Inside The Fort

Photography, cameras, (dis)ability and empowerment.

Length of this post: long. Words: a lot. Pictures: a significant number. Apologies for that: none.

Almost 40 years ago, in 1987, I undertook a photography project with two men with ‘learning disabilities’ in the small West Highland town of Fort wiliam where I was born.

Malcolm (left) and Tommy (right) with a photo board of their work on display in the day centre as they practised © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

Tommy, a man with Down Syndrome, was moving into community living after more than 20 years in an institution. The other man, Malcolm, had suffered meningitis when young and it had caused brain damage. Malcolm was regarded locally as ‘the village idiot’ because of his rather unorthodox behaviour, not helped by his epileptic seizures and somewhat dishevelled appearance. But he was well respected by many and at least one prominent local businessman quietly ensured Malcolm had a decent new winter coat every few years (one of the benefits of living in a small community). He was a man I’d known since I was a child as he’d lived with his parents in a tiny wooden cottage in the glen close to where I lived. I’d regularly see him coming and going when I was out playing and he’d always talk and gently, humorously, tease my friends and me. He was very fond of my parents especially my mum, and they reciprocated, joining in his fun, and they often had hilarious interactions.

However Malcolm’s shabby exterior masked an astonishing brain and his abilities, rather ironically I think, were known only to a certain sector of the community – those who frequented the betting shop where Malcolm ‘worked’ off and on as a bookie’s clerk.  Malcolm could calculate incredibly complicated odds, involving each way bets, multiple odds and roll-ups ALL in his head, and do so spectacularly quickly. He was never wrong. This ability spilled over into crossword solving and car number plate recall. Malcolm could breeze through most cryptic crosswords with ease no matter how complex, and recall the car numbers of everyone he’d ever met. Whatever damage the meningitis had caused to some parts of his cortex, it had triggered neural activity in others that was remarkable. Including a well-developed and infectiously impish sense of humour.

Busker in Fort William underpass ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

And so one year we three set out on our photographic project. Both men attended a Social Work Day Centre I was employed in and this was my final year project submission for my Social Work Qualification.  The idea I’d come up with was simple – to enable Tommy to meet the community he would live in, through photographing the various people who provide the day to day support we all rely on – the bin man, the doctor, the minister, the bus driver, the shopkeeper etc. The idea was that this ‘exploration of community’ would allow Tommy to interact with these various people through the medium of an ‘intellectual’ activity, photography, and do so on the basis of his abilities rather than any perceived disabilities.

For Malcolm it was all about something he loved doing: getting out and about, meeting people, talking, interacting, laughing, basically ‘getting the craic’, and maybe doing some artistic stuff into the bargain. Differing aims for each man, but through a common activity, photography. My role was to oversee their endeavours, provide guidance on gaining community access, teaching camera handling skills etc and maintaining a diary of activity for my college submission.

Steam train driver. Man and machine in perfect symmetry. © Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

We started by engaging in a process of learning how to use cameras (a Nikon slr and a Ricoh compact, both using HP5), playing with controls and basic techniques for handling and focusing, and writing and sending out letters to try to gain access to various private situations such as factories, distilleries, railway yards etc. Slowly over a few weeks permissions for access started to flow in, and we realised this might work, and so the two men began actually photographing, in ‘private’ work locations and quite often in public, in shops, supermarket etc

My initial thoughts had been that this was a social skills project, but as the two men laboured on, learning camera skills and starting to produce images, I was astonished at what I was witnessing. Every night after an outing I’d process their film and make contact sheets, often printing out a few of the images for them to share, and next day we’d review the contacts and think about the process.  But with each passing day, each darkroom session, I could see the resulting work was utterly remarkable. It was insightful, often infused with humour, sometimes capturing easily-overlooked details, and I started to realise these two men were capturing a huge slice of ‘community’ – one they had been born into, and for various reasons partly excluded from, but here were being received with generosity and warmth simply through the act of creating with cameras.

They laboured diligently through a year and produced a remarkable body of work. It was picked up (as a Social Work social skills/art project) by leading UK social care magazines, and then the wider local and national press and went on to be toured nationally winning the two men a major arts award into the bargain.

But what surprised me and taught me a huge lesson (amongst many other lessons) was the reaction from people when they were confronted by the camera. One specific situation was in a shop when the assistant, who knew Malcolm really well and had put him out of the shop several times previously over many years for trying to kiss her – an old trick of his – said “What are you doing with a camera Malcolm!” and Malcolm explained about the project whilst I hung back behind a shelf aisle out of sight and listened.  “There’s no film in that” she went on laughing. “Away with you, you rascal“. And Malcolm calmly did as I’d suggested which was to get the subject to move to a suitable background by politely asking and directing gently, and as the woman did as she was asked, she continued to say “Ha ha there’s no film in that camera!“. But she did as she was told! And both Malcolm and Tommy took her photograph.

Shop assistant. © Malcolm McPhee/Inside The Fort

And I was astonished. Normally Malcolm without a camera giving directions to someone would be ignored, but here now holding a Nikon he was empowered in some rather delightful way. The camera had somehow legitimized his intrusion into the ‘normal’ world in a way that I found remarkable.

Workers in paper mill. © Malcolm McPhee/Inside The Fort

This happened several times subsequently, and each time reinforced my growing awareness of the totemic value of cameras. When we returned to the same shop a week later to present a nice 10×8 b&w print (which we did often) the woman was both delighted  and bemused “So there was film in that camera! I thought you were kidding me Malcolm!”

Elderly resident in care home. © Malcolm McPhee/Inside The Fort

These two men had the launch of their nationally toured exhibition in Edinburgh, in a big venue, with lots of people and in the visitors book was left the following comment:

“Despite the fact I’ve been earning a living with cameras for 30  years, having viewed this exhibition, I now realize I cannot call myself a photographer“.

Manager of Care Home for the elderly. Malcolm explained this image having an empty chair included because he felt it symbolized the ‘absent friends’, the elderly residents who have passed away. © Malcolm McPhee/Inside The Fort

We went to an Edinburgh pub in late afternoon following their Edinburgh exhibition, to have a meal before the long drive home to the Highlands. Tommy and I sat with the drinks I’d bought us whilst Malcolm went to check out the food menu on the wall behind the bar. I watched him wander over, doing his usual shuffle, several daily papers stuffed into his pockets, and talking to himself “hmm pie ‘n chips, no , hm, maybe fish pie, ha fish! Well maybe steak and kidney pie?” and so on. Next thing I see is the barman shouting at Malcolm to get out. And what followed was shameful, and an insight into the prejudiced ignorance that people with any form of disability have to contend with. The contrast with our earlier exhibition experience with these two artists being celebrated will live with me forever. As will my anger.

I confronted the barman and the two giggling customers he was standing with and showing off to, and asked him what the problem was, pointing out that the two men were award-winning photographers who’d just been at their own exhibition launch. He ignored me and aggressively said “He’s drunk, he can get out”. I replied “No he’s not drunk, the only person here’s who’s not in control of himself is you.“  To which he retorted “Ok all of you out I’m not serving you, he’s drunk“.  I went back to the seat with Malcolm to where Tommy was sitting agitated and on the verge of tears, and he asked me “John why is that man throwing us out, Malcolm’s not been drinking he’s not done anything wrong?”  A good question I thought so I turned to the barman who’d followed us to ensure we actually left, and asked him to explain to Tommy why he was throwing us out.

Tommy stood looking expectantly at the barman, and put on the spot by it, the barman stammered in response, pointing to Tommy but directing his gaze to me “Well he can stay, but he’s out“, and indicated towards Malcolm.  Anyway, briefly, I got very very angry and made my feelings quite clear about ignorance, intelligence, serving the public, human rights and a lot more, and we left, with no food and with a real damper put on the end of what should have been a wonderfully celebratory day. I have to confess we left because I was on the verge of committing an assault.  It was another insight for me into the ways that people with ‘hidden disabilities’ can be discriminated against, publicly, blatantly and with complete disregard for their feelings.

Petrol pump attendant with telephone on his head. © Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Sadly Malcolm passed away far too soon, several years later. He’d suffered a major and prolonged seizure which caused further brain damage leaving him unable to talk or walk, and with eating difficulties, but thankfully with his sense of humour still intact. Sadly his health deteriorated and he succumbed to further seizures which prematurely ended his life. Tommy continued to enjoy independent living in the community for several years, exploring far wider horizons than he’d ever imagined in the institution, until his untimely death.

However the work the two individuals produced delighted, astonished and educated me and many others, their exhibition had a bit of a life in the years afterwards and was enjoyed by many people. Today their work still attracts attention, whenever I post images on Social Media it reaffirms for viewers the vital role of art, the value of community, and the importance of documentary photography.  As time has passed these images have taken on a different meaning, crucially showing a pivotal period in West Highland economic history as industry such as the Corpach Paper Mill closed, overlapping with the rise of marine aquaculture.

The two men’s ‘local’ status also meant they were familiar to many of the subjects of their photographs, in fact several of those photographed were old school pals of Malcolm, some were drinking buddies, others frequenters of the betting shop Malcolm occasionally worked in, allowing some wonderful friendly interactions as they teased him gently about his new career as an artist! As a consequence the two men have created a record of ordinary working people who make up a community, and done so with a degree of insight that I doubt any ‘outside’ photographer could have achieved.

These two men have produced a significant body of work and the least I can do is scan more of it, post it, celebrate our small community, and celebrate also their photographic endeavours. The project title I chose 40 years ago was “Inside The Fort” a play on words describing ‘The Fort’, the affectionate name we locals call Fort William, and ‘Inside’ because in many ways these two men, simply by accident of birth, had in some ways been excluded. I felt that through undertaking this work they might be able to more easily be “Inside The Fort”.  And I think they succeeded. In showing us ‘their’ community as they saw it, they simply showed us our community.

Railway office staff clowning around. © Malcolm McPhee/Inside The Fort

I’ve said it before and offer no apologies for saying it again: Photography is a remarkable activity. Cameras can open doors into new areas of experience that would otherwise be closed to you. But the process of becoming a photographer, and the act of doing photography, can change you in ways you cannot even imagine. These two men were chosen pretty much at random, and had no previous experience of photography, yet with modest support to explore their creativity they produced some remarkably perceptive work, and grew considerably as a result. How many other similar individuals, dismissed as having a ‘disability’, are denied this opportunity, and how much poorer are we as a society as a consequence?

Prejudice builds on the very few differences that separate us. Creativity can unite us on the basis of the far greater amount we have in common.

Creativity is more than just an indulgence, it’s a vital part of being alive.

The images below are by Tommy Sutherland, then Malcolm’s are further down. There are far more images by Tommy than by Malcolm. Tommy used a small Ricoh AF compact which proved a great success, enabling far more images in focus and correctly exposed. The Auto Focus function  removed the focus difficulties and enabled more spontaneous image-making. Malcolm used a Miranda SLR on occasion initially but most often used a Nikon FM2 with a wideangle lens, and whilst this wide lens provided better depth-of-field in some circumstances, in others the need to manually focus quickly proved of lesser interest to Malcolm than having an animated blether with people! Consequently although Malcolm had a great social interaction experiences on each outing, his in-focus success rate was a bit lower. There were also occasions when due to his somewhat erratic lifestyle he might not show up when expected and so I would only have Tommy for certain visits. However the quantity of images the two men made is really not important, what matters is the experience they had, the social and creative rewards they earned, and the sheer quality of the images they produced.

Chemist ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Supermarket assistant ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Kebab shop owner ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Fishmonger ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Camera shop assistant ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Distillers, Ben Nevis Distillery ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Distillers, Ben Nevis Distillery ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

The Excise Man monitors the distillers, Ben Nevis Distillery ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Distillery worker, Ben Nevis Distillery ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Car salesman, Macrae & Dick ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Scotrail staff ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Local Council solicitor ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Hydro Electric shop assistant ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Swimming pool lifeguard ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach Paper Mill ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach Paper Mill ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach Paper Mill ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach Paper Mill ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach Paper Mill ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach Paper Mill ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Marine Harvest fish processing plant ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Ferryman, Corran Ferry ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Ferryman, Corran Ferry ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Dentist ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach Paper Mill ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach Paper Mill ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Scotrail train driver ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Knitwear shop assistants ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Gift shop assistant ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Builder ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Petrol pump attendant ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Scottish Ambulance Service manager ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Scottish Ambulance Service manager ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Fellow workers admire Social Services minibus driver ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Swimming pool attendant ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Travel agent ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Fellow workers admire Librarians ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Hair & beauty shop assistant ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Chemist shop assistant ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Fish processor, Marine Harvest ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

Forestry Commission tree feller ©Tommy Sutherland/Inside The Fort

The images below are all by Malcolm MacPhee.

