The Death of Childhood: Drowned, Abandoned and Murdered Toys
WORDS: Gareth E. Rees PHOTOS: Various excellent Twitter followers At the end of their careers. Forgotten. Abandoned. Dealing with their demons. The icons of our childhood don’t always have it easy. Some fall prey to drugs and drink. Others can’t
Another England: films by Maxy Neil Bianco & Michael Smith
LOCATION: Hartlepool & its environs “What does it mean to belong to somewhere?” Another England is a cycle of films by Maxy Neil Bianco and Michael Smith exploring a town on the edges of England, between land and sea. Hartlepool becomes
A Return to White Paint Spills In Public Places: Biannual Review 2016
WORDS & FILM: Owen Davey This film is the inaugural White Paint Spills In Public Places Biannual Review 2016 and a follow up to last year’s White Paint Spills In Public Places Introductory Review 2015. White Paint Spills In Public
Notes from the Moor & Soggy Scribbles
LOCATION: Yorkshire WORDS & PICTURES: Maxim Griffin ABOUT THE ARTIST: Maxim Peter Griffin is a landscape artist, cartographer and walker based in Lincolnshire.
The Strange and the Familiar: Seaside Super8
LOCATION: Hastings, East Sussex FILM: Featuring the work of Mark French, Richard Heslop, Kate Adams, Nick Pilton, Nichola Bruce, Rebecca Marshall, Sam Sharples and Andrew Kotting Made by Hastings Film Makers for the Coastal Currents project, inspired by the theme of
Archaeology Now (or What I found when I was looking for the Bronze Age on Skeleton Hill)
LOCATION: Lincolnshire WORDS & PICTURES: Maxim Griffin Striking out on a bright Friday in March – I’ve got a job on with some archaeologists and I’m heading to the far side of the bypass to scope out the bronze
An Unreliable Guide to London
LOCATION: Erm…. WORDS: Gareth E Rees If you’re a regular reader of Unofficial Britain, you’ll know that I like to walk around chain store car parks, writing things down. It’s something of an obsession. On this website I’ve described my
Heaven is a marsh in Winter
LOCATION: Essex WORDS: Gary Budden PICTURES: Maxim Griffin The book I chose to take deep into Essex’s marshland (from a choice of many) was The Hamlyn Guide to Birds, revised edition, published 1987. It’s been with me as long as I
Sleaford Mods: Invisible Britain – Portrait of a Country on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
WORDS: Gareth E. Rees In the new documentary, Sleaford Mods: Invisible Britain, Sleaford Mods (Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson) tour parts of Britain that don’t exist in the minds of many: boarded-up streets in towns bereft of their founding industries, left to
Lost Bus Routes
LOCATION: Yorkshire FILM: John Ledger Lost Bus Routes and Pre-Election Rambles is a spoken word account of a series of rambles myself and a friend, Michael Hill, did around former mining villages we grew up in, on the eve of the 2015
