Club Meeting, ' The Documentary Approach ' - Tuesday 15th March 2022.
On Tuesday 15th March 2022, Morpeth Camera Club held a special open evening to welcome Mik Critchlow, a social
documentary photographer who has been recording the social history of his home town of Ashington for over forty
years.
Mik opened the evening with a short biography saying that rather than leaving school and going straight down the
mines, he joined the Merchant Navy, much to his family’s disappointment, to spend the next seven years travelling
worldwide. He had always been interested in art and after he returned from his travels, he studied graphic design
whose course included studying works by famous social documentary photographers. In 1977, after visiting an
exhibition of paintings by the ‘Pitmen Painters’ he realised the value of art as a social document which provided a
visual representation of everyday life. The same year he began a long-term photography project which documented
his home town of Ashington. He worked within the community with a deep-rooted empathy for the townsfolk, as he
recorded the area and its people during a rapid period of social and environmental change.
We saw images of the living conditions when he was growing up, stark monochrome scenes of the back lanes of the
miners’ colliery houses, portraits of neighbours, the football pools man, miners’ club members, drinking, or playing
dominoes, together with candid shots of football spectators, factory workers, the local butchers and cobblers. As a
graphic designer who describes himself as an accidental photographer, he started to get commissions and was given
a Northern Arts Grant to fund his project. We saw Images he took on the closing night of the last of the five cinemas
which had operated in Ashington, the annual Boxing Day Dip at Newbiggin with its then coal dusted sand, watched
by passers by in their Sunday best.
When photographing various occasions, including Miners picnics, whippet club meetings and football matches, every
one was so used to seeing him that he became part of the wallpaper, he said, which enabled him to get up close with
his 28mm lens camera to capture great candid shots. Landscapes of how North Seaton, Cambois and Blyth used to
be, were followed by stark images of sea coalers with their ponies and carts, and the Lynemouth caravan community
bogged down in mud.
After the break we appreciated seeing scenes of the collieries at Ashington, Ellington and Lynemouth before they all
closed down. It had taken years for Mik to get permission to take images there, albeit with strict rules and instructions
to be adhered to. He had a compulsory guide, who was the Health and Safety Officer, the presence of whom sometimes
affected the atmosphere of camaraderie and spontaneity. Portraits of apprentices, the locomotive mechanic, the colliery
manager, workshops, the blacksmiths office, shots of the entrance to the drift mine, coal washing, pit canteen ladies
famous for their steam puddings, stokers, and a very poignant shot of the ‘Last Man Out’ before closure.
Posters stating ‘Big Jobs with Money to Match,’ and ‘No Contraband’ and the clocking in board took the audience back
in time. Mik commented that time puts a different slant on things, people in his photographs seemed old back then,
but looking back; actually, they were relatively young. He captured evocative images of the last shift emerging, of their
coal covered clothes discarded in a heap, old photographs of the football teams hanging on the wall, angry graffiti and
a forlorn, empty bait room with walls covered in faded pin up posters.
Memories were captured at the closing party at the club, depicting a band of brothers. There were fathers, uncles and
sons and friends to whom mining was family, where everyone looked out for each other and was inclusive, whatever
their disability. Mik went on to show images of the area as it is today, Woodhorn Colliery, now a tourist attraction, and
the local butcher, corner shops and cobblers have been replaced by fast food outlets and supermarkets.
Mik described his work as a slice of life captured, and quoted a saying from one social documentary photographer;
‘Memory is an unreliable tool, photographs are the best memory one could have.’ His work is an act of remembrance,
taken for posterity, he said. A series of atmospheric portraits of local characters, together with anecdotes of their lives
concluded his great presentation. Throughout the evening, one could hear audience reaction to a period of time with
which they could associate and recognise from a time not so long ago in their own lives. With a flowing, seamless
dialogue Mik certainly succeeded in evoking many memories of our local mining industry.
Steph.
documentary photographer who has been recording the social history of his home town of Ashington for over forty
years.
Mik opened the evening with a short biography saying that rather than leaving school and going straight down the
mines, he joined the Merchant Navy, much to his family’s disappointment, to spend the next seven years travelling
worldwide. He had always been interested in art and after he returned from his travels, he studied graphic design
whose course included studying works by famous social documentary photographers. In 1977, after visiting an
exhibition of paintings by the ‘Pitmen Painters’ he realised the value of art as a social document which provided a
visual representation of everyday life. The same year he began a long-term photography project which documented
his home town of Ashington. He worked within the community with a deep-rooted empathy for the townsfolk, as he
recorded the area and its people during a rapid period of social and environmental change.
We saw images of the living conditions when he was growing up, stark monochrome scenes of the back lanes of the
miners’ colliery houses, portraits of neighbours, the football pools man, miners’ club members, drinking, or playing
dominoes, together with candid shots of football spectators, factory workers, the local butchers and cobblers. As a
graphic designer who describes himself as an accidental photographer, he started to get commissions and was given
a Northern Arts Grant to fund his project. We saw Images he took on the closing night of the last of the five cinemas
which had operated in Ashington, the annual Boxing Day Dip at Newbiggin with its then coal dusted sand, watched
by passers by in their Sunday best.
When photographing various occasions, including Miners picnics, whippet club meetings and football matches, every
one was so used to seeing him that he became part of the wallpaper, he said, which enabled him to get up close with
his 28mm lens camera to capture great candid shots. Landscapes of how North Seaton, Cambois and Blyth used to
be, were followed by stark images of sea coalers with their ponies and carts, and the Lynemouth caravan community
bogged down in mud.
After the break we appreciated seeing scenes of the collieries at Ashington, Ellington and Lynemouth before they all
closed down. It had taken years for Mik to get permission to take images there, albeit with strict rules and instructions
to be adhered to. He had a compulsory guide, who was the Health and Safety Officer, the presence of whom sometimes
affected the atmosphere of camaraderie and spontaneity. Portraits of apprentices, the locomotive mechanic, the colliery
manager, workshops, the blacksmiths office, shots of the entrance to the drift mine, coal washing, pit canteen ladies
famous for their steam puddings, stokers, and a very poignant shot of the ‘Last Man Out’ before closure.
Posters stating ‘Big Jobs with Money to Match,’ and ‘No Contraband’ and the clocking in board took the audience back
in time. Mik commented that time puts a different slant on things, people in his photographs seemed old back then,
but looking back; actually, they were relatively young. He captured evocative images of the last shift emerging, of their
coal covered clothes discarded in a heap, old photographs of the football teams hanging on the wall, angry graffiti and
a forlorn, empty bait room with walls covered in faded pin up posters.
Memories were captured at the closing party at the club, depicting a band of brothers. There were fathers, uncles and
sons and friends to whom mining was family, where everyone looked out for each other and was inclusive, whatever
their disability. Mik went on to show images of the area as it is today, Woodhorn Colliery, now a tourist attraction, and
the local butcher, corner shops and cobblers have been replaced by fast food outlets and supermarkets.
Mik described his work as a slice of life captured, and quoted a saying from one social documentary photographer;
‘Memory is an unreliable tool, photographs are the best memory one could have.’ His work is an act of remembrance,
taken for posterity, he said. A series of atmospheric portraits of local characters, together with anecdotes of their lives
concluded his great presentation. Throughout the evening, one could hear audience reaction to a period of time with
which they could associate and recognise from a time not so long ago in their own lives. With a flowing, seamless
dialogue Mik certainly succeeded in evoking many memories of our local mining industry.
Steph.