- Walking With Brian
- Apr 18, 2024
- 10 min read
Updated: Apr 25, 2024
I was free on Easter Monday and decided to kill two birds with one stone. A couple of photography exhibitions in Edinburgh had been on my radar for a while and I took a train from Inverkeithing to the capital city. On the 40th anniversary of the miners strike, the National Portrait Gallery was hosting Before and After Coal - images and voices from Scotland's mining community. Entry to the complex is free and it is located just a short stroll from the bus and rail stations. A visit is highly recommended.
Opened in 1889, the red sandstone building features Gothic revival architecture and was donated by local philanthropist John Ritchie Findlay, owner of the Scotsman newspaper. Arriving in the Great Hall, I browsed the paintings, busts and photographs on display and noticed Mick McGahey - a character entirely apposite to the purpose of my visit. McGahey (1925 - 1999) was born and raised in Lanarkshire and followed his father into the coal mining industry. He became chairman of his local union branch at the age of 18. He rose through the ranks to become vice president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and regional chief for Scotland - positions he held during two national strikes. He was also a senior figure in the Communist parties of Great Britain and Scotland. The oil portrait was commissioned in 1988 and - rather strangely - its subject matter stated the artwork meant nothing to his people as they would never see it. I fear you did them a great disservice in this respect Mick. Working at the coalface does not preclude someone from ever setting foot in a museum gallery. Having explored the permanent collection with my mum just a few months previously, I headed straight to the space reserved for special displays and sat down to watch After Burn (2024) - a short film depicting the experiences of former miners and their families from industrial communities in Fife, Ayrshire and Midlothian. The documentary examines what it was like to live in a mining village and what endured after the pits closed forever. My two grandfathers and four great grandfathers all worked underground but young men of my father's generation had more alternatives. I don't remember the mines in my home town of Lochgelly, nor in neighbouring Cowdenbeath, but a handful of pits in Fife and Clackmannanshire were still open when I started high school and I used to see the workers buses every morning. I suppose I experienced the tail end of the industry before the failed strike of 1984 dealt a mortal blow. I entered the main photography exhibition and quickly ascertained the primary material wasn't actually created during the strike period, but it was close enough. In 1982, American social documentary photographer Milton Rogovin came to Scotland on a three-week assignment. He was renowned for capturing industrial scenes in his homeland. Born in 1909, he experienced the Great Depression as a young man. An optometrist by profession, his lens illuminated prominent issues among working-class and poorer communities, including the decline of the steel industry in his hometown of Buffalo, New York State. His trip to Scotland was part of a wider project called Family of Miners, which encompassed ten nations. Rogovin's work features in the permanent collections of over two dozen prominent museums around the world, including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He lived to the grand old age of 101.
Today's exhibition had been designed by contemporary artist Nicky Bird. She updated Rogovin's Scottish portfolio by revisiting some of the original shooting locations, engaging with current residents and connecting with those who had appeared in the original photos. New images were taken, oral histories recorded and mining memorabilia incorporated. Themes of family and community spirit are explored, expressing ideas and feelings about what has changed. Bird specialises in considering the relevance of "found" pictures to today's society. Around 15 Scottish collieries were still operating in the early 1980s and they were handily shown on a large scale map of the central belt. The 1984/85 miners strike was a turning point in British social history. Trade unions had wielded considerable muscle but this was broken by the end of the decade and traditional heavy industries began to seriously decline. The strike began in Yorkshire and was escalated to national status by the NUM - led by Arthur Scargill - in response to proposed pit closures by the National Coal Board (NCB). By failing to hold a national ballot of its members, the NUM's action was regarded as controversial and they never succeeded in stopping production across the land. In Nottinghamshire, the majority of miners kept working and the fact that some coal continued to be extracted, coupled with the huge stockpiles the power stations had maintained since the industrial unrest of the mid-70s, meant the dispute never seriously threatened to tip the country into an energy crisis. The Conservative government of the day (led by Margaret Thatcher) were prepared to play a long game to defeat - as they saw it - the enemy within. A long and bitter struggle ensued and after almost a year, the miners ultimately ran out of resources. With little bargaining power remaining, voluntary redundancy payments were accepted and by the early 1990s the Scottish coalfield had been decimated. Deep mining ceased up this way in 2002 when Longannet suffered a disastrous flood and the final British operation to close was Kellingley in North Yorkshire. Now there is little demand for coal as power generation has switched to other sources. Some opencast mining remains, employing comparatively few people.
