Images of West County Durham
Regular price
€21.99
A unique look at daily life in the 1960s as change hit long-established industries and communities around Durham, Darlington, and the hills of North-East England. Coalmining in particular was in serious decline, but cutbacks were hitting factories and infrastructure like the railways, too. These hauntingly beautiful scenes are sharp reminders of the human cost as old certainties were swept away. Yet woven through these previously unpublished photographs are threads of young people enjoying themselves, brave hopes for the future captured in new motorways, and the enduring local character of the countryside, market towns, and Durham Cathedral. Durham, Darlington & County Durham: Images of the North East in the 1960s teases out of the scenery some of the wider forces at work, not just in Durham, but in many other parts of Britain's industrial heartland. Rich insocial commentary, this is an affectionate and detailed portrayal of one of the North East's most transformative decades.
Richard Gaunt was born in Lancashire and grew up in Darlington. He attended QEGS Darlington and Corpus Christi College Cambridge with a working life covering the steel, construction and chemicals industries as well as local government, and more than twenty years as a director of a research consultancy. Gaunt is an accomplished photographer - his work has appeared in The Guardian, Steam Railway, and in two books of photographs of steam engines from the 1960s. He lives in Cardiff with his wife Elizabeth.