Make Life Worth Living Exhibition, Nick Hedges - Edinburgh 2015

​http://www.shelterscotland.org/lifeworthliving
This exhibition is a set of photographs of tenement life in Glasgow between 1969 and 1972, taken by Nick Hedges for Shelter. I would love to see the whole exhibition, as, from looking at the selection on Shelter's website it is an incredible body of work.

Mother living with her children in an overcrowded single end tenement flat Glasgow 1971

Mother takes her baby inside her condemned tenement block Gorbals 1970

Looking at them made me reflect, both on my own childhood and on current issues:

The children in these pictures are of my generation but what a different start in life to mine, how much harder to realise potential, to achieve health, education, even a secure roof over ones head.

This lead me to think of what the current government is doing, what divisions it is encouraging, nay even enforcing on society today - is this stratified society what we want to exist as the norm?

We need to WAKE UP and act, we need to STOP a generation of children being consinged to the scrap heap of life.

Each and every life in this country has value, has EQUAL value, with every other life. That is why I believe a taxation system in both it's giving and taking should be helping those that have less, those that are struggling, those that have ill health - to promote, increase and maintain the equality that we all have a right to. Equality of health, education, opportunity, safety and self determination. The basic Human Rights.

A different set of photographs from the same collection, when the collection visited Bradford a year ago:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/11128331/Make-Life-Worth-Living-Nick-Hedges-photographs-for-Shelter.html

All change at the next stop...

Well in my last post I promised it wouldn't be a two month wait and it was not, it has been six months! Six months of bits and pieces of change. Chronologically:

The sad loss of Angela Michel, co-author and co-walker with Nick Warlow of Freedom to Rome: A Long Walk, at the end of November seemed to come so soon after hearing she had cancer. A truly beautiful spirit with the ability to create whole choirs of angels through her wonderful gifts of singing and teaching.

A new job since early October, pharmacy dispensing, just one afternoon per week in Knaresborough. I'm enjoying the learning and the doing aspects, the people are great but my mind is not inspired enough to feel this as part of my being. So learning, doing but not being... hmm I need something more...

My father turned 80 on 20th December 2013 and we managed to get the whole family together for a celebration! This was something of a feat as we have not all been together for quite some years. The logistics of coordinating travel and group hospitality from France, Germany, Essex, Oxfordshire and Yorkshire, plus life changing events such as moving home/country, babies, studying, graduating have prevented a family gathering happening. We rented a fantastic converted barn in Ludlow, little more than a stones throw from my parents new house, and enjoyed a convivial family meal for 17 which included new members as well as old.

We had our last Christmas at Fox on the Roof Cottage and a wonderfully family filled time it was, Shelly and Dean, and Tim and Anneken were able to come directly to York from Ludlow and stay with us through Christmas. It was a good way to end our tenure of the lovely, tatty cottage that has been our home for over 5 years. I expected to miss it but actually don't; proof, I hope, that our new house is already becoming the home we were looking for :)

As we were busy with our move my step-son, Rab, took the huge leap of moving cities for the first time,  I hope he takes Jamies Italian in Edinburgh by a storm! It is sad for Alastair to see his son move away but Edinburgh is not 'that' far. My step-daughter, Chloe, is back in Bosnia Herzegovina, and this is truly a world away. She is so bravely facing life and learning to be her own person whilst also learning to accept help and support from those around her in a way that belies her years. It is so hard these days for our children to find their path as they grow towards and through early adulthood; there are no certainties out there for them. While we adults might feel that the rug has been pulled from under us because the certainties in jobs, housing and financial security we were promised are proving to be somewhat elusive, at least we had the solid, stability of belief in those things to carry us through our formative years. Now our children are growing-up to meet a world that doesn't promise them anything.

So the something more...

Well this week I accepted my place on the Masters in Public Health course at Leeds Metropolitan University (about to rename itself Leeds Beckett University). I think it is this change that has encouraged me to write again, which is rather a positive sign. I'm tempted to say "Watch this space!" but hey my track-record of keeping this blog up-to-date aint very good so far...