Mother was born in County Durham, her father worked in the mines and the family came south in the depression when mother was a young girl. They settled in Watford, where my grandfather made a life for the family. My father worked as relief manager for some retail shops, the Co-‐op I think, and met my mother whilst he was working in Watford. They married and came to Bedford on the day of the wedding, it was where my father’s family were living. My parents arrived at Bedford Midland Road Station on the 16th January 1953, they lived for a short while in a bed-‐sit in Kimbolton Road, which, fortuitously, was nearly opposite the Maternity Hospital at Bedford North Wing. I was a twin, and my sister and I were born prematurely in late September of the same year; mother had been diagnosed with toxemia, she stayed in hospital for fifteen days after the birth, so was in hospitalized for over a month. Shortly afterwards my parents were offered a brand new council house in Bamford Road. Five years and two more children later the family moved to Duchess Road. Five years later and a further four children later, mother was prescribed the birth control pill. After my father died, mother sold the house in Duchess Road, which had been purchased as part of the ‘right to buy’ legislation in the early eighties, and moved to Hindburn Close where she now lives, and a couple of miles from the site where my father’s remains lay.
These places are sites that staged some of the major episodes in mother’s life. Of events that are both spoken of and remembered, as well as those that are known of but are rarely remarked on. These images were meant to present an opportunity to both the subject and the photographer to reflect and remember; so an autobiographical journey as much as a means to depict some sense of remembrance.
40, Hindburn Close
Bedford Midland Road Station
Site of Bedford North Wing Maternity Hospital, Kimbolton Road
72, Kimbolton Road
36, Bamford Road
20, Duchess Road
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