Ferryman, Corran Ferry ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Minister ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Policeman ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Forestry Commission worker ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Forestry Commission office staff ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Forestry Commission mechanic ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach paper mill ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach paper mill ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Process worker, Corpach paper mill ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Fish processor, Marine Harvest ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Marine Harvest hatchery staff ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Mechanic (this is Malcolm’s brother Neil) ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Librarian ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Cook in care home for the elderly ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

Area Hydro Electric Senior engineer & JP ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

GP in local practice ©Malcolm MacPhee/Inside The Fort

To give you some insight into the process, here’s some images I took of the two men at work with their cameras. The sheer fun they had should be obvious!

Tommy at the Marine Harvest processing facility © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

Malcolm at the Marine Harvest processing facility © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

Malcolm joking with Kate at the Marine Harvest facility © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

Tommy photographing the busker in Fort William underpass © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

Tommy photographing at Scotrail goods yard © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

Tommy and Malcolm photographing at Scotrail offices © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

Tommy photographing at Scotrail offices © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

Malcolm photographing at Marine Harvest © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

Malcolm getting teased about his love of whisky at Ben Nevis Distillery with distillery staff and the Excise Man © John MacPherson/Inside The Fort

The post ‘Inside The Fort’ appeared first on duckrabbit.

When we all made the long journey from the Highlands to visit my granny in Uddingston, which was a regular occurance through the 1960’s as she grew older and more frail, my brother and sister and I would often be bathed in front of the coal fire in the old tin bath that had also cleansed the skin of mum’s siblings and were told stories of the pit and mining. Sometimes just for atmosphere and to entertain we children, granny would light a miner’s lamp and we’d watch the shadows dancing.

My dad would take bags of fish he’d caught, salmon, trout or mackerel, down for our granny, aunts and uncles to enjoy, and they would often share some of their ‘miner’s coal allowance’ with us, and bags of this ‘black gold’ would travel back north to be used in our own flat. It would share boot space in the car with sacks of rice and flour which we’d collect from the Asian food warehouse near the city centre for our Pakistani immigrant neighbours in the Highlands who’d moved to Fort William via Glasgow and shared our block of flats, becoming our good friends.

Inside front cover double-page spread: Archive image of Jimmy Reid, Scottish trade union activist, orator, politician and journalist born in Govan, Glasgow. Jimmy Reid rose to international prominence during the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Work-in which took place between June 1971 and October 1973. The work-in was a response to the Conservative Government of Edward Heath’s plan to close down the shipyards on the Clyde, which would have cost 6,000 jobs. But rather than a strike or even a sit-in, the leaders of the unions at UCS instead decided that they could show the shipyards were viable by locking out the management so the workers could complete the orders themselves. The work-in caught the imagination of the world and everyone from Billy Connolly to John Lennon raised money for the workers with trade unions from around the globe offering their solidarity. In the end the Heath government backed down and the yards were saved. Jimmy Reid was the spokesperson for the work-in and his eloquence and passion gained him an international profile. Read more here at The Jimmy Reid Foundation.

When I left school in Fort William at 16 in the early 1970’s I went to work in the Clyde shipyards, in Yarrow’s Yard. Accommodation was in a hostel beside Victoria Park with numerous other young lads all employed as apprentices in various yards, and drawn from all over Scotland. From the Highlands there were two brothers I knew who’d been in school with me in Fort William, a lad from Kyle of Lochalsh and a couple of other fellows from further north. What was noticeable in our day-to-day interactions with various Glaswegian youths of a similar age was how much smaller than us they were. “Dont stay doon here son…” said an old welder to me one day after asking where I was from “..ye’ll end up wi nae eyesight or nae lungs wi aw this work. Look at me.” I heeded his advice, eventually.

Several of my mum’s male siblings suffered the usual pit ailments, with arthritic joints and ruined lungs, my grandad eventually succumbing to ‘Black Lung’ (pneumoconiosis, CWP). But there was also general ill-health coupled with alcoholism and depressive illness, and latterly in the late 80’s and 90’s drug misuse affected a few of my relatives, living in places like Maryhill and Drumchapel. Casting an ever-present shadow over all of this was religion, and all the tensions such strongly held beliefs manifested whether through sport or in education, something I suspect my mother went north to escape from although she would never admit it.

As an adult I would sometimes make the journey south from the Highlands to Glasgow to attend funerals of family who died ‘before their time’ after long bouts of chronic illness, events that occasionally ended in some small smoke-filled pub festooned with memorabilia reflecting deep affiliation to the Loyal Orange Order. I was always warmly welcomed into these places, whispers passed from ear-to-ear explaining who I was, with glasses of whisky appearing from some old pit buddy of whichever departed relative’s funeral we’d just attended. But always I remember far too many slightly built men, many prematurely aged, and lots of them coughing.

Annotated page excerpts from ‘The Fish That Never Swam’. Data gathered by the Glasgow Cente for Population Health (Authors: David Walsh, Gerry McCartney, Chick Collins, Martin Taulbut and David Batty).

I revisited Clydebank a few months ago to visit a relative in the Jubilee Hospital. With time to spare I decided to wander through my teenage haunts and see what changes had occurred in the 50 years since I’d worked there. Despite numerous visits to the City over the intervening decades I’d never actually walked my old route to work from Victoria Park to Yarrow’s Yard, which is now BAE Systems. So I did. It was profoundly different. Many of the old tenements have been renovated, I found a Polish deli filled with a wonderful array of foods where there once had been something I’ve now forgotten. I marvelled at BAE’s buildings, large and shinily impressive, and all around the yard many new structures have gone up, and old ones either removed or restored.

I noticed a fish and chip shop that seemed very familiar and I’m pretty certain it was present in that location in my youth; if it was, it was outside it that one night three lads from a local gang jumped a mate and I, taking exception to our intrusion in their ‘patch’ and slashing at my mate’s face with a comb, a plastic one fortunately rather than the sharpened aluminum ones some preferred, but still hard enough to leave an angry red weal down his face and eventually a thin slow trickle of blood.

Page left: Annotated page excerpts from ‘The Fish That Never Swam’. Data gathered by the Glasgow Cente for Population Health (Authors: David Walsh, Gerry McCartney, Chick Collins, Martin Taulbut and David Batty). Page right: David and his son Marshall. Image © Kirsty Mackay

I stood staring, and smiling, at the old hostel I’d lived in, now beautifully renovated, its granite walls gleaming in the autumn sun. I wandered into the grounds and spoke briefly with a big lad who was standing in the carpark, explaining that I’d lodged there decades before and was curious about what it was being used for now, as it looked very smart. He was wearing work clothes and hi-viz and I assumed he was a caretaker or gardener, and he informed me that the old hostel was now converted to luxury flats and very desirable with expensively furnished interiors.

But as he turned to look at an arriving car and wave cheerfully at its driver I noticed a huge ragged scar from his ear to the corner of his mouth…and he said: “Good tae talk to ye pal but ah need tae go now, that’s ma drugs counsellor for ma rehab session in that building therr, its no all flats an that here. Cheers, an enjoy yer wee walk.” And off he went. It was a stark reminder that whilst the facade of the city might have changed for the better in numerous ways, many of its underlying problems persist; but so also does its friendliness.

Page left: Annotated page excerpts from ‘The Fish That Never Swam’. Data gathered by the Glasgow Cente for Population Health (Authors: David Walsh, Gerry McCartney, Chick Collins, Martin Taulbut and David Batty). Page right: Punam in the close where she grew up in Hillhead. Punam now works as a GP across three practices in the city. “People are living in a huge amount of stress, which often is triggered very early on in their life. The effect of that over 5, 10, 20 years culminates in creating disease….” Image © Kirsty Mackay

Photographer Kirsty Mackay knows all this. She’s lived it. She was born into it, grew up surrounded by it and now photographs it. Her recent book ‘The Fish That Never Swam’ (History, Politics and Vulnerability. Explaining excess mortality in Scotland and Glasgow) explores the social and economic problems and the underlying politics that have shaped modern Glasgow, and continue to exert their influence. And her work is remarkable.

The foreword to the project on her website states the premise of her book in no uncertain terms; there’s no wooly artist’s statement laden with ambiguity. It’s direct and it hits hard, as it should given the subject matter:

“In Glasgow, people’s lives are cut short.

Male life expectancy in Possil is 66, in Penilee three young people took their own lives within the space of one week in June 2020, suicide in Glasgow is 30% higher than English cities, male life expectancy is 7 years short of the UK average and women’s is 4 years less. This is not isolated to areas of deprivation – Glaswegians across all social classes experience a 15% reduction in life expectancy.

The causes of Glasgow’s excess mortality lie in government policy – not with the individual and their lifestyle choices. Local, regional and central government policies created an environment where: segregation, alienation, mass unemployment, the generational trauma that followed, poverty and deprivation constitute a public health issue. During the 1970s and 80’s Glasgow was in a ‘managed decline’.

Unbeknown at the time, the city was starved of funding from Westminster.”

Kirsty Mackay pictured with her parents in Maryhill, 1971. ‘This was the first flat I lived in. It was a victorian tenement flat called a “room and kitchen”. We had this room and one bedroom, the toilet was on the landing shared with the neighbours.’ Courtesy of Kirsty Mackay

When I opened the package the book arrived in and slid it out, it tried to escape my grip, in part a consequence of the quality of its production and the stout but flexible cover, but mainly because of what lies inside and the way it is concealed, and thus causes the book to diminsh in thickness towards the edge, giving way between one’s fingers.

A quick flick through the pages revealed the cause: a book-within-a-book. The shiny ‘shell’ of the volume are pages full of copious research into excess mortality in the city undertaken by the Glasgow Cente for Population Health (Authors: David Walsh, Gerry McCartney, Chick Collins, Martin Taulbut and David Batty). It is their stark statistical work that notes objectively what living in this city is, what it looks like in data terms, what its measurements and estimates reveal as effects on the populace, and suggests why and how some of these health outcomes may have come about.

But nestling within that outer shell is a pearl, a series of images and conversations exploring the lived experience of modern Glaswegians and, crucially, explaining what that cold statistical life in their city, as reflected on those enclosing pages, actually feels like, how it shapes their individual lives and their aspirations for their futures.

The images are powerful and direct. The text captions spare and to the point. Glimpses of lives that have been jostled by circumstance or simply kicked, hard. Its an emotionally affecting read, the images underlining the personal stories these myriad voices have to tell. Whether male, female, young, old, immigrants…all of them constitute a real living breathing community often ‘represented’ only as data points on a graph in some report on ‘inner city deprivation‘ or ‘adverse health outcomes‘.

Page right: Annotated page excerpts from ‘The Fish That Never Swam’. Data gathered by the Glasgow Cente for Population Health (Authors: David Walsh, Gerry McCartney, Chick Collins, Martin Taulbut and David Batty).

From a design perspective the book is very cleverly made – the research pages are 25mm larger on the page edge and bottom than the image pages, quoting the language of the academic and occasionally underlined in pen or pencil for emphasis, but always between each page-pair of left and right there is a smaller page on higher quality stock, with an image and a caption.

Debbie holds her newborn baby, Anderston, Glasgow. That first journey home from the hospital, depending on which area home is, has a profound impact on health, well being and life expectancy. © Kirsty Mackay

That juxtaposition of stark statistical data and Kirsty’s sensitive portraits I have to confess I found profoundly moving, and the inclusion of these powerful images at a smaller page size reflects the diminished life-expectancy and opportunity many in the city experience. But thumbing through these image-rich pages  you are left in no doubt that these lives matter. Kirsty’s photographs are at once both condemnatory of the political and economic system that has inexorably shaped these people’s circumstances, yet brim full of celebration of their lives being lived as fully and richly as possible despite these deprivations.

This is an important and powerful book, one that needs to be seen, and read, and understood by those whose business it is to know such things: whether academics or politicians of whatever political persuasion. Given the current shocks to the economy caused by Brexit and Covid, the impending storm of price hikes in energy and food costs, and the looming economic and health effects of climate change, these communities photographed by Mackay are right in the front line and will undoubtedly feel the impact more deeply than many others.

