong. The latter part of it has been rather dismal, as my two friends; Leman and Schofield have both taken the "big leap" and started work and I shall not be too sorry when Friday morning arrives,

Yours Sincerely,

K. Coates

From the Mass Observation Worktown Holiday Competition 1937

 

 

Snow Coincidence

Mass-Observation was the product of Surrealism, for example the idea that 'coincidences' such as the burning down of Crystal Palace in November 1936 were omens through which the 'otherwise repressed condition of the British people materialized'. The Surrealists claimed that this fire was popularly regarded as a harbinger of war in Britain, These ideas of mass consciousness led Charles Madge, one of the founders of M-O to conclude that 'only mass observations can produce mass science'. Mass-Observation was intended as a way of recording and interpreting these omens of universal consciousness, a concept which might seem kind of wacky in comparison to the structured methodologies of contemporary sociology.

I wonder then what the Surrealists would have made of the 'coincidence' of the recent heavy snow and deep freeze in Britain: perhaps a portent of climate change or deepening economic recession. Actually, then, not so far away from editorial comment in national papers, or opinions that friends and strangers have expressed to me. So I went to look for omens in the snow at Bolton's Moses Gate Country Park. Also just to photograph people sledging... nice to see the traditions continue- brightly coloured broken plastic, teenage boys using giant tarpaulins and paddling pools as sledges, terrified children having to be rescued from the pile up at the bottom of the slope by their dads, the satisfying air of potential danger.......

(Quotes taken from 'The Most Offending Soul Alive' Judith M. Heimann's biography of Tom Harrisson)

     All images © Caroline Edge 2010

I've drawn no conclusions yet.....

A favourite....

 
Copyright Humphrey Spender/Bolton MBC. Collection of Bolton Museum Libraries and Archives Service

The Worktown archive of Humphrey Spender's photographs consists of roughly 850 exposures. Shooting digital a photographer might easily shoot this quantity or more in a day, which of course leaves you with far more photos than are ever be needed. Even Spender's modest 850 is difficult to make sense of at first, like meeting a large group of people- some have more recognisable faces (or hair) than others, and so they become immediate favourites.

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of a Living Snowman

 

Image: Humphrey Spender, Copyright Bolton MBC. Collection of Bolton Museum Libraries and Archives Service

 

© Caroline Edge 2009