Rogovin's images were all shot in monochrome and the presence of large colourful commemorative banners helped brighten up the exhibition. The original photos captured - although Rogovin wouldn't have known it at the time - a way of life that was about to change forever. Men often lived very close to the mine and whole towns or villages were heavily dependant on this source of employment. It should be borne in mind that the workforce below ground was exclusively male, as legislation from 1842 prevented women from doing this job. Rogovin himself hadn't gained permission to visit the coal face but was given free rein to photograph miners around the surface workings. It wasn't all about graft. There were several shots of miners at home with their families and indulging in popular pastimes such as playing darts or walking whippets. Organised sport was also covered, as were major social gatherings such as village galas. Miners Institutes provided an indoor meeting place and some still trade today. It wasn't just about drinking either! These premises often contained a reading room and offered games such as carpet bowls. Of course by the 1980s, much of the actual coal cutting was performed by human-controlled machines but roles down the pit weren't limited to digging out the black stuff. There was a need for electricians, surveyors, shot firers, loco drivers and many other tasks. Feelings obviously ran high on the picket lines and many miners were arrested for low-level offences such as breach of the peace or police obstruction. Literature was displayed at the exhibition outlining the basics of the Miners Strike Pardons (Scotland) Act, 2022. The bill was passed in Holyrood and applies a collective and automatic pardon to former miners and their household members, parents, siblings and children who were convicted of certain offences while engaged in strike-related activity. It had been an informative visit and I acquired additional knowledge of this tumultuous time. I then hiked up to Chambers Street to see the latest touring exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland.
On loan from the Natural History Museum in London was Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Launched back in 1965, the competition now attracts entries from over 90 countries and features all age groups. The international tour of the 100 award-winning images allows them to be seen by well over a million people. An entrance fee of £11 applied today and the special exhibition hall wasn't too busy, in stark contrast to the large numbers of families milling around the general museum, enjoying a cheap day out over the Easter weekend. The first set of pictures I encountered were taken by children aged 8-10 years and Zhai Zeyu (China) was represented twice, with the dancing coot upon a frozen pond (above) and a stunning capture of an eastern penduline tit in its suspended bag-like nest, which is pieced together from soft vegetation and animal hair, then bound with spider silk. I once saw an example of this remarkable engineering feat on a nature reserve in Germany. There was also a striking image of bats flying in a rising arc, set against the Milky Way. The next category was young photographers (11-14) and featured bottlenose dolphins off the Isle of Skye. An Iberian lynx caught my eye. Numbers were down to less than 100 by the turn of the century but conservation efforts have pushed the population beyond a thousand. Long may the feline comeback continue! The adult competition entries were grouped into various categories: animal portraits, behaviour, animals in their environment, natural artistry, plants & fungi, oceans, urban wildlife, wetlands and photo journalism. All images in the exhibition were digital and displayed on high resolution screens. I admired a shot of a leopard crossing a stream before homing in on the beautifully-lit scene shown below. Taken on the tundra, the Arctic fox is sporting its ragged summer coat and is missing part of a leg, a detail I must confess I failed to spot until the text panel informed me. In winter, the animals are camouflaged against the snow by their thick white apparel. Climate change may cause this colour cycle to become out of kilter with the background conditions. Man indirectly playing God.