And for photographers, whose work seeks to record other’s lives and to ‘give voice’, this book should provide a timely reminder that the most important ‘voices’ come from within a community, and that rather than try to speak for them, to instead allow those with roots there and who know it, respect it with all its imperfections and challenges, and who are deeply invested in its future, to be heard.

Make no mistake, this is not a book about the past, certainly it glances backwards and with a deeply critical eye, but it also looks forwards too, and towards meaningful change. It eloquently underlines that what lies behind the dry objective language of research and statistics are people, individuals who need to be afforded dignity and opportunity. ‘The Fish That Never Swam’ proclaims with a great deal of pride “In spite of the issues that affect this city we citizens thrive, as best we can. And we matter.”.

If you can afford to buy this book, do so, you will not regret it. Then read it, and share it.

You can order the book from Kirsty’s website here, where you can see more of her powerful and moving work. There’s also an excellent interview with Kirsty in Huck magazine here where she talks about her motivation for undertaking this project.

PS. We do not expect nor solicit review copies of books at duckrabbit, we buy them ourselves in order to support fellow photographers and authors.

The post The Fish That Never Swam appeared first on duckrabbit.

Words/Photos/(c)Andrew Jackson

My parents never really understood photography. They never saw it as a job, or even as work.

Work was physical afterall. It involved going to a factory or an office and, above all, work involved some sort of sacrifice.

Photography was play, pretend. It wasn’t work, because how could it be, especially if I seemed to be doing so much of it in my own time?

Work meant suffering, for Black working-class people at least.

Being burnt by hot flying metal, in my mother’s case, as she worked a lathe at Burton Delingpole in Old Hill. Driving a forklift truck from one side of Goodyear’s factory and then back again, for nearly 40 years, in my dad’s case. Add to this racist abuse from foremen and being paid less than their fellow white workers to fix their thoughts.

They would be proud of me if they knew how similar the job of photography was, well at least the racism and being paid less part. Anyway, that’s for another post.

I always knew it was for my own good though. Their desire for me to get a ‘real job’, I mean. Besides, my parents had told me that they’d never ever used a camera, never even ever taken a single photograph, so how could they ever see it as ‘work’, as meaningful?

Anyway, to be honest, I can’t deny that there haven’t been times [OFTEN] when I haven’t thought this too. Yeah, why didn’t I get a real job?

On my last visit to England, though, it was strange to see how much my dad’s relationship with photography had changed. And how much comfort photography, some of it mine, gives him as he looks back at the past.

With encroaching dementia, my sisters have adorned all the walls of his living room with photographs. His dementia has perhaps made the people in the photographs real once more. As conversations and hand gestures made towards them perhaps suggests. These photographs give him comfort and joy in a world which COVID has increasingly estranged him from.

Perhaps photography still doesn’t seem like work for him; perhaps he still doesn’t understand it.

More importantly, though, for him, photography keeps my mom alive, in his mind at least, and keeps him connected to the world, even if it is a world of his own making.

Andrew Jackson (as found on his Instagram)

Web/Insta/Twitter

The post The comfort of photos appeared first on duckrabbit.

I’ll not wrestle with the various details here but a google search will reveal all you need to know about the contentious issues, such as increased travel times for locals (eg trying to go to work, appointments, hospital etc) and increases in road traffic accidents and deaths. For some insight into local concerns have a look at this news item about parking, or this blog post by a local NC500 resident (and worth also reading the comments sections for a flavour of the polarized views the NC500 elicits): “Poo, Potholes and Park-Ups – Why Highlanders Are Tired of Scotland’s North Coast 500 Route”

(Click images to enlarge/sharpen)

Visitor with NC500 T-shirt, near Durness, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Approaching Strathy, Orkney Islands behind, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Morning mist, NC500 Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

As a native Highlander, I’m very familiar with the area having been fortunate to explore it extensively during my childhood, at first with my parents and then later as a teenager, and have now amassed more than 40 years of working professionally all across it on a diverse range of projects, many tourism related, whilst others have been concerned with (the less visible to the casual observer) natural heritage & land use issues such as forestry, ecotourism, deerstalking, military use and so on, but virtually always working closely with local communities.

Megan doing deer control work, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland ©JohnMacPherson

View west from near Betttyhill village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

And so I decided to take a dip into parts of the NC500 route, and with my ancient Land Rover ‘campervan’ become a part of the throng and see first hand what effects were visible, and maybe gather a few personal observations from people I casually encountered. My route north & back home again would be through the centre of the North Highland area, along the long glens leading to the coast, but not technically part of the NC route as they stray too far inland for most to contemplate as a casual wander unless open moorland and huge skies are their motivation.

And so my drive north to Durness was marked by a virtual absence of traffic and those few vehicles I did meet had polite and courteous drivers, both local and visiting, who observed ‘Highland road etiquette’ of passing place use, allowing following cars to overtake, and enabling uphill drivers to have right of way by pulling in to let them ascend without drama, something I really value as I’m navigating more than 2.5 tons of Land Rover.

Campervans, motorbikes, campers, and walkers near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Arriving in Durness was a rude awakening after the remote and peaceful glens, with a throng of visitors enjoying the coastal scenery and beaches, the 24 Hour petrol station busy, the toilets with a queue waiting outside and campervans galore jostling for parking space to access the delights of Smoo Cave, as motorbikes and cars weaved their way between them.

Smoo Cave, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Smoo Cave, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Sango Beach, Durness, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Campfire scar & litter, Kyle of Durness, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland © John MacPherson

I found a quiet spot for the evening and next morning the unmistakeable roar of powerful cars echoed across the moor, as a convoy of half-a-dozen big motors blapped along and disappeared. I packed up and cleared the few bits of litter from a previous visitor’s stopover and drove back towards Durness. A zipline has been installed just outside the village beside Ceannabeinne Beach, with a row of campervans nearby packing the carpark, several more parked in passing places and a small parking area on the bend, and more of them motoring through looking for a parking spot. As I walked up to the zip line start point the sound of an argument rose above the revving engine of a car trying to do a hill-start on the very steep single-track road which was unfortunately covered in loose wheel-spinning grit, foiling another frustrated driver trying to get down the slope and discovering their way blocked. They resolved it, but with lots of red faces and shouting.

Campervans at Ceannabeinne Beach, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Signs at Ceannabeinne Beach, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

The convoy of sports cars was already jammed into the small pull-in and a group of young men, some with baseball caps and tattoos, got out and ambled over to the start of the zipline. I listened and watched them enjoy the view and then spoke to them. They were from Yorkshire and said they having a week or so doing the NC route.

“Are you a car club?” I asked

“No mate, just a group of pals on holiday together!”

“What do you think of this then?” and pointed to the view…

“Brilliant, what a place!”

“Have you been here before, or first time visit?”

“First time, and its so impressive!”

Golden Eagle zipline at Ceannabeinne Beach, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Toilet roll behind rocks, Ceannabeinne Beach near Durness, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

A wee bit more social chitchat revealed they were booked into hotels for every second night and staying on campsites or just remote camping if no sites were available. “How are you finding the facilities on offer?” I enquired. “Good, hotels are nice but difficult to get a booking for all of us because we’re quite a big group, but its manageable, and we planned well enough ahead, toilets are a bit few and far between but we stop often for food and coffees so are coping ok.” I asked if they’d been aware of the controversy over the NC500 route and one lad said yes he’d heard there was local concern over visitor impact, so they were trying their best to be respectful. So I asked how they were achieving that: “Well we take care on the roads and try and be sensible with the other vehicles, but those campervans and caravans can be a nightmare because they have trouble reversing, and we’re cleaning up our rubbish as binning it, except for bottles and cans.”  “Bottles and cans?” I repeated “…what are you doing with them then?”

He grinned and pointed at his mate “His car’s boot is the bottle bank!” and laughed, as his mate grinned too, and then pointing to another lad said “…and his car is the very fast tin can recycling bin! We’re keeping all that junk until we get home and it’ll go in the recycling!”

Parking at Golden Eagle zipline, Ceannabeinne Beach, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

And then they asked about me and what was I doing, so I explained the type of work I do and to underline the point asked them if they thought the landscape was actually ’empty’ or whether it was being used. One said “Well it looks empty, there’s sheep and thats it, and obviously tourism?” So I explained a bit about the rural economy, tourism, deerstalking & fishing, windfarms, and pointing further along the coast towards Durness, detailed the MOD Live Firing Range and its use for military training and some of the work I’ve done there, all of which surprised them. I suggested a detour on their route west to see the beach beyond Durness at Balnakeil where some of the live firing occurs and that they could get something to eat in Durness on the way, and off they roared.

MOD Live Firing Range, Faraid Head, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

The area around the zipline was a bit messy with old campfire scars and litter, and down below beside the road handwritten signs on the track onto the beach warned about machair damage, dog mess and litter, whilst overhead the screams of zipliners mingled with the vocal seagulls always on the look out for food scraps. But everywhere people enjoying themselves, walking, flying kites, swimming, surfing and padddleboarding. A walk up behind the parking area revealed a large tent hidden in the bracken, bogroll behind rocks, and various signs of visitor’s carelessness.

The few miles to Durness had its frustrating moments as a stream of vehicles jostled their way along the single track road, my own temper finally snapping when an oncoming small car driving down the hill as I lumbered up pulled into the passing place then decided not to bother stopping for me and came back out again and accelerated straight down towards me, obviously assuming I would stop and reverse back down the hill and around the corner to the nearest passing place, or drive into the long grass and ditch on the roadside to let them pass.

Nope. I kept going, the smug grin on the man’s face changed to one of confusion and then fear, culminating in a mad swerve into the side whilst trying not to topple his car off into the ditch. I eased alongside, (hot day, windows down) and leaned out, and remarked grumpily “Use the passing places pal, thats what they’re there for, and give uphill vehicles right of way, especially big ones, it really helps!” Eyes wide, he nodded and slowly proceeded on his way.

Fast food & a killer whale, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

I caught up with my sports car lads again near Durness at Sango Beach enjoying takeaways. It was, to be perfectly honest, a rather surreal sight involving a life-sized glassfibre killer whale advertising a launderette, a gaily decorated hamburger van, several huge rumbling motorcycle trikes and a herd of campervans. More chitchat ensued, then I found a place to park and took my bicycle off my van and headed away up on to the moors behind Durness village for some solitude. Within 5 minutes the landscape was deserted, mist descended and curlews called off in the distance, it was quite glorious. I took a detour off the main track that headed towards a high pass but it got a bit steep and rocky so I retraced my route and found another narrower path that appeared to lead back through the common grazings to the main road.

Grass on the moorland, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Common grazings, Durness, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

It wound through the outskirts of the village past a few council houses, a pile of newly cut logs dumped beside one home and a tired looking woman leaning on the fence nearby. I stopped for a chat, yes the logs had just been delivered and she was contemplating carrying them round the back of her house. I asked her about the NC500 and its effect “Its been grand, lots of tourists mean more income in the village, its good for people as the economy needs it.” I left her to the log hauling and after a short hop on tar I was heading downhill to the glorious beach at Balnakeil.

Trike riders, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Waving vigorously at me from a line of cars parked on the roadside was a young BMW driver, one of the Yorkshire convoy, obviously recognising me. “Great place!” he shouted “I’m getting my chair!” and as I rode across the sand I could see what he meant. The whole team had lined themselves up and were lying back soaking up the spectacular view! They spotted me “Yo Scotty this is a grand place, thanks for the tip!” “You boys certainly know how to do holidaymaking in style!” I joked. “We do!” they replied.

Friends from Yorkshire, Balnakeil Beach, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

“Where do they do the military shooting?” asked one, so I pointed out the area they fire from on Faraid Head, and the target, An Garbh-eilean (Garvie Island), the wee rock off Cape Wrath that is used as a target. “Its not very big” said one fellow “…what will they do when they’ve blown it to pieces?” “I’m sure they’ll find something else to shoot at!” I replied. “But the Vikings landed here long before the Army!” I remarked, to their surprise, “The Vikings?”. “Aye when you think about it, they’ve come down from Scandinavia, stopped for some refreshments on the Shetland and  Orkney Islands, and this is one of the next big sheltered bays they’d have found. There was a Viking grave found over there on the hill, with bones and jewellery and various other grave goods, including a sword and spear. Goodness knows what else is buried around this part of the coast…”

I left them to their enjoyment and lost myself in the extensive sand dunes and jagged rocks for the rest of the afternoon, mental images of longships easily conjured from amidst the sea haar (fog) threatening to advance into the bay. At the distant end of the beach I saw only one other person in several hours of poking about cliffs and moorland, but was accompanied by curious fulmar and seagulls as they soared effortlessly along this edge where land becomes ocean.

