Through The Wringer

We meandered north up the central spine of central  England: Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, eschewing motorways, keeping to the old ways. We passed 'High Cross', where the Fosse Way intersects with the Watling Street - the high point considered to be the centre of the country by Anglo-Saxons and Romans. As a wet cool spring turns to summer it is overflowing, effervescing, dripping with greens of every hue and texture, straining to outdo one another in intensity

But in amongst all the verdancy, the roads lead from pit village to pit village, market towns that became 19th century industrial centres, and then 20th century post-industrial problems; communities that had lost their central purpose and are still struggling to find the best way forward. The picture was taken in a place that boomed on coal and ironstone and rope-making to keep the wheels turning and boot-making to keep working feet well shod. The the pits closed and the wheels stopped turning and the feet no longer walked factory floors

But people don't give up hope quite so easily. Like so many others, the meagre, wind-swept shopping centre had boarded fronts, charity shops and pound stores, bookmakers and pawn shops. But it also had this expression of bright good humour, a cimbination of advertising and public art, that must have taken a lot of organising and co-ordinating and encouraging and co-operating, and not a little stubborn optimism. Bravo!