Captured a lovely moment (>>>swipe>>>) between @shina_collins and @thebearded_skot at @durhamminersgala on Saturday.
I’m not a natural at the job of stopping people and asking them to be on camera. To be totally honest I find it exhausting. Getting to meet good people, witness moments like this and relive them later makes it more than worthwhile though.
Respect to @ameliajread (whose work I’ve admired for some time - check it out) for capturing me looking almost human on the day I’ve felt most knackered and hung over in a long time (thank you @durhamminersgala) . Photos of me are rare and photos of me (almost) smiling are even rarer, so I thought I’d nick this one for a profile pic. Especially as I’m in one of my favourite places - The Pitman’s Parliament at @redhillsdurham
This was taken during a fantastic event put on by @jrf_uk and @nomorenowt with @robhopkins5085
Great stuff keeps happening at Redhills - get involved!
Durham Peace Mural 40 Years will be at Durham Miners' Gala 2026 🙌
Come and see archive images of Durham's 60ft peace mural, started in 1986 and unveiled at the Gala in 1987 - share your memories and help us build towards its 40th anniversary in 2027. 👈
See the display & find out more in the No More Nowt tent in the Redhills Village.
Big thanks to @nomorenowt for supporting the Peace Mural stall at this year's Gala ✊
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The Durham Miners Gala is one of the world's biggest celebrations of community, international solidarity, and working class culture. Each year, on the second Saturday in July, the Gala becomes an incredible showcase of collective action, hope, resilience and unity.
As the Gala grows, it continues to add breadth and depth to its programme. For 2026, a new dedicated section on the main Gala field will be established. Redhills Village draws together arts, culture, heritage and science in a new future focused arts and cultural space. Sitting in natural conversation with the historic Gala offering, Redhills Village is where 'the past we inherit' meets 'the future we build'.
Produced by Building Culture in partnership with Redhills, for the Durham Miners Gala.
The wind that shakes the barley
I hope this lady doesn’t mind that I filmed her doing these figure 8’s I just thought it was lovely
The old fanhouse for Eden Colliery (and later Woodside Drift) on Instax Wide. Saved from demolition by resident bats. Love concrete, love bats, love a good industrial ruin. Ambivalent about Instax - it’s like playing roulette. One overexposure, one chemical leakage, one under exposure and one (the first of this carousel) like Goldilocks’ porridge.
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#instaxwide #industrialruins #batsarecool
A day of Peace Mural research & moving the 40 year revival project forward.
It’s starting to feel very real & exciting. More & more people getting on board, making plans.
Follow @durham.peace.mural to keep up with progress. Drop me a message if you want to get involved - memories of the original mural or just a desire to engage with community art making, public expressions of solidarity, environmental concerns and hope for world peace in the 21st century all welcome!
One of The Old Transformers, watching over the West Durham Coalfield valleys. Clip from my forthcoming documentary Ghost Train.
I wrote a thing: “A gentle plea for a small change to the way we describe the place we call home.” Words shape how we understand what happened to places like the Durham coalfield. “Post-industrial” suggests something that just passed through, but that’s not what happened here. What happened was political, deliberate and well documented. I’ve written about why I think “deindustrialised” is the more honest word. Link in bio.
Lovely to spend a whole day in the fantastically leveled-up Redhills Durham yesterday, filming No More Nowt’s gathering to kick off the creative year for Durham’s artists and organisations. Great to see so many familiar faces - hopefully there will be more like this soon and we’ll get to see those who were missed yesterday.
Well done Ogre Studio for organising a successful day & many thanks for bringing me along.
A total of 3 people out of 50 got the joke on my name badge.
The Wolf Moon has been a delight lately.
These 3 photos are always getting mixed up in my head. Had to get it straight…
1. Keith Pattison’s image of Ascot Street with mother and child in window
2. Detail of window
3. Detail showing lamppost number E15
4. Chris Killip’s photo of same house on Ascot Street (note number on lamppost)
5. Detail showing lamppost number
6. Killip’s photo of child in window near colliery in Yorkshire.
7. Detail of window
Keith’s photo from his book No Redmption. Killip’s both from his book In Flagrante.
Several years ago I worked out who the chap in the doorway in Killip’s photo on Ascot Street was, but he is no longer with us. Last year @narbiprice met the current residents of the house by chance when they saw his painting of it at Durham Miners’ Gala. Funny how places and images cross over and cluster and connections are made in our own minds but then through art and the randomness of life, in the real world too. I wonder where the children in the two windows are now…
Looking back at 2025, and forward to 2026.
A year of progress on Ghost Train, client work I actually believe in (Point North, No More Nowt, Durham Miners’ Gala), the Durham Creative Community Fellowship, and the start of something new around the Durham Peace Mural.
2026: finishing Ghost Train, getting the Peace Mural revival underway, and continuing to chip away at longer-term projects.
An enormous thank you to everyone I’ve worked and played with this year.
Full post on Substack - link in bio.
Thanks @jazzpixie @thebearded_skot @jackiestonehouseartist and @nocciolathedrawer for a few of the images
Stone arch over a cutting that once carried limestone and coal from the Durham dales to the Tyne. The railway opened in 1834 but didn’t last long. The path now runs for miles through what the industry left behind.
Still from Ghost Train, a documentary film currently in post production.
Christmas Eve walk in the edgelands of west Durham to burn off some of the jumping beans making the kids bounce off the festive walls.
Surfers at Tynemouth, November 2025
A few of the more haunted sites (and sights) from my Ghost Train project. Still working on it - got a few more contributions to film and then the final cut to edit. Should be ready for public release by Halloween 2026 🎃👻🚂
Getting caught out in the middle of nowhere after sundown is one of the great pleasures of the clocks going back. I recommend it.
Bethany and Jude of the Tommy Armstrong Society performing Tommy’s song ‘Durham Lockout’ (with updated lyrics by @bethany_elen_music) outside what was once the Tommy Armstrong Centre in Stanley, County Durham.
Filmed as part of my ongoing documentary project Ghost Train looking at the former mining communities of the West Durham coalfield. More info linked in bio.
Ghost Train began as an @intothelightdurham #cultivatecommission supported@by @nomorenowt and @nheartlands