Friends from Yorkshire, Balnakeil Beach, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

MOD live firing exercise, Balnakeil Beach, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Garvie Island live firing range, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Rocks and sky, Balnakeil Beach, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Barnacle encrusted rocks, Balnakeil Beach, near Durness village, NC500, Sutherland Scotland ©John MacPherson

Balnakeil Beach, Durness, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Ruined building, Durness, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Next day I headed east through Bettyhill and on into Caithness towards Dunnet Beach. Passing through the small community of Reay I stopped to photograph some makeshift NC500 road signs and a nearby resident and his wife came out for a blether. Turns out we had mutual acquaintances from Strathnaver, and they gave me the lowdown on local doings, mainly frustration with the NC500 and cars speeding through the village,  which they’d put up the signs to combat and also a pair of fake speed camera Policemen. And as he explained this a Ferrari and Lamborghini yowled through, “See what I mean, not exactly obeying the speed limit!” he observed.

But the real frustration, and evident in their voices, was the lack of sensitivity to local culture, such as described by his wife, who’d witnessed overnight campers near the church further along the coast where her family are from. The visitors had hung their laundry out to dry on the cemetery wall, where her ancestors are buried, oblivious to the offence it might cause. She added for good measure the tale of her friend finding a bag of human excrement in her garden hedge, thrown from a passing vehicle, by someone caught without a toilet and desperate, who’d taken advice on ‘bagging’ it if desperate but then carelessly tossing it instead of binning it.

Signs by roadside, Reay village, NC500, Caithness, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Speed cop cut-out by roadside, Reay village, NC500, Caithness, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Dounreay Nuclear Facility dominated the skyline for the next few miles, now being decommissioned yet still exerting considerable influence over the local economy, fostering innovation and research that’s now globally signficant. It marks its presence in the landscape in no uncertain terms. As I motored on, I was overtaken by sports cars, motorbikes, scooters and a small convoy of gaily coloured & beautfully maintained VW vans, obviously another group of enthusiasts doing the NC500. Dunnet Beach was glorious, I parked and cycled the 2 miles along the sand, did some beachcombing then found a sheltered spot to sit and watched the world go by through my telescope for an hour or two.

Sea potato (Echinocardium cordatum), Dunnet Beach, NC500, Caithness, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Gannets dived offshore, various seabirds came and went, and I thought I spotted a large black fin at one point but in the choppy sea it was hard to tell. At the other end of the beach through the heatshimmer I could see campervans coming and going, then a Range Rover pulled in to park beside my vehicle, a smartly-dressed elderly couple with dogs got out and the animals scampered joyfully down the beach. One dog squatted in the unmistakeable pooping hunch and let rip, the owners studiously averted their eyes and stared seawards. Rounding their pets back up they shoved them in the vehicle and carried on their way, leaving the pile of poo for someone else to worry about.

Dounreay Nuclear Facility, NC500, Caithness, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Dunnet Head did its usual magic, dolphins patrolling in the sea below the huge cliffs, the backdrop a glorious view across the Pentland Firth to Orkney, and then later a splatter of sunset. Several campervans squeezed into all the available roadside spots but one large group with several vehicles filled a substantial area, though next morning they were off early and clearing not only their own stuff but some other bits of rubbish I’d noticed as I’d passed by earlier.

Campervans near Dunnet Head, NC500, Caithness, Scotland ©John MacPherson

My return home was down through the Flow Country, mile upon mile of moorland & bog, the most intact and extensive blanket bog system in the world, blessed with a backdrop of mountains and endless sky. It was sublime, the road was deserted and my frequent stops to listen the the silence were amply rewarded. I cut across from Kinbrace to Syre past Garvault and “Mainland Britain’s Most Remote Hotel” (which proudly boasts of its off-grid and sustainable credentials) to cycle into Rosal, one of the Clearance Villages, the inhabitants of which had been driven from their homes in the early 1800’s north towards the north coast so that the landowner could replace them with sheep. Now surrounded by forestry and managed by Forestry & Land Scotland the Rosal site is maintained as testament to the brutality of the evictions. A sign at the start of the rough access track requested ‘No Unauthorised Vehicles’ and unsure of whether that was for parking or track access I enquired at the nearby cottage.

Forsinard Flows RSPB Reserve & viewpoint, Scotland ©John MacPherson

A young woman with her two year old daughter answered the door, the Estate stalker/gamekeeper’s wife, and an hour of delightful blethering ensued, topics ranging from deer management and fishing to windfarm developments, absentee landowners and tourism. Yes, she confirmed, the sign referred to parking, as campervans had made it impossible for her husband to get his 4×4 and trailer in their gate, and parking for his fishing clients to access the river had become impossible as well, so they’d reluctantly had to forbid parking.

We talked about visitor impacts, and once again the subject of cultural insensitivity surfaced, with several examples from her personal experience but perhaps best encapsulated in her story of a supported cycling holiday group. They had erected a gazebo tent in the small carpark for the local village cemetery and War Memorial one Sunday without permission then filled the area with bicycles and a couple of vehicles, preventing those wishing to access the cemetery from being able to park. Maybe not a huge problem for fit people who could park elsewhere along the road and walk, but as many local residents who visit are elderly & infirm she explained that it had created significant upset.

Flow Country landscape, near Forsinard, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

River Helmsdale, near Kinbrace, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

The conversation meandered onto the subject of the Clearances and my new acquaintance, who said she was originally from Glasgow, spoke emotively about the history of the glen that was now her home, and the ruins which she’d often walked to, but remarking that she’d been unaware of this brutal aspect of Highland history when younger, and expressed considerable dismay that “…it was never a part of my school curriculum as far as I can recall. How could I have been so ignorant about such an important part of our own past, such that I had to move here from the Central belt to find out what has gone on, and how its shaped this landscape and its people?” We shared a moment’s contemplative silence, abruptly punctuated by their collie pup escaping, having been released by her free-range daughter, and which was now joyfully but mischieviously stalking the sheep in the adjoining field. She smiled, resigned to the chase that was imminent, and bid me farewell and went off to retrieve the pup whilst I cycled off down the track to Rosal, with her permission to leave my van opposite her house.

Garvault House Hotel, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Milestone (west face – ‘Kinbrace’), Garvault, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Milestone (east face – ‘Syre’), Garvault, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Far inland from the bustle of the NC500 the glen was deserted. No cars passed on the narrow single-track main road on the opposite side of the river that I could occasionally glimpse through the trees, and I was surrounded by birdsong and insect buzz intermingling with the low soft rustle of river water over rock. I cycled up through head-high bracken untamed due to the Covid-induced absence of visitors and soon reached the Clearance ‘village’. It was an evocative sight, low piles of stone marking the remains of house walls, piles here and there, scattered, and even more further up the slope.

In this idyllic scene it was easy to imagine a thriving community, the river providing fresh water and fish, fertile soil to grow crops. And all this brutally destroyed, a whole community removed, to allow sheep to reign supreme. As if to underline the irony of this, from behind one of the walls, and disturbed by my presence, two sheep lounging listlessly on this warm afternoon popped their dozy heads up and realised to their utter horror they were not alone, and spooked by my unexpected presence found themselves on the receiving end of an eviction and fleeing to wherever might offer some sense of sanctuary.

Fleeing sheep, Rosal Clearance Village, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Rosal Clearance Village, Strathnaver, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Church interior, Syre, Strathnaver, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

I drove on towards home, contemplating the history of the glen, wondering at the lives that it had supported, but my peaceful ambling abruptly halted at the entrance to Creag Riabhach Wind Farm. I’d to stop for a massive truck & trailer with heavy earth-moving equipment destined for the construction site being carved out of the landscape. What had once been open hillside and moorland was now a huge industrial site, a reminder of  the presence of climate change, the need for local solutions to the challenges of energy production, and the continuing and evolving story of this one glen and the ways its inhabitants lives are shaped by wider influences and changing priorities.

Creag Riabhach Wind Farm development, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

The final 20 miles to home was instructive. A following vehicle, deciding to ignore the road signs, gave me a moment of mild concern. Further on at a 4-way junction a bit of a snarl-up meant I ended up pulling in beside the passenger side of the same car, so politely remarked on their earlier manoeuvre and their wilful ignoring of the road signs, and for my trouble received a mouthful of abuse, implying they had local knowledge that I was not privvy to, could do as they pleased, and not recognising me as ‘local’ decided I was a tourist and angrily told me to “…clear off back wherever you come from…” and they roared off, tyres skidding.

Birds egg shell hidden the heather on the moor, NC500, Caithness, Scotland ©John MacPherson

It was a reminder, if any was needed, that we’re all from somewhere, our status, and our perceived impact, shifting from local to tourist, to local and back again as our locations and circumstances dictate, such is the complexity of mobility and the varying effects our presence can have on the experiences of each other.

I’d been dismayed by some of what I’d encountered in a few days, some ‘road safety’ that was questionable, a fair amount of litter and ground damage, the carelessness of apparently ‘respectable’ older people, but I have to say more than balanced by the heartening actions of many others, including the group of young men whose preference for sports cars and tattoos belied their environmental awareness and sense of personal responsibility.

Ruins of WW2 Coastal Defence site, NC500, Caithness, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Ruins of WW2 Coastal Defence site, NC500, Caithness, Scotland ©John MacPherson

The Scottish Highlands has always been a contested landscape, incursions by the Vikings, the Clearances, controversy over North Sea oil and Dounreay Nuclear Reactor, the benefits or otherwise of wind farm developments, the NC500, and slowly poking their heads over the horizon the new “green Lairds” intent on utilising landscape for carbon sequestration and offsetting. All imposing change, and altering lives in fundamental ways.

Wind turbine looming out of morning mist, near Bettyhill, Sutherland, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

A current issue that perhaps best encapsulates the tensions that prevail in this apparently ’empty’ and peaceful landscape is the Melness Spaceport, near Tongue on the NC500 route.  As if to echo the opening scenes from Kubrick’s ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ – the iconic sequence where the flying bone morphs into a spaceship – the bones I photographed at Rosal Clearance Village, lying on the ruined croft walls, have a surprising & direct link to ‘the future’ and to the Spaceport.

Bones on wall of ruined house, Rosal Clearance Village, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Some of the descendants of the Clearance families from this glen, whose ancestors were cleared north to the coast to make way for sheep, are now involved in a fight to steer this development to their mutual advantage. An excellent article by Dani Garavelli in ‘The Scotman’ digs deep into the issues  ‘Insight: The battle to build UK’s first spaceport in Sutherland’ and crucially, explores the personalities behind the opposing forces, and their motivations.

Morning mist and cottage, looking west of Bettyhill with the Mhoine behind, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

As Garavelli observes:

“The Battle of the Mhoine, then, is not only a fight for the survival of one community, it is a microcosm of Scotland’s wider land debate. It pitches locals against incomers; the environment against the economy; preservation against progress. It raises questions about the commodification of “wilderness” and the balancing of economic, social and environmental sustainability.

“There is a history of rival visions for the Highlands – the tension here is to what extent do these visions coalesce and diverge?” says Calum MacLeod, policy director for Community Land Scotland. “What factors are shaping what is done in Sutherland? Whose vision takes precedence and why?”

The nub of all of this is simple: what is the benefit to be gained by development, to whom does it accrue, and at what cost to others? Big questions with no easy answers, and ones I’ll leave others to wrestle with for now.

Red throated diver on a small lochan on the Mhoine, Melness, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Long abandoned cottage, A’ Mhòine, Melness, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

I’ll finish with an observation, in itself insignificant in the greater scheme of things, and easily overlooked, but from this Highlander’s perspective an unmistakeable sign that the values that underpin so much of the ‘spirit of community’ in this ‘remote’ place still thrive.

Wherever I went, from Strathnaver to Durness, from Strath Halladale to Melvich, and all along the North Coast that lends its name to the NC500, tucked into driveways and hedges, prominent on the roadside in the middle of ‘nowhere’, even in one of the busiest carparks between Rhiconich and Tongue, I saw honesty boxes. Unattended little stalls filled with locally produced jams, jars of honey from bees stravaiging over the heather moorland, tablets and toffees made with care in little kitchens and bound in tartan ribbon neatly tied with bows, boxes of eggs from midge-brave hens, and all this goodness left for passing visitors to buy and to take away and enjoy, simply trusted to leave money for it in return.

