Categories
COMMENTS REFLECTION

Phil Coomes on ‘A1: The Great North Road’, a personal reflection

Really pleased to be sharing this reflection on the Photobook Club! Just the other day we looked at a road trip taken by the BBC’s Phil Coomes and Paula Dear which referenced Paul Graham’s book, now a big thanks to Phil for contributing this reflection;

“Great to see you are looking at Paul Graham’s Great North Road book, I think it’s one of the most important series to have been shot in the UK. Every frame tells a story and yet is also a visual delight, and of course the work as a whole provides a strong social comment on the time. Now of course it comes with a dollop of nostalgia as well.

As you mentioned we used it as a jumping off point for our recession road project in 2009, though in reality we were on a very different mission, with tight deadlines and a financial story to wrap around it –where the story led, as opposed to the pictures. But it would be fair to say my colleague Paula and I carried these frames in our head as we headed north. What did we find? Well, another country from the one in Paul’s book, that’s for sure, though there were some similarities and given time they could be teased out, but sadly we had just five days on the road.”

– Phil Coomes

©PAUL GRAHAM

 

Categories
CLOSER LOOK COMMENTS HISTORY

26 Years Later: The Great North Road Trip

In 2009, ‘traff’ of the Culture Republic blog said that:

It would be an interesting exercise to make the journey in current times and see what changes have been wrought.  One would imagine there would be new freeways, big box retail and neon-lit ‘service centres’, yet still the same air of suburban angst and hopelessness faintly lingering.

Luckily Phil Coomes of the BBC’s ‘Viewfinder’ blog seemed to have the same interest and in September of 2009 embarked upon ‘The Great North Road Trip’.

©PHIL COOMES

The idea was to travel the road in search of stories on the recession, just like Graham, Coomes’ choice to follow the A1(M) meant a swift dissection of England from the wealthy city of London, through industrial and post-industrial towns of the midlands and on towards Scotland.

While Coomes’ refers to Graham’s work on a couple of occasions, it is not a complete retracing of locations or ‘After A1: The Great North Road’ style project. It is however a well thought out project in it’s own right and as an archive of a time period is very interesting. I have archived all the posts in the lists below.

©PHIL COOMES

There is an audio slideshow created by Phil Coomes and Paula Dear that sums up the weeks travel, hearing direct from the public who have spoken to Coomes adds some weight to the piece and makes me wonder what Graham’s subjects would have spoken about, given the opportunity.

©PAUL GRAHAM

– Matt
And if you haven’t seen the book yet…