"Photo Album"

I take totally rancid photographs. Dozens of albums, some cheap and nasty, others expensive, all chronicling the story of a life. the chronology of events, good and bad. A family, growing up, sometimes in distress, sometimes in happiness. Travel. Blackpool with its glorious illuminations and its extrovert seediness - hedonism - 'Pleasure for all at the Pleasure Beach.' Wallsend-on-Tyne, the town where I grew up, dying, decaying, shorn of investment and development since the death of shipbuilding. Full of friendly and warm people done down by successive governments and councils. Photographs of people, faces fixed with rictus grins behind painted smiles, maybe they're lined with pain - the show must go on and nobody must know.