Honesty box, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Honesty box, carpark near Durness, Sutherland, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Its rarely if ever mentioned in the many observations of the NC500, but here, still evident in all these ‘invitations to honesty’ that these little ‘shops’ represent, is trust. Unlike the scars of careless campfires which, in time will heal, trust once destroyed is harder to re-establish.

When we who live here forego that mutual investment we make in those who want to come and share our culture and utilise our amazing landscapes, we’ve had it. But for now? Well, as far as I can see trust is alive and thriving, and that delights and heartens me. Long may it continue.

Cioch Mhor, near Durness, Sutherland, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Mist rolls over Ben Hope, Sutherland, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Evening light on Loch Eriboll, wires and wind turbine, near Durness, Sutherland, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Wind turbines near Bettyhill, Sutherland, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Morning light, Sutherland, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Grasses on the moor, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Melvich Village Hall, Melvich, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Landscape near Eriboll, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Landscape near Eriboll, NC500, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Waste bin, Dunnet Beach, NC500, Caithness, Scotland ©John MacPherson

View west to Cape Wrath from near Bettyhill, Sutherland, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Gate, Strathnaver, Sutherland, Scotland ©John MacPherson

Pentland Firth, sunset, NC500, Scotland ©John MacPherson

The post NC500: The Long and Wounding Road appeared first on duckrabbit.

One of the key neurochemicals involved in that audience response is cortisol.  It’s often described as the stress hormone and when the world changes around us, bringing with it the potential of threat, we get a hit of cortisol and start paying attention quickly.  That’s a great thing if you’re telling a story because you need to capture and hold the focus of the audience.

One of the key moments in a story that elicits this cortisol stress response is described by screenwriters as ‘the inciting incident’, though I’ve also heard it called the ‘detonante’ or the ‘ball of chaos’.  It’s the moment when something unforeseen happens to the story’s lead character.  It leads to a change in their reality, with which they are now going to have to grapple, and through which their lives will change irrevocably.  It’s the instant when a story kicks into life and, because all humans intrinsically understand how storytelling works, your audience are waiting for it.  It’s your first big chance as a storyteller to get your hooks into them.

Two of my favourite stories from different points in my life have the same inciting incident.  JRR Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ and James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’ both feature lead characters whose lives are in balance.  The Hobbit’s Bilbo Baggins is enjoying a cozy if dull existence in the Shire whilst ‘Aliens’ Ripley, blamed for the loss of her ship in ‘Alien’, is living a drab and depressing life working in a space station loading bay.

And then, for both characters, everything changes in an instant.  It’s the ‘Unexpected Knock on the Door’.  For Ripley it’s Lieutenant Gorman of the Colonial Marines and Carter Burke from the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, with a deeply unappealing offer to join them on an investigatory mission to find out what happened to the colonists on planet LV-246.

For Bilbo it’s the arrival of a wizard and a collection of dwarves with an equally unwelcome plan to take him to the other side of the world to steal treasure from a dragon.

Both stories have a clearly identifiable, cortisol-inducing inciting incident that signals clearly to the audience that the story has now kicked into action and that they need to pay attention and buckle in for the ride.

And whether you’re telling a fictional or a documentary story you need to provoke that response to get your audience into story mode and start the development of the chemical cocktail that will deliver you influence, whether your objective is to sell, persuade or campaign.

Without an effective ‘detonante’ your story will feel flat or will fail to capture audience attention.

The inciting incident is just one of the key moments of powerful storytelling.  Getting those story moments right, and in the right sequence, matters whether you’re making a film, writing a book, tweeting, campaigning, selling or persuading.  It’s the difference between achieving impact and achieving nothing.

We’ve spent the last year working online with some of the biggest creative advertising agencies in the world and with politicians from across Europe to help them hone their storytelling skills and enhance their influence.  We have a very focused, very practical training course that we can deliver flexibly online which we know will power up your storytelling.  Drop us a line at contact@duckrabbit.info to find out more.

“I wholeheartedly advise you to sign up for this course.  Unless you’re one of our competitors in which case ignore this” Ben Clare, Group Creative Director, Emotive Sydney

“Honestly, best training ever. Changed the way I look at my work.”Agata Byczewska. Press Officer, European People’s Party Group

“A fantastic course which enabled us to tell our own tales with a little more magic.  Makes me wonder why this sort of training isn’t mandatory in all colleges and agencies.” Jim Thornton, Executive Creative Director, VCCP London

“A really valuable thing that we have already used to judge and write work.  We don’t want anyone else to know about this course” Cam Blackley, Chief Creative Officer, M&C Saatchi Australia

“We thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot.  We look forward to incorporating storytelling in our communications to take our social media to the next level” Eva Maydell MEP, European People’s Party

“Thank you, you’ve really inspired me.” Ciara Murray, Director of Communications for Maria Walsh MEP, European People’s Party 

If you haven’t seen ‘Aliens’ or read ‘The Hobbit’, I think that both are masterworks of their genres.  There are quite a lot of similarities between the two stories but I’ll save the full character by character comparison of the two (spoiler: both Burke and Thorin are wrong’uns) for lockdown 4.

British 70’s/80’s kids should of course head direct to a ZX Spectrum 48K emulator for the 1982 text adventure version of The Hobbit with fully immersive graphics in 7 magnificent colours.  Because everything looks better shaded in magenta and cyan.

And finally here are a couple of past posts on why storytelling is uniquely persuasive and why fundamental character change matters if you’re trying to tell a powerful story.

The post The Unexpected Knock on the Door appeared first on duckrabbit.

Jo. Are you on crack again?

Two reasons

1: Aren’t all advertisers already great storytellers?

2:  Won’t the creatives hate us when we teach there is a scientifically-backed model for effective and compelling storytelling (as opposed to a genius, ad-man guru with ineffable superpowers levitating in the background)?

An early response from an agency MD didn’t exactly build confidence:

‘If my creatives didn’t know how to tell a story, we probably hired the wrong people.’

I admire the bravado. And said agency do some terrific work. But if some of the very best players in Hollywood can piss upwards of $114 million (loss) on a film like Cats  then even the oldest, most gnarly dogs can learn new tricks.

At the BBC we never got any training except in really boring shit that we didn’t want to do. Like compliance forms and inputting metadata. Otherwise, all the learning was on the job. Back and forth with editors or sparring with colleagues about what made a story worth telling.

I was very driven.

So much so that twice when I made a really bad radio doco I slipped it out under someone else’s name (another producer who was a bit of a prick). No-one noticed. That’s how you know it was a really bad doco. Bad because it was boring. Wallpaper. No-one was going to sit in their car at the end of a journey refusing to get out till the story ends.

In the trade that’s known as the ‘tyranny’ of good storytelling. It gets a grip on you and won’t let go.

Serious question. If you have something to sell how can you not benefit from learning to have a crack at doing just that?

And that’s the key. Over the years duckrabbit have trained hundreds of people: creatives, politicians, film-makers and rescue dogs. The vast majority love what we teach and the rest we bribe with cheese.

At heart though I’m only interested in delivering one thing. The training I wish I’d had when I was younger. That would have saved me a world of pain. That would have got me where I wanted to go quicker and with more confidence.

Good documentary storytellers know what journey they want audiences to be taken on. We know what we want people to feel. And with the luxury of not having to advertise anything wins are easier.  But there is so much push and pull in the advertising world that sometimes what is needed is a moment of calm. A moment of clarity when you can look a client in the eye and confidently say THIS story is going to work and we can explain to you exactly why.

If you ain’t got that feel, or you need it back, or just need a reminder, this course is for you.

To date we’ve delivered the course to VCCP (London), M&C Saatchi (Australia) and Emotive (Sydney). At the back end of the course they’ll happily tell you taking it is a no-brainer.  Even without cheese.

So what have we learned?

Within six hours we can teach a foolproof model for storytelling, that sharpens creativity, proves that the best brands still cock it up (without even realising) and leaves creatives (more) confident they can tell influential stories that will work for their clients.

I’ve watched the creatives we’ve been working with applying the learning to current briefs and getting excited about what they can deliver before we’ve even finished.

That’s the course paying for itself in real-time.

And it’s not just a course for agencies. Clients should be applying what we teach as well. So many are making work themselves now, and if they’re not they’re still buying and shaping work with agencies. There’s a real risk they will blow a great story. We call it opportunity fail.

Could have been great. Should have been great. Failed to be great.

So yeah my fear of being ‘hated’ for modeling storytelling was unfounded. The peeps we teach are talented and hungry for any advantage. Everyone we’ve trained has it in them to tell powerful stories.

I only shit myself once. And that’s when I got this mildly threatening feedback from Cam Blackley, the super-sharp Chief Creative Officer at M&C Saatchi:

“It’s so good we don’t want anyone else to know about this course.“

I did start wondering what lengths he might go to make sure no-one else gets the training?

Sorry Cam.

Short of a feet wrapped in concrete, night-time trip out of Sydney harbor, we’re going to keep the show rolling.

But you’ve got a team of winners anyway and now they are even more ahead of the game.

Want to chat through the training? Drop super friendly Jo Pangu an email (jonathan@duckrabbit.info).

‘What I learned will stay with me for the rest of my career.‘

Tom, Copywriter M&C Saatchi Australia

‘A fantastic course which solidifies the importance of storytelling in the work we do. Duckrabbit run a smooth show full of interactivity and pointed case studies which left us better equipped to tell our own tales with a little more magic. Makes me wonder why this kind of training isn’t mandatory in all colleges and agencies.’

Jim Thornton, Deputy ECD, VCCP London

“You really have made this story structure click for me. In such a short amount of time, you’ve completely changed the way I approach writing. Would recommend to anyone.”

Jason Leigh, Copywriter M&C Saatchi Australia

‘Thankyou, I really enjoyed the workshop. It made so much sense. Made me wonder why Story Theory isn’t instilled in every creative.’

Chris, Creative VCCP London

‘It’s been three fantastic sessions. Thinking about the work we’ve had in play, you realize what has been missing.‘

Avish Gordhan, ECD, M&C Saatchi Australia

The post Gnarly dogs and new tricks. What I’ve learned teaching Ad peeps the science of storytelling. appeared first on duckrabbit.

I’ve not been to war myself (too worried about getting shot) but close enough to know that for many there is an irresistible attraction to that most extreme and vivid of human experiences. There’s an intensity there that normal life just can’t match.  Which makes it a drug that can be hard to give up (the core subject of Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘The Hurt Locker’) and also explains a bit about why war remains such a powerful setting and subject matter for dramatic stories.

In a recent storytelling training session with the press officers of the EPP Group (as interesting and talented a group of people as you’d ever wish to work with) we found ourselves having a discussion about Sam Mendes’ First World War film ‘1917’.  Despite the incredible cinematography and the tension of the action sequences the film left me just a bit flat, without that sense of cathartic release that is the neurochemical end-point of really successful storytelling (more on this here).   There’s no shortage of physical and mental challenge thrown at the protagonist of the story.  And there’s no lack of empathy generated between him and the audience.  So what is the problem?

In ‘1917’, our protagonist Lance Corporal William Schofield starts the film sitting under a tree, exhausted by the war.  We learn that he has already fought at the Battle of the Somme where he won a medal for bravery. He hasn’t kept the medal – he swapped it with a French soldier for a bottle of wine.  So his start point in the story is disillusionment, after deep and traumatic experience of the worst that warfare has to offer.  He does his duty now both from habit but also because of his commitment to his friend and comrade Tom Blake.  At the end of the film he has done that duty, managed to halt the doomed attack that was their mission (for a more moving treatment of a similar plot try Peter Weir’s ‘Gallipoli’).  But Schofield is still disillusioned and exhausted by war.  Even the visual symmetry of the film accentuates this – the film ends the same way that it began, with Schofield sitting war-weary against a tree.  Extreme though his struggle through the story has been, it seems to have left him pretty much where he started.

And that’s where I think the problem with the film lies. Really compelling stories, whether documentary or fiction, short or long-form, involve a protagonist who is irrevocably changed by the challenges that they have had to grapple with.  The challenges that they face lead to personal transformation and fundamental internal change.  If the story has not changed the character, then what was the point of it?

