THE NORTH by John Bulmer *(signed edition)

John Bulmer’s superb photographs were taken at a time when the North was undergoing a vast transformation. The collapse of traditional industries that had been the wealth creators of the Industrial Revolution was deeply affecting communities throughout the region; from the Black Country and Potteries, through Greater Manchester up to the coalfields and shipyards of the North East and Glasgow. The hard times etched on the faces of John’s subjects told of a life of struggle framed against an often bleak industrial background. These were the people forgotten as the ‘Swinging Sixties’ changed the cultural landscape. Ironically, the first photographs were taken in 1960, the year Coronation Street was first screened with its own take on Northern life. The drama on the screen, however, could never get close to the rawness of the monochrome images of Nelson, Stoke-on-Trent, Warrington or Hartlepool. The launch of The Sunday Times magazine in 1962 was to propel John Bulmer’s photography in a new direction. The sudden switch to colour caught out most photographers, who continued to shoot in black and white. John made the adjustment seamlessly and became one of the magazine’s main contributors. Today, colour is taken for granted but, ay the time, it was a radical body of work and its publication here is in recognition of John’s importance as a photo-journalist of the first rank.