Additional material
Everybody has a story to tell
The following is a short story entry for Everybody has a story to tell.
Exhibition to be held at Peckham Levels along with small publication.
Dream city
The landline rang around 2AM. This was before the time of mobile phones or even pagers so I knew straight away it must be work. Or, maybe my girlfriend who I'd dropped off at Luton airport earlier that day, out with the girls and wanting to tell me she was missing me already. Fat chance! There'd been an arson attack at a porn cinema in Kings Cross. They wanted me in urgently. A number of people had died. The DI told me to go straight there and meet with Night Duty CID. It was winter in 1994. My girlfriend always went to Lanzarote at that time. I never went because it was the girls really; but mostly I hated taking time off work. I was a young DC just making my way in the Job and always working, looking for opportunities to get onto the Squads. It was exciting, working Kings Cross especially. I was fascinated by the people who crept around there at night time. A different world. So I knew there'd be some sort of craziness involved and people who I could get into.
I was there in around 40 minutes. There were the usual cordons put up with fire crews. Only Night Duty CID there, they'd struggled to get anyone else out of bed on a Saturday night. In those days you could just blank it and say you never got the call. But I always went in. They knew I'd always work, and that’s why I'd always get the call, the secondments to Squads.
I was told there were bodies upstairs and we'd need to ID them as soon as possible so that next of kin could be alerted. In those days Risk Assessments were verbal and you just got on with it. Night Duty gave me some exhibits bags and one of the fire officers led me upstairs. It was dark and we made our way to the top floor. There were smoke remains and that smell stays on you, like the smell of death. I remember thinking, this can't be safe so soon afterwards but I said nothing and just looked around trying to make out bodies.
I remember the first person I came across was barely recognisable as a human form. I knelt down, gloves on and went through the pockets removing a Driving licence from a wallet. I put this into a bag and moved on to the next and kept going. I was looking up expecting to see someone else but I was now completely on my own upstairs, with other officers downstairs at the cordon. I thought this couldn't be right, but kept going to get it done quickly. There was some makeshift lighting and my small torch. I never looked at anyone's face, didn't even try to. I was just after ID, Driving licences or work cards, anything which would help. I remember thinking that most of the people who'd died, and there were eleven, were from out of London. That's the kind of area Kings Cross was then. People would come to it for sex, drugs and criminal activity a lot of the time, especially at night. I'd been working there for around 7 years, and as a Detective it was a great place. I had everything sorted in seperate exhibits paper bags like we always used and then it was back to the station to get everything logged in and let the DI know what I'd done. He was a good guy, always looked after me and made sure I got the good calls and overtime. You'd work round the clock often, adrenalin would carry you through. Not married and no kids just running around nicking people every day, on the way to and from work sometimes. Always looking around, knowing everyone; where they should, and shouldn’t be.
Logged all the property in from the scene and soon other Detectives were now coming in, called in from other stations and areas to make up the Murder Squad. These were really sought after. A chance to get away from the ordinary crime investigation and always a good earner. A way to get known and get on.
Because I was first in I'd be staying. I did the post mortems and the family liaison. Very little sleep and buying fresh shirts in the Holloway Road because I had no time for washing and you could never get rid of the smell. I threw most of them out.
Speaking with the families was never easy and this before any courses on dealing with events like these took place. Nothing really prepares you anyway. I was young, mid twenties and dealing with families of the bereaved with no real life experience. It's where I really started to learn how to speak with people properly. You took pride in it.
The cinema was a porn cinema called the "Dream City" cinema and hard core. The press picked up the story very quickly with the usual headlines and saying that some of the men were dressed up in stockings and the like. What this meant was that when families came in to speak with me they always pressed me on this and asked if they could have the clothing returned. On speaking with family members I soon began to see that they felt some sense of shame and they had no idea what their partner, son, or brother had been doing. I remember them saying that they just couldn't face telling neighbours or friends what had happened. You see the look of pain in their eyes and that can stay with you.
The person responsible gave himself up a couple of days later. He'd had an argument with the door man at the venue over entry and returned later having got some petrol in a can and set the place alight. This was caught on CCTV at a nearby petrol station when we did house to house enquiries. He was found guilty at the Old Bailey. Whenever I'm up in that area I always look in that direction.
Summer Show Exhibition
Following on from a very constructive 1-1 with Head of MA Fine Art Printmaking Jo Love on the 15th May further considerations for the presentation of the material has been made. These are shown on the additional sketch plan below.