Compare ‘1917’ with Oliver Stone’s ‘Platoon’.  The film’s protagonist Chris Taylor starts as a naive young private, a volunteer determined to do his bit.  As he moves through the story he must face his own central conflict, represented by his two sergeants Elias (the humane soldier) and Barnes (the brutal soldier).  In the final battle of the film Chris finally fully experiences the primal joy of violence in combat (what Arthur Conan Doyle called ‘the uncontrollable red depths of the soul’).  Yet he chooses to symbolically slay that part of himself by killing the wounded Barnes.  And as he is evacuated he tells us of his realisation that war is an act of terrible self-harm.  Chris has lost his naivety, experienced the conflict in the human spirit and made the choice to reject the violence in himself.  His final words are “We did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves… We must try with our lives to find a goodness to this life”.  He has irrevocably changed.

In Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Full Metal Jacket’, Private Joker is a natural subversive who bucks against the authority of the military.  His journey through the experience of training and combat seeks resolution to the same internal conflict as Chris’ in ‘Platoon’ . In one of the film’s funniest scenes Joker tries to explain to a Marine Colonel why he is wearing both a badge with a pacifist symbol and a helmet marked ‘Born to Kill’.  Joker doesn’t come to the same end-point as Chris, though.  At the beginning of Full Metal Jacket he tells us that the Marines want killers, men who are not afraid.  And at the film’s climax Joker kills a helpless and wounded young girl, an enemy sniper.  In the final resolution scene, as he and the other marines return from the battle of Hue, they sing a children’s song as they march.  Joker is smiling as he sings and we hear his thoughts. “I’m in a world of shit yes but I am alive and I am not afraid”.  The subversive and frustrated pacifist has become a killer and a marine.  He has learned to love war and will never be the same again.

And finally, maybe the greatest war film of them all, ‘Apocalypse Now’.  Captain Willard starts the film as a hardened killer, a special forces officer who willingly submits himself to the army as an assassin.  He is a lethal weapon in human form.  His commanders send him on a mission to terminate Colonel Kurtz, a fellow officer driven insane by the war.  Through the experience of his journey up that dark river to Kurtz, and the captivity he endures at its destination, Willard comes to realises that Colonel Kurtz’ loss of sanity is in fact the only sane response to the war and the way that they have been commanded to fight it.   Willard kills Kurtz not because he is carrying out his army’s orders but as a mercy to a man who has seen the truth and stepped beyond sanity.  In the final scene Willard turns off the radio that keeps him in contact with his HQ.  He has gone from being an unquestioning weapon at the command of others and recaptured his independence.  Even if Willard does make it back down the river, there can be no going back to the life he had at the beginning of the film.

So fundamental change matters in storytelling.  And to my mind that’s why ‘1917’ doesn’t have the emotional impact that could make it a real story masterwork.

Since COVID hit, we’ve been delivering online, small-group storytelling training to politicians, advertising agencies and clients around the world.  If you want to use storytelling techniques to influence, whether to sell, campaign or drive fundraising, then we can take you through the key structures and building blocks of really effective story.

In three two-hour sessions, we’ll set out the neurochemical background, the story structures and the building blocks (which include fundamental change in protagonists) of effective story.  It will give you a model for analysing story content and diagnosing weaknesses and points of failure.  It’s fiercely practical – it gives you the chance to flex your story muscles and the confidence to produce your own.

There’s more information here.  And here’s what people have been saying about our training.

“Honestly, best training ever. Changed the way I look at my work.”Agata Byczewska. Press Officer, European People’s Party Group

“I just sold my first multimedia feature to the BBC. It just shows what a good decision I made by training with duckrabbit. I love what they’re about and would love to capture even a tiny bit of that spirit in my own work.” Ciara Leeming, Freelance journalist.

“I left the duckrabbit course full of enthusiasm and confidence. It must have worked because only my second attempt made the front page of the Guardian website.” Emma Wigley, Interactive Media Officer, Christian Aid

“Yesterday was outstanding. The format was perfect for us and covered everything we wanted. Fantastic trainers.” Barney Brown, Head of Digital Comms, University of Cambridge

The post War. HUH. What is it good for? appeared first on duckrabbit.

There’s a very clear way to judge whether the story you’re telling is a success or not.  We call it ‘the feels’.  It’s the surge of emotional response audiences get when they watch/read/hear a well constructed story.  We all know it when we experience it and the first question that we ask ourselves when we produce a film for a client is whether it give us ‘the feels’.

Here’s a film that we made for a charity fundraising campaign that we think does deliver that.

Effective storytelling induces a particular kind of emotional response in audiences.  That’s what makes it influential, whether the intent of the producer is to change minds, elicit donations or to sell.  More on that here, in the context of modern maritime warfare.

So where does this emotional response come from? There’s a clear answer to that too.  Paul Zak is a scientist who has studied the neurochemical effects of storytelling.  Here’s an article that summarises the research.

Engaging storytelling provokes the production of three key chemicals in the brain.

• Cortisol, the body’s response to stress, encourages us to pay attention.
• Dopamine rewards us with pleasure and encourages us to learn and repeat behaviours.
• Oxytocin, what Zak called ‘the moral molecule’, encourages us to engage in empathetic, pro-social behaviour.

Storytelling that induces all three has emotional impact and the ability to influence behaviour of the audience. Paul Zak’s research was done in the context of charity donations (and if you’re in the charity fundraising sector then you need to know all about it) but the influence effect works if you’re selling or campaigning too.

So how do you produce stories that reliably provoke the neurochemical response that delivers results time after time?  There’s a certain type of structured storytelling that does just that.  We’ve distilled what we’ve learnt from over a decade of producing these types of stories into a course that we’ve been delivering online since COVID hit.

In three two-hour sessions, it sets out the neurochemical background, the story structures and the building blocks that provoke the audience response that you need.  It will give you a model for analysing story content and diagnosing weaknesses and points of failure.  It’s fiercely practical – it gives you the chance to flex your story muscles and the confidence to produce your own.

There’s more information here.  And here’s what people have been saying about our training.

“Honestly, best training ever. Changed the way I look at my work.”Agata Byczewska. Press Officer, European People’s Party Group

“I just sold my first multimedia feature to the BBC. It just shows what a good decision I made by training with duckrabbit. I love what they’re about and would love to capture even a tiny bit of that spirit in my own work.” Ciara Leeming, Freelance journalist.

“I left the duckrabbit course full of enthusiasm and confidence. It must have worked because only my second attempt made the front page of the Guardian website.” Emma Wigley, Interactive Media Officer, Christian Aid

“Yesterday was outstanding. The format was perfect for us and covered everything we wanted. Fantastic trainers.” Barney Brown, Head of Digital Comms, University of Cambridge

The post Better Story through Chemistry appeared first on duckrabbit.

I’m writing to you following the statement that you made after the Magnum Photos archive was taken offline as a result of allegations that Magnum have been selling indecent images of children. First reported by Andy Day on August 6th and followed up here and here.

I’m going to do my best to show you the respect that you denied survivors of child abuse in your statement.  And maybe help you to understand why the issue isn’t going to go away as you bring your archive back to life.

You wrote about acts of alleged child abuse as ‘historical materials’.  That felt like a cynical way to distance Magnum from the actions of the men who took the photos and the ethical, moral and legal abuses taking place in selling and distributing those photos.

Boris Johnson tried that line not so long ago.  It didn’t go down well with survivors. They called him a cunt and other less printable words.

I am 43. A few years older than you.

30 years ago might seem like a long time.

Back then you are ten and I am thirteen.

We are in the corner of a dimly lit Thai hotel room watching your colleague David Alan Harvey take at least one photo of a ‘child prostitute’ according to Magnum’s search return. Tagged ‘teenager’ ’13-18′.

She looks it too.

Around 15 I’d say.  Just a pair of red knickers keeping her from being fully naked. Not there for one of Harvey’s ’emerging photographer’ ‘mentoring’ sessions.

She’s looking at Harvey’s lens, who is shooting from a lower angle, looking up at her.  On a bed? Almost certainly in a hotel room. Harvey’s? She’s smiling. She’s learned how to ‘perform’. To get it done.

‘Prostitute’.

Nope. Probably a kid who discovered her sexuality being raped over and over again by men who like girls young and travel to foreign lands to pay to have them that way. Maybe as young as your daughter or my son. We don’t find out. Because Harvey didn’t show any respect for her and neither did Magnum.

She’s exploited for sex and Harvey, when he took that shot, exploited her again.  And Magnum, when they made the photo downloadable, exploited and abused her again. As late as last week. And in a sense, just talking about her here, the abuse continues. Because you can never take back the photo you placed on the web.

Historical?

Another photo in Harvey’s Thai ‘prostitute’ series. Tagged 13-18. They look around 14. Harvey is standing over a bath. Two naked teens in the bath. In a hotel room? Likely trafficked.  One with her legs open to make enough room for the second teen. They are soaping themselves.  Avoiding eye contact with Harvey.

I could go on. I shouldn’t feel the need to but people actually think these pictures are ‘journalism’. That it’s OK to abuse kids if you get a photo story out of it. Magnum taught them that.

It’s a picture of what appears to be a child (15?) in her underwear smiling at Harvey in a dimly lit room, next to a bed. Is that her bored-looking pimp in the room? That photo, until last week downloadable from your website is also on a chat board where a guy brags about ‘fucking two thai hookers and cuming all over their faces’.

The girl. Today. Is only a few years older than us. If she is alive.

They are only bragging because the photo speaks to an abusive power relationship between the man taking the image and the girl in it.

Historical?

When men take photos in this context. Not as observers. What happens next?  Did you draw down the contact sheets to find out?

Another scene. We’ve got to go back further. Forty years. You have just been born. I am three. In a room with the curtains closed. So that no-one can see in.

I am naked from the waist down. There is chair in the middle of the room and a man sat in it. I already know that chair all too well. I know what is coming next. But I don’t want to tell you Olivia because it is my story and I shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t have to persuade you that nothing that went on in that room is ‘historical’ to me. It’s a story repeating itself endlessly, where a man tries to break a ‘demonic’ child with their bare hands in the name of a god that doesn’t exist. It’s a nightmare.  Mine. But it can be made worse by another man in the corner taking a permanent record of the worst moments of my life. To be downloadable with a Magnum logo. Forty years later. For social.

In my nightmare, there are two men in the room. One abusing me and one taking photos.

In Harvey’s photos there only appears to be one.

Is my abuse ‘historical’ Olivia?

Or my friends and past lovers. Some younger, some older. Many who have endured worse. Or even those who have reached out to me in solidarity since the issues of your archive became apparent because they do know how absolutely nothing is historical about child abuse when either the abused and the abuser is still alive.

I hoped to write you a letter that would ask for specific changes.  Commitment to a child protection policy. But I gave up hope.

I’ve seen images taken by Magnum photogs that for me kill the idea of your agency ever being trusted with children.  Those images can’t be a secret to you.  I’m glad you’ve started to take them down but for the kids in them, it’s too late.

I do have one ambition left.

Right now women are coming forward with stories about Harvey. That’s a brutal process. That can only have a cost to those women professionally and personally.  In an industry with just the bare minimum of decency, they shouldn’t have to.

You can stop that right now. And save them the grief. And buy yourself some grace.

Almost exactly two years ago, following the Patrick Witty revelations, Magnum made a song and dance about having a legally binding code of conduct. One which you refuse to publish. But if it doesn’t cover exploiting what appears to be children by taking their naked photos and labeling them ‘prostitutes’. Likely a criminal act.  And if it doesn’t cover distributing a book with a pornographic image to children.  If it doesn’t include outing pre-pubescent boys as ‘prostitutes’, in a police station, when they are trying to hide their faces from the photog (Patrick Zachmann)  then Magnum Photos as an agency are beyond decency.

I could go on with examples. For a long time. We both know that.

Suspend Harvey and spare the women the pain of being pitted against him. Stand with them.

If you can’t do this then be a decent human being, walk away, and help make Magnum ‘history’. If not. As President. It’s on you.

Sincerely

Benjamin Chesterton

UPDATE:

Two hours after this letter dropped the Guardian announced Harvey had been suspended for reasons unrelated to those outlined in this post.

The post An Open Letter to Olivia Arthur. President of Magnum Photos. appeared first on duckrabbit.

In Buku’s own words:

*******

“One Saturday morning, I happened upon a group of ladies, in the slum, doing their washing. I asked if I could photograph them. They agreed. A few days later, I returned, to give them prints. They were thrilled and invited me into their homes to take more photographs- photographs of their children, visiting siblings, cousins, friends; photographs of them cooking and playing and getting ready for New Years Eve. I took back more prints. They requested more shoots. And so it went on. I visit them almost every week. I call them my Saturday Morning Laundry Ladies.