I learned that a scrum of spotted hyenas can devour an adult zebra in less than an hour. Both scavenger and hunter, the hyena's jaw is large enough to enable the crushing of large skulls. Their stomachs can digest bones. A stirring American bison photo reminded me of the excellent Ken Burns documentary I recently watched. It regales the sad tale of this once-abundant herbivore. Synonymous with the Great Plains, the magnificent beast was hunted to near extinction by the late 1800s (slaughtered may be a more appropriate term). Numbers are gradually increasing, but are confined to discrete populations and are dependent upon conservation management and constrained by changes in land use and ownership. Wildlife photography isn't usually a case of taking a quick snap. A portrait of grey-winged trumpeter birds (native to South America) watching a boa slither past took six months of regular monitoring via a hidden camera before the desired image was finally secured. Staying on the bird theme, two black-winged kites were captured fighting mid-air over an incoming meal (possibly a pigeon). On terra firma, a raven had a baby rabbit jammed in its beak. Apparently they can even take off while carrying a prey of this size. Two white storks stood watching a controlled bush fire. They shimmered in the heat haze, looking for easy pickings. Burning grassland to stimulate new growth is an effective, if controversial way of managing the territory. Disaster can occur if the flames run out of control. Moving into the Antarctic, a pod of orcas planned an assault on a Weddell seal. By charging towards the ice shelf, a wave is created that sweeps the seal into the water and into the path of the whales. Rising temperatures are melting ice floes, prompting a change of behaviour among seals, who now spend increasing amounts of time on land, perhaps one day rendering the "wave washing" technique redundant. It wasn't all blood and guts. A macaque was caught hitching a ride on the back of a deer. Then it was back to the law of the jungle as a snow leopard sprang towards a Pallas's cat.
A regular spotted one tried its luck against a porcupine (left) but had difficulty getting to grips with the quarry. The leopard's attempts to get its paw around or underneath were met by a wall of spines as the porcupine continually presented its rear. The text description didn't say how the conflict panned out. A long-necked turtle was pictured cowering within its shell after becoming trapped in the middle of an Australian highway as a road train (a truck with multiple trailers) thundered by. Thankfully this tale had a happy ending, with the turtle being rescued and deposited safely on the other side. The great length of a blue whale was emphasised by the way its bulk completely dwarfed a fulmar flying overhead, despite the bird having a wingspan of more than a metre. A beached orca had only a short time left to live and a subsequent autopsy revealed health problems due to marine pollution. The threat to wildlife from man-made issues, including climate change, was a theme that percolated the exhibition. An atmospheric depiction of a pine forest contained the stark reminder that the ever growing menace of wildfires on plantations is now threating to overwhelm in-built safety measures. A hippo swimming underwater suggested a serene environment but the "river horse" is vulnerable to habitat destruction and illegal hunting. Producing just one calf every two to three years, the species is not equipped to bounce back from a serious population decline. There was even an urbex angle within the displays. A pair of kittiwakes had moved into an abandoned fish processing factory, raising their chicks on a windowsill. They naturally nest on narrow ledges and some have drifted towards urban areas as food stocks become less plentiful by the cliff face. Bobcats have also migrated towards human settlements and this has led to a surge in confrontations. Some animals - like people - are pure opportunists and a possum was pictured snacking in a kitchen while carrying a baby in its pouch.
Human geography also featured and I loved this image (right) of the heavily polluted River Ciliwung winding its way through the Indonesian capital Jakarta - a city of 10 million inhabitants. Plastic rubbish, human waste, agricultural fertilisers and factory effluents are choking the watercourse, making it totally unsuitable for drinking. Instead, residents now pump out groundwater which has resulted in mass subsidence. Most Indonesians live on the island of Java, one of the most densely populated places on the planet. The photo was captivating, but disaster is surely brewing. A more peaceful vista was an aerial sweep of Spain's Guadalquivir Marshes - known for rice growing. The entire region is now threatened by the over-extraction of water - both legal and illegal - from the underlying aquifer. In Mexico, a drone picked out the proposed path of a new cross-country tourist railway. Trains are touted as a green method of travel but large-scale projects raise issues that impact on ecosystems, protected reserves, archaeological sites and indigenous peoples. The biggest open excavation on Earth is a copper mine in Utah, USA. Industry on this scale is highly controversial and expensive clean-up operations are often required. However, the growing demand for battery technology results in more minerals (often rare) being extracted from deep below the surface. Food for thought aplenty at the exhibition, as well as dozens of spectacular glimpses of the natural world.
