“Being a rambling but truthful account of what one man saw and heard and felt and thought during a journey through England.” Upon its publication 75 years ago, J B Priestley’s English Journey became an important influence for writers, photographers and even, it has been suggested, the agenda of the post-war Labour administration. Cushioned by the success of The Good Companions (1929), Priestley embarked on his tour of the English regions at a time of economic Armageddon. In this new English journey, and in the teeth of a new recession, photographer John Angerson set out to follow in Priestley’s footsteps to document an England which exists now. He takes Priestley’s subtitle as his own.
It is a work in progress, to be exhibited next year and collected into a book. Among the themes of the journey are the growing impact of homogenisation, of the primacy of technology and the national obsession with celebrity. “But,” says Angerson, “the open-hearted spirit of the people I encountered whilst wandering across England has made me believe, as J B Priestley did, that we work as individuals towards a common goal of co-operation never forgetting that we are all dependent on one another.” This gallery of portraits focuses on people he met on his continuing journey.
[bg|/PHOTOGRAPHY/Jasper_Rees/John_Angerson]
[bg|/PHOTOGRAPHY/Jasper_Rees/John_Angerson]
- Lish Fernandes, call centre worker and finalist in the Miss Wiltshire beauty competition, Swindon
- James Cottle, student, Coventry
- Matt Dove and Becki Webster, musicians, Norwich
- Asim Bukhari, worker at NG Bailey, a building service solutions company, Bradford
- Amritsa Raghvinoer Sharaf outside the newly built IKEA store, Coventry
- Jane Knight, Lady Master of the Cottesmore Hunt, Oakham
- Sarah Hogan, student, Coventry
- Rob Brown, deputy manager of Campanile Hotel, Leicester
- Peter Bowland, UPS Distribution Centre, Stoke-on-Trent
- Carl Lofts, known as Lofty, football fan, Nottingham
- Emma Wade, charity donation collector, MetroCentre, Gateshead
- Matthew Grundy, team worker at Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, Xtra services, A46