Soon, the adjoining houses began to ask for photographs, then the local tea shop owner and the butcher and the lady who lived in a shack next to the tea shop I frequently visited. I don’t photograph people of a slum to document poverty. I wasn’t photographing them with a project in mind. There was no ulterior motive for me. I was photographing these people because I was interested in them. The slum dwellers just took me in at a time when I was very unwell and just trying to survive one day at a time. Taking photographs helped that battle. So I kept returning. I’d make them prints because taking their pictures made me happy and I wanted to try and give back some of that happiness.

That’s how over the years I became their Photowalli Didi. (the sister with the photos). Our relationship is unequal, we come from different worlds but we both give and take something from each other. 

This is an exploration not only of our strange and intimate relationship but a project about resilience of communities, an investigation into the altered narratives that permeate their lives and perhaps most importantly a project about belonging, about breaking barriers and that of challenging stereotypes and myths.

It is a celebration as well as an elegy…”

Sharmila’s Home ©Buku Sarkar

My Saturday Morning Laundry Ladies

If you listen closely, you can hear a frail ringing noise, like when the television would run out of programming late at night in the ‘80s. Only much softer. It keeps me up. At two in the morning the choral music starts again. My mother complained about it at lunch yesterday. She said, ‘the mosque is just too much.’ She said this in Bengali, “bodo barabari korey.” Her lips are thin and pursed as they are when she goes out to a meeting wearing dark red lipstick. She reminds me of a headmistress then.

The Basti ©Buku Sarkar

One day, shortly after the Lockdown began, I heard her shout out with enthusiasm: “ONE THOUSAND CASES!”

My father has already acquired a good roster of jokes surrounding social distancing. What does a Punjabi call social distancing? Tan-doori.

I still don’t understand it.

There was another one which had the tag-line of Dan-singh.

I couldn’t get out of bed today, which is nothing new. I just couldn’t lift my neck from the pillow. I felt like I’d had a concussion. Electric sparks run up my spine. I can’t feel the tremors today. But when you are in the presence of others, you feel you must perform. So I do it, for the sake of my parents. Then perhaps every day has been a performance. For my sister who comes to visit with her two boys; for a phone call with my photo book editor in Georgia; for the dogwalker… I have become so reliant on these little happenings to pretend I feel okay that I have begun to dread the quiet days when I can no longer hide in lies and when it is perfectly alright for me to sleep in. I cannot stand those days. Soon, when all the world becomes a safer place, I will move to New York where there is no family and no help and then I will have to make up new lies every day as I go about chores.

The mosque my mother speaks of is one of the several behind our house, where the Basti lies. Every few hours, the voices clamber over each other, a count down to my day. It’s where I had first met The Girls, and Mummyji. And the Mad Man, the Chaiwalla, Sharmila—the rest of them. It is impossible for me now, to listen to the Aajan and not think of them, although I haven’t visited in a year. Much of anything I’ve done over the past seven years had its roots in the Basti.

The Basti ©Buku Sarkar

Back in 2015, when I was at my worst, I had left my flat in Delhi, the lemon trees in the garden, and moved in with my parents in Ballygunge, a plush residential neighborhood of Calcutta. I had grown up in this house. I don’t remember the mosques from back then. I knew there was an area behind my house I was not supposed to go to, we didn’t even drive through them in cars, but that was where my curiosity ended. I knew it was a Basti, a slum, a settlement where the poor lived side by side in flimsy shacks, but I had no idea of who lived there, nor any interest in them as they had practically nothing to do with my daily life.

Morning walks. One Sunday 2015-16 ©Buku Sarkar

But in 2015, I was in my late 30s, I had just moved back to India after seventeen years in New York. I was writing fiction, or, was supposed to be, at any rate. When I started feeling better, I would go for short walks around my parents’ home and eventually found myself walking through the Basti. One left turn, a few hundred meters, and you were there already. No cars fit through the little alleyways even though the rumble of motorcycles often interrupted my meditations as I walked.

In the frustration of being an invalid and being so absorbed in being an invalid that I couldn’t even write, I would wake up every morning chanting, “I must create something. I must create something. Or else, I will die.”

I started taking pictures of my walk on my cell phone— of the ruins of the bylanes, the broken shutters, narrow lanes glowing yellow under a single street lamp— all the stories I’ve never known.

Soon the locals would run over to me. ‘Didi, one photo please.’ I would acquiesce, even though I’d never seen them again. Their images would remain on my phone like stray photographs of a chance meeting you’ll never even remember again.

Portrait Request ©Buku Sarkar

On one such morning, I happened upon a group of women doing their laundry. It was a Saturday. Not quite summer yet— the sun shone down and coated us with its warmth. I didn’t want to go home yet although if I walked farther into the maze of the Basti, I’d never find my way home again. But I needed to sit. The legs weren’t holding up so firmly as an hour before.

Saturday Morning Laundry Ladies- The main square ©Buku Sarkar

I asked the women if I could photograph them. They agreed and I spent much of that morning in their company, just clicking away without once looking up, as they hung wet clothes on the clothes line above looking over at me bemused. ‘E, kis liye’? One asked. What is this for?

‘Shouk,’ I replied. Meaning whim or fancy. I didn’t know the Hindi word for hobby.

‘Just as one sings or paints? So does one take photographs,’ I explained.

‘Oh shouk ke liye,’ the woman tells the others, over her shoulders. They still look at me strangely but are satisfied with the answer.

Later on, I’d sometimes get asked point blank if I were from the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, documenting their filth.

The Main Street, The Basti, 2018 ©Buku Sarkar

When I went back home and loaded the images on my laptop that afternoon, I was quite taken with the way the morning’s photo op had gone. I decided to make prints for the ladies and returned to the same washing area few days later. The women called each other out of their slumber from behind the curtains. ‘Ao, Ao, photo dekho.’ Come, come, see the photos.

They all had cell phones and they all knew what selfies meant, so to see a physical photograph was as much a novelty to them as it is to most of us these days. The photographs passed from hand to hand, woman to woman. They kept the ones of themselves and returned the ones I had taken elsewhere in my walk—of the butcher and the chaiwalla.

They asked me to return again that weekend when their relatives would be visiting and they would be cooking a feast.

The younger ones posed for more portraits— in various computations of two’s and three’s. I went back as they had requested and took more pictures. Soon the shop owners near by would ask me to photograph their storefronts, proudly posing in front of their businesses; the boys playing football and cricket on the streets, the clubs which organized local functions for the residents. There was nowhere I could walk in the Basti without being called over.

I called those ladies, the ones whom I’d first photographed, my Saturday Morning Laundry Ladies. The boys and girls called me, Photowali Didi. The sister with the photographs.

In Sharmila’s Home ©Buku Sarkar

I visited the Basti almost weekly for close to two years. Then sporadically since.

I had a particular route I loved to take. Straight on from my parents’ home, past the school and the little narrow lane that opened out into another spray of multi-storied buildings and then to the square where the two cows were tied and where Sharmila, another friend I had made, lived. A few minutes with her and I would go to the chaiwalla — the tea-store owner’s— for a cup made the streetstyle way with spices and milk and sugar. There, I would meet, along the way, the Mad Man of the Basti who would use all the English words he knew in my presence. His favorite was in describing the rich people who lived over there—he’d point with his head to the large buildings in the horizon— “All college, no knowledge,” he’d say, referring to their children who’d return from America without a degree.

From the chaiwalla’s, I walked straight, crossing the main street and towards the area where the Laundry Ladies lived—my last and favorite stop of the evening.

The Basti ©Buku Sarkar

The Girls are three sisters. Aliza, Nafisa and Simran. Two of them look identical, like twins. They don’t actually live in the Basti, as I found out much later but their aunt and cousin did and the first year, they were there almost every time I visited the Laundry Ladies, folded up on floors and beds of one of the small homes. Sometimes they’d be asleep when I arrived, holding their hands over their faces when they’d see me enter with the camera. “Abhi nahi, abhi nahi,” Not now, not now, they’d say.

The Girls (From L: Simran, Aliza, Laila Bhabi’s daughter and a neighbor). Muharram, Jan 2018 ©Buku Sarkar

On New Years Eve of that first year, they shrieked and giggled when they saw me arrive. “Wait, wait,” they said as they threw back the curtains and hurriedly redid their hair, their lips. An old aunt sat on the bed, covering her face, not wanting to be a part of the stranger’s pictures.

“Yeh kaun hai?” She asked and someone answered, “Wo eise photo khitchti hai.” She just takes photos for no reason.

“Kal photo le ayengi.” Tomorrow she’ll bring the photos back.

On the peripheries, The Basti/ Ballygunge, ©Buku Sarkar

The Girls, the younger ones in general, didn’t really care much for the prints. They were in it just for the modeling. Much in the same way that those people, who lived one door down from Laila Bhabi, in the biggest house of the area with two fridges and even an air-conditioner, cared not so much about my photographs either but about the new clothes I promised to get the wife, who, I was informed was recently abandoned by her husband and left alone with a child to take care of. She was starting work at a beauty parlor and needed something to wear.

“Jeans,” she said although I didn’t have the heart to tell her it wouldn’t look so well on her maternal frame. I was thinking of something more loose and colorful. I actually spent a long time online choosing the right clothing and ordering it, only to find out the following week, from Laila Bhabi, that the woman’s husband was very much present in the house.

When I repeated what the wife and her mother had told me, Laila Bhabi’s tongue stuck out in horror. She shook her head. “Such lies, such lies” she said softly, in awe of their audacity.

Laila Bhabi lives with her daughter and grandson. She had recently kicked out her alcoholic son-in-law. Few days after, her daughter stopped being able to walk and talk and till today remains paralysed along her left side.

I didn’t give those next door neighbors the clothes I’d bought for them— a leopard print top and a pair of cream pants— although I gave Laila Bhabi a big sack full of sarees and clothes for herself and her daughter.

The aunty who lives next to the parrot cage came running out too then went back in as soon as she realized the had been previously worn. “We don’t need such hand me downs,” she had said. Laila Bhabi took the sack with gratitude. She promised to wear one of them for me the next time I came.

When I was leaving, a hand came out of the parrot cage house and grabbed me. “I’ll wear them. Can you bring some more for me?” A voice said, through the curtain.

The thing is, my mother, who owns most of the closet space in this large house we live in, gives hand-me-downs to all her relatives— mostly gorgeous sarees she has never worn herself. But the pride of the poor sits high on their chest.

I’m still holding on to the leopard print top, waiting for its rightful owner one day.

The Girls, New Years Eve 2015 Buku Sarkar

The Girls have made me scurry around the Basti some bit themselves. The first time I met Mummyji, their mother, they were staying not where the Laundry Ladies did but with another relative a few streets down.

It was late evening. I was at the main square, across which the small single room houses of the Laundry Ladies lay scattered. I was at their cousin’s home looking for them. Before I could utter a word to protest, young Simran had been sent over to escort me to where they were, two narrow roads down. In these few years I have met all their aunts and cousins, their neighbors and street dogs and they still don’t know my first name. The only thing they know is that I have a sister in Delhi.

I don’t tell them that I lived in New York once—yet another thing that stands between them and me.

Enroute to The Basti, Ballygunge. ©Buku Sarkar

I hobbled behind Simran and she’d stop once in a while, waiting for me to catch up. She didn’t say anything but sighed as she waited, patience spreading across her face like smooth, white cream.

“Yeh wo Didi hai,” they told Mummyji, who was sitting on top of the bed. Mummyji smiled. Lines spread across her cheeks and forehead like ruins. I couldn’t decipher her age and noted how sad and sickly she looked. I knew that look well.

It was, actually, just two weeks ago, while updating the fundraiser I am currently running for her, that I noticed her age on some documents I was sent. She is, as of writing this, thirty-four years old. Nine years younger to me although she looks more like a Mummyji than I ever will.

Portrait Request ©Buku Sarkar

The Girls pulled out boxes of clothes from beneath the bed. Aliza, the smart one, noticed I was taking photographs while she was getting ready in front of the cupboards mirror. She began to stick her tongue out in pose and I still don’t know what Tik Tok video they learned that from. The Girls teach me many things, one of the principal ones being that I am still alive.

