Mik Critchlow. Copyright Mik Critchlow
A new gallery dedicated to the acclaimed photographer Mik Critchlow has opened at Woodhorn Museum, Northumberland. Below are some details on it, followed by a poem we’ve just received from Jim Aitken, a tutor from Edinburgh’s Social History Group, which has just written a collective poem.
The Coal Town Collection showcases more than 100 photographs from Critchlow’s Coal Town archive, which first went on display at Woodhorn Museum in November 2021. Chronicling the town and people of Ashington over four decades, ‘Coal Town’ provides a rare glimpse inside the town’s coalfield communities, and captures periods of major social, economic and political change in Northumberland. Critchlow personally selected each photograph from his archive for the original exhibition.
The Coal Town Collection also features personal items on loan from Critchlow’s family, including cameras he collected and used during his career, unseen photographs, and other personal ephemera that provide an insight into the man behind the camera.
Mining Apprentices, Ashington 1981. Copyright Mik Critchlow
The new exhibition at Woodhorn Museum celebrates the legacy of Critchlow and his work, and the hugely important role he played in documenting the end of Northumberland’s mining history. Speaking about the Coal Town exhibition in 2021, Mik said:
For the past 44 years I have photographed the town, people and surrounding areas of Ashington, Northumberland, the town in which I was born, educated and still live.
Ashington as a community owes its very existence to coal mining, and although the extraction of coal was the major dominant factor in their lives, miners and their families shared many interests. There was always a strong tradition of community life.
People would often ask me, ‘Why are you photographing me? I’m not royalty’, and I would say, ‘you’re my royalty, you’re just as important’. I’ve always told people they’re important. I was photographing them for history really.
After all these many years, I feel that I’m bringing these people back to life again, back home where they all belong.
Womens Support Group, Northumberland Miners’ Picnic 1984. Copyright Mik Critchlow
Maureen Critchlow, Mik’s wife, said:
Mik saw the Coal Town exhibition as the culmination of his life’s work within the area. Even though he’d worked on many projects further afield, it was this one, spanning a period of over 40 years, that was most special to him. He had a deep understanding and empathy for the people who lived and worked in his home town.
Mik had a longstanding association with Woodhorn Museum, having exhibited his work there many times over the years, and attending many a Miners’ Picnic day. The museum also holds a collection of his original exhibition prints from the 80s in its archive. He would have been honoured to have his work permanently displayed in the museum to enable many more people to view it.
Shona Brown, Mik’s daughter, added:
My Dad had an effortless ability to capture people’s emotions and personalities while simply going about their daily life. Quite often, when looking back on the mining era, it’s easy to automatically think of ‘the miners’ themselves, and not their families or the effects the devastating loss of the industry had on the wider community.
The selected images were personally chosen by my Dad back in 2021, capturing community life over four decades and creating a breathtaking display. This permanent home of The Coal Town Collection will ensure not only that his legacy lives on, but also the memories and subjects in the images. It’s been a pleasure working closely with the talented team at Woodhorn Museum and I’m confident he would be delighted with the end result.
Miners’ Wives Can-Can Dancing, Universal Club, 1980. Copyright Mik Critchlow
Liz Ritson, Programme & Engagement Manager at Woodhorn Museum, said:
With a career spanning almost 45 years, Mik’s work is one of the most important historical archives we have of the end of deep coal mining in Northumberland. It also captures the short and long-term impact of the industry’s closure on coalfield communities.
“His emotive and deeply personal photographs do more than capture a moment in time; they tell a story of the people and communities he was part of in the town of Ashington.
Because of his close connections to the people he photographed, Mik was able to capture deeply personal moments in people’s lives. Throughout his career he sensitively documented moments of joy, sadness, and everyday life within the coalfield communities in Ashington.
Born and raised in Ashington, Mik Critchlow amassed an archive of over 50,000 pictures during his 44-year photography career. He began photographing the people and street life of his hometown in 1977 after seeing an exhibition by The Ashington Group (also known as the Pitmen Painters).
Part of a mining family, Mik often referred to coal as being ‘in our blood’. His family moved to Northumberland in the mid 1800s to work in the region’s coal mines. Mik’s grandfather worked at Woodhorn Colliery for 52 years, his father spent 45 years as a miner, and his two brothers also spent 25 years working underground.
Mik died on his birthday (07 March 1955) aged 68 in Ashington, Northumberland.
Mik Critchlow’s work has also been exhibited and published by Side Gallery, Amber-Side Collection, Brunel University, Durham Art Gallery, Arts Council England, Northern Arts, The British Journal of Photography, and Creative Camera. In 2019, his third solo book, Coal Town – which features a collection of images from the exhibition – was published.
They Planned It In Advance
by Jim Aitken and the Edinburgh Social History group
They created the wealth of the nation
deep in the bowels of the earth,
men howking at the coal face
and pit brow lassies sorting it all
for meagre wages and awful conditions.
And because their union was radical
it simply had to be crushed
just like the disasters of yesteryear
in places like Mauricewood and Aberfan
this irritant union would be crushed.
They had no choice but to withdraw
their labour; far better to stand together
than vanish in a hundred pit closures.
They stayed out for a whole year
against all the dirty tricks of the state.
Other union branches across the nation
supported them with food, clothes and cash
enabling their resolve but it was broken
by a vicious state that left their communities
with nothing except drugs and social decay.
They planned it all in advance of power,
the militarised police force, more like
squaddies in police uniforms enjoying
breaking heads at Orgreave and elsewhere
as they criminalised a once proud union.
And we remember them with deep pride,
the great Gala days, the outings for bairns,
the proud banners on all kinds of protests,
the belief than an injury to one is an injury
to all. We need your ghostly presence back.