I will also further research the work of Elena Damiani, Anselm Kiefer and Herzog and De Meuron. (Https://www.herzogdemeuron.com)
The title of the work itself, “Gwaith Taclus” (Precision Work) being relevant to the work site Cross Engineering where I have both taken a number of photographs and constructed various pieces will be further visited for these purposes.
The words “Gwaith Taclus” to be printed/stencilled onto some of the pieces and the assemblage itself.
Consideration also to be made to the printing of additional images onto paper to go along with the main piece.
They have also commissioned me with producing a number of prints from the work I have undertaken and will continue to do for their newly appointed Conference room and Reception areas.
Further
During the Easter college three week break I attended Pontarddulais library as part of my research into the industries of that area. Both the copper and tin plate industries were very prevalent in the area from the 1800s' onwards. There were some beautiful photographs in their archives and which they very kindly permitted me to scan. Having spoken with librarian Phil Hovvels I am hopeful of having a number of my prints displayed on their walls later this year along with a book which I am planning for the conclusion of the course at the Research Festival.
Research at the library also revealed some interesting facts relating to the Rebecca Riots in Pontardulais on the 6th September 1843 and the close association the poet Dylan Thomas had with the area.
The public houses of the "Ty Coch” (The Red House) and the Red Cow were established early in the 19th century and were focal points for employees at the Pontardulais Tin Plate works of 1866.
I have also attended the Pontarddulais Working Mens Club. This, along with the rugby club remains a real focal point of the community and when I attended in April the “Workies” had a number of prints and paintings from local artists displayed. The history of these clubs is fundamental to the Welsh way of life and they were extremely active during the Miners Strike of 1984-85. I obtained a number of photographs at these locations, one celebrating “Mothers Day” and others showing the importance of snooker which has long been a tradition in the valleys and produced a number of World champions. I was fortunate in meeting with several of these in such snooker halls growing up, Doug Mountjoy being a favourite. Whilst often referred to as a "mis spent youth" these were fascinating venues where camaraderie and friendships were made. Similarly the rugby club was an environment where character and resilience were forged.
I have again approached both venues with a view to providing a number of my prints from the engineering works series to be displayed over the summer period when I plan to spend a number of weeks down there.
The Welsh language is actively spoken in the Pontarddulais, Hendy and Gowerton areas and I have always striven to maintain my knowledge since being in London, some forty years now. I have approached the local secondary school nearest to the engineering works (Ysgol Gwyr, Gowerton) and where a number of my family attended and studied their GCSEs and A levels in Welsh again with a view to displaying a number of my prints and in speaking with current students.
I attended the Ysgol Rhydaman nearby whose emblem was the Twrch Trwyth (Wild Boar) famed within the “Mabinogion". There is a sculpture of the Twrch Trwyth as you enter the town and I have photographed and used this on one piece of resolved work on a salvaged piece of metal to create a heraldic effect and also on a number of different surfaces in the support section of my current practice.
In May I attended the Carmarthen College of Art where I spoke with senior lecturer Huw Alden Davies who also produced the book “Scaffold to the Moon” which I have referred to elsewhere in the website. This was a very enjoyable experience and I spoke with Huw regarding his themes. I also had the opportunity of speaking with current students about living and studying in Wales. I would certainly like to maintain contact with both Huw and the college.
I have also established contact with the South Wales Guardian and the Swansea Evening Post in relation to archive material for photographs in relation to local industry and in particular the Morfa, Copper works often referred to as the “Copperopolis” (Book on the subject “Copperopolis: Landscapes of the Early Industrial Period in Swansea” by Stephen Hughes, originally published in 2000 in Aberystwyth, Wales. And which has some 339 beautiful illustrations.
Collaboration
Collaboration with Phd Mathematics student Alfie Davies.
The proposed project is for a art installation entitled Veins of the Valley. This would transform the locations of the disused coal tips in South Wales into a visual narrative using a modified Travelling Salesman Problem algorithm and/or slime mold algorithms based on Physarum polycephalum.
The installation would consist of a topographical map of South Wales rendered in dark materials (e.g. recycled coal waste), where each disused coal tip would be marked. The points would be connected by thin lines of copper, following an optimised network grown by the aforementioned algorithms.
This approach not only captures the geography of these industrial remnants, but it also evokes the organic veining of coal seams themselves. The installation could be augmented with subtle ambient audio featuring oral histories from mining communities.