When you see them dressed up, you won’t know they come from the Basti. They look like anyone else—smartly dressed in western wear. I’ve given them several of my old clothes that no longer fit me— when the aunties weren’t around they said, they could wear sleeveless tops and skirts that ended above their ankles.

Outside the Laundry Ladies’ homes, The Basti, New Years Eve 2018 ©Buku Sarkar

I was saddened when I learned that Mummyji was better and that The Girls and she were moving back to their own house in Topsia.

“Waha auge, na?” They asked.

I gave them my word I would visit although I had no intentions of making regular pilgrimages all the way over to a neighborhood that would require taking transport.

But one day, feeling up to the challenge, on Aliza’s birthday, I found myself keeping my word. Simran gave me detailed instructions over the phone. I was to stand in front of the main mosque in Topsia from where she would fetch me and take me to their home, not too far away.

I took a taxi.

Cars honked and motor cycles beeped up and down the main junction, where I stood, holding a box of cake clumsily in one hand, camera slung over my shoulders, trying to act as though everything in my gait and posture was normal. Even in Topsia they stared at me while driving by, although I always take pains to dress down and demurely when I’m around The Girls or anyone in the Basti. I looked around me, trying to find space to sit down on the roadside. But fortunately I spotted Simran from across the street.

Simran ©Buku Sarkar

When we arrived near the house, she breaks the news to me that they live four floors up and my heart sank. I couldn’t do stairs then. I’d have toughened up one floor for them but four? I couldn’t do that, not for anyone.

We were standing in a damp, dark alley, with only a little light coming from a tailor’s shop near-by. She looked around helplessly.

I gave her the cake and told her to go upstairs and enjoy it. That I would wait down here till they were done and she could take me back to the mosque where I could find an auto or a taxi.

I didn’t tell her that this was the first time I was leaving my house in a month.

Enroute Home ©Buku Sarkar

My relationship with the people of the Basti and The Girls’ in particular still continues till today. They still don’t know my name nor that I come from one of the largest houses on May Fair Road, the landmark I always use when asked where I’m coming from. At first, some insisted I was sending these images back to America where they’d be published in the newspapers. Others would remind these gentle dreamers, ‘No, no, it’s shouk.’

It’s a relationship that was born out of an innocence and naivety that has perhaps become my biggest boon in a photographic world that abounds with thoughtlessness.

I was not a photographer, or even close to using that word, when I had met the Basti dwellers. I was not photographing them with a project in mind and nor had I envisioned that three years later, these images would be displayed in New York and Art Basel. There were many more things, barriers, between us— the residents of the Basti and me — than just street crossings and the sort of clothes we wore. The camera added another layer to these.

It was only after Bill Boling, from Fall Line Press, discovered me on Instagram and years later, we started doing a book together, did I have to confront many of the problems and questions that circle around the issue of photographing poverty. It still puzzles me how much effort it takes for someone to just be human.

At the home of the Laundry Ladies ©Buku Sarkar

In recent months a famous image keeps coming to mind— you must all remember this—that of a man who had fallen onto the tracks of a New York subway. You can’t see his face in this famous image, recorded moments before his death, but I think you can see his hand—or perhaps my imagination is building up its own momentum now—and the steady, bright light of an oncoming train through the dark tunnel. There was an uproar when this image was published, I think by the New York Post. The station was empty, or nearly so. Yet, this photographer had chosen, instead of helping the man get up to safety, to photograph him instead.

More and more in these months, perhaps from watching too much on social media, I have been questioning my role as a photographer, as a recorder of life, as an artist—overloaded as that word might be. I never had to do this with my writing because real life, that is real facts and real people, were easy to hide in the murkiness of fiction. Photography had a more imperative challenge in that you cannot hide, objectively speaking, what or whom you are photographing. I wasn’t making a documentary and was not interested in journalism. Photography was simply another way to write fiction. But where was the line between the imagined and the real?

Ballygunge ©Buku Sarkar

Over and over I have asked myself this— when The Girls’ call me to their home and I jump up readily, camera loaded and slung on shoulder; when I take sweets for the chaiwalla during Diwali—camera slung on my shoulder; when I send messages to The Girls’ on WhatsApp and avoid their persistent calls (I hate talking on the phone) and make plans to take them to the plushest shopping mall, not too far from the Basti; when I visit Sharmila and photograph her laments of her alcoholic husband; her daughter who had been murdered by the in-laws; when I photograph the shop owner hugging his favorite item in his shop— a non-working blender— who am I? What is my agenda?

I did have one, at first, although it sounds rather simplistic now. I wanted to take their photographs because I was trying to recreate a story and that made me happy. I liked to give them prints because it made them happy which in turn made me happier. Because even charity is an act of self-centeredness. But I truly enjoyed the challenges of walking around the narrow by-lanes, looking for that one subject of a photograph, whom I had met only the day prior. I could never find my way around those labyrinthine lanes. I would ask the locals sitting around. A boy might leap up in delight and race around the lanes within lanes, with me following awkwardly behind. He hadn’t realized I couldn’t walk properly . I liked being recognized, I liked being called Photowali Didi. I liked the comments I got on social media.

The Basti ©Buku Sarkar

I had little guilt in what I was doing at first. The guilt only creeps in when theory infiltrates judgment and instinct. but it is clearer now than back when I had started— I was not photographing poverty. I was not interested in their religion. I was recording my new life in Calcutta, this time under my own terms. I was rediscovering a city I had grown up in but left for seventeen years. The Basti dwellers were my neighbors. Every evening I had tea and small conversations with them. This was no different than being in New York and heading straight to my local dry cleaner’s, where Jessie would tell me all the local neighborhood gossip.

All this detracted from the real issue on hand— why can’t I walk? Who would I wake up as tomorrow?

***

On the first day of the Lockdown, I called the dog walker when I woke up. Had he come that morning as of yet? This is the first thing I think about when I wake up. Knowing the dog has been taken out allows me to release the longest strand of breath I hold in, all night through. If he doesn’t come, then, for a few minutes I try to champion myself out of bed: I think about which is my left side, which is my right, will I even be able get up and stand, how do I hold my balance today? And turn the narrow corners that lead out of the bedroom. Will everything go dark and I fall? And when all that passes and getting up still fails, I tell myself it is okay if he relieves himself in the balcony or by my desk, which is next to the balcony door.

The dog walker said he had, very early. He said it had been getting harder and harder for him to come on his bike. The cops were giving him a hard time.

Portrait request ©Buku Sarkar

I had been dreading and yet in a way also waiting for this moment to come. The last few days I could sense my energy waning. I could sense something coming quietly yet stealthily like a far away storm that you can feel by a drop in temperature— I was afraid I needed a period of bed rest again. Worrying about the dog was beginning to feel like a behemoth of a task.

I sent a message to my parents: Julius will have to stay at your house for a while. And then, something slipped out of my fingers that I didn’t realize I’d been holding in along with my breath. I wrote, Maybe I should too. I sometimes say that it’s my fingers on the keyboard that do the thinking. They know, before I do, what I really knew all along.

Enroute to the Laundry Ladies, Dec 2018 ©Buku Sarkar

At my parents’, The Girls’ began calling me incessantly and finally, out of guilt, I returned their call. Mummyji hadn’t been able to take all her chemo pills or go to the doctor. They had finished all the money I had raised for her treatment last year. Their father, an auto driver, hadn’t worked throughout the Lockdown. Mummyji was in such poor condition, she could no longer talk or recognize her own family.

I had no obligation to The Girls and could have easily gone on ignoring their calls, I didn’t. I could have told them I’d moved away to Delhi or Mumbai or even America and stop seeing them altogether. After all, the project is done. I don’t photograph the Basti any longer. But it would’ve been too easy, too easy.

At the end of the day, every relationship requires effort. And these images of the Basti, this forth coming book—they only hold value for me in as long as they take me back to at all the stories I have come to tell, the people I’ve come to know. Without the stories, without the struggle in making that walk to the tea shop or to Topsia, my photographs of the Basti was meaningless.

The Basti ©Buku Sarkar

I found an organization, Future Hope, that works with women and children. The founder/CEO, Sujata, sent someone over to The Girls’ home the same day as we spoke. This person took Mummyji for a brain MRI although she was so terrified by the machine, she broke the belt and had to be removed from the tunnel.

Sujata has been in touch with The Girls’ school and thinks it’s better they stay there for now instead of moving to the one run by Future Hope, even though the latter is free and provides meals and rations to all families.

I started a new fundraiser for Mummyji and within weeks have equalled the amount I’d raised last year. This time, I even managed to explain to The Girls’ what a fundraiser means. ‘Wow’, said Aliza.

The Girls’ have been messaging me almost daily since then.

‘Do not forget Sujata Didi,’ I said sternly.

‘Nahi. Kaise bhulooon?’ No, how can I forget?, she replied. Sometimes I don’t even know which sister I am talking to. They share that one cell phone.

Enroute Home, The Basti, 2018 ©Buku Sarkar

Simran begs me to visit them but I remind them that the virus is still around. It’s the last thing they need at this crucial stage of their mother’s illness. I am relieved I can use the Lockdown as my shield. In all these years, it has been hard to explain to The Girls’ that when I am not visiting them, it is mostly because I am too busy being dizzy and faint. That I can’t walk without feeling like I will fall over and my world will go black. Who can blame them for not understanding? No one I know does. Not even the doctors.

But I ask her for pictures and she sends me some. The sisters are wearing shiny gold salwar suits and lots of make up. It even looks as though there is glitter on their faces.

Of-late, I have to keep repeating to myself: you are not in New York, you are not playing tennis. You are here. My mother has used the word ‘othorbo’ which, in English means ‘cripple’. She calls the choppy way I walk the ‘Geisha walk’. All this would’ve been amusing had it not really been happening in slow motion over the years, this turning into a vegetable in front of your own eyes.

I have, over the years, lost confidence in myself altogether. I feed off the championing positivism that comes out of my mother’s mouth. Not only because she nursed me back to health, but also because she has a way of living in a plain world where everything has answers and solutions and everything makes sense. Because somewhere out there, is the next morning, when I will once again wake up and realize I am not myself yet and may never be. Till then, I keep pretending in my mother’s world.

Portrait request, The Basti ©Buku Sarkar

I ask Sujata, from Future Hope, if she can send me a video of the family for the fundraiser page. She sends one immediately. In the video, you can see the whole family— Pappaji, Simran and Nafisa on the floor. Aliza on the bed next to her mother. A man’s voice can be heard, talking in English, introducing each family member. The Girls’ are not smiling. Not really. Pappaji faces the camera directly. Father. So much burden in a name, I can’t help thinking. I always connoted it with one who provides— not just food but stability. How could the girls call him that? When their lives had been nothing but a series of let downs?

On the bed, Mummyji, wearing a bright pink kameez and yellow salwar sleeps with her head next to Aliza. Her hair is cut short and she looks far too young to be a mother of three teenaged daughters. She is turned towards the wall although you can sense her eyes are open. One leg folded. The other one lifts off the bed for a second. I can’t help thinking that it’s a yoga pose I cannot manage, even now. I have spent much of this Lockdown sitting or lying down on the bed. It is the only thing I wish to see at the end of the day and the one thing I hate seeing the most.

Outside Laila Bhabi’s home, New Years Eve, 2018, @Buku Sarkar

Outside, the last Aajan of the day just got called. That means it must be close to dinner time. I look at the dark, polish of the antique headstand of the bed I am lying on as I write this. The carved wreath like Ceasar’s crown in its center. This was my sister’s bed when we were growing up. When you are in mourning, these little details fill the various compartments of time.

Everything I own is outside and in plain view in the room I am in. I have previously lived like this, in my childhood home, for months. Always with the expectation that this was a halfway house which I would soon leave.

 

I realize now that I had packed in a hurry and in panic— the only mode of operation I seem to be capable of these days. A backpack full of a few clothes and another bag with all my homeopathy medicines. The Prince, that is my dog, Julius, would have adequate food at my parents home. I wasn’t worried. I could’ve used some more underwear, a few more tops. But at the time, I had thought it would only be for a few days. I wish I could tell The Girls what I always tell myself: that the worst will only last a few days. Then things are bound to get better. Then, as always, this too shall pass.

I have been telling myself this for the past six years.

**********

If you would like to contribute to the fundraiser for Mummyji’s treatment, you may do so here: Mummyji Fundraiser

If you wish to contact Buku for information about this Project, about her Fundraiser for Mummyji or to commission work, her website is  here  with contact details and her Twitter account is at @BukuSarkar

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