Another Country - Ian Wright ARPS

Ian Wright ARPS

Making documentary photo essays are just a part of my curiosity - of looking, interpreting, trying to understand my own life experience, the society I live in, those I visit, the issues I investigate.

My images of Holsworthy Livestock Market were made between July 2012 and November 2013 on a dozen separate visits - an hour from my former home in Exeter. A spontaneous visit led to deeper interest, as the dilapidated century-old buildings were due to be bulldozed and the market moved to new premises.

Both my sets of grandparents and their ancestors, as far back as the seventeenth century, worked the land - one - a family of landowners, the other - agricultural labourers, stonemasons, garthmen, lime burners and domestic servants. This stimulated my curiosity about the communities that are pockets of traditional, rural English culture, including strong accents with a rhythm and stress which reflect the depth of our history.

I wanted to witness, and record, the passing of one of the oldest remaining livestock markets in England, and to know something of the life of the community and individuals for whom it is both an economic and social hub.

Much of our information today comes mediated for us - through TV, newspapers, magazines, and the web. Exploring - simply being there, is quite different. Being ‘present’ engages all the senses; we can interpret for ourselves. My photography allows me to experience things first-hand, and has a simple structure - to reveal through planning and pursuing photographic projects; to reflect on the experience; to relate what I have learned. Photography is essentially autobiographical - revealing why we photograph, our interests, what excites and awes us; displaying our tastes, our ideas, our influences, and our filters.

Photographing somewhere like Holdsworthy is an exercise in social relations, negotiating access and becoming invisible. Arriving around 7.30 and leaving after lunch in the market café, I didn’t do much camera work on my first visits, more making myself known, asking about the price of lambs, showing interest in the workings of the market. Key to this was the relationship I struck up with the chief auctioneer, a leading member of an influential family who owned the market and other agricultural businesses. He gave me all-area access and made it known to his staff who I was and what I was about. Showing a series of images from previous projects was a major factor, as was showing images that I made as my visits progressed. I think he was intrigued when I honestly remarked that photographing the market was one of the most interesting places I had visited.

Gradually, I just blended in - I soon began to look like one of the farmers; green wellies, waxed coat, flat hat. The farmers and their families were universally tolerant of this intruder, good-natured and generous - talking to me about their lives and the difficulties of contemporary farming; yet, not one would give it up. It was a great privilege to be allowed to become a temporary insider into the Holsworthy community and I hope that my images contribute in a small way to record of a traditional English way of life - and some very resilient, dignified people.

The end product was a self-published (Blurb) book Another Country: The Last Days of Holsworthy Livestock Market and a set of prints for the offices. The images here give a snapshot of the atmosphere and the characters. This is my foreword to the book:

“Every Wednesday morning for over a hundred years, the farming community of the borderlands of North Devon and Cornwall have assembled in the now crumbling buildings of Holsworthy livestock market. Auctioneers with their characteristic, quickfire gabble, act as ringmasters in crowded cockpit-shaped arenas. All the senses are assaulted - the cacophony of noise, the stench and mess underfoot, the sheer size and latent power of the cattle.

The weather is etched in the farmers’ faces as deep as the furrows they plough and the market is part of their economic life-blood but it is much more - it’s a major part of the social fabric. Farming is a lonely activity - man against the elements - and market mornings briefly bring together people who share a common culture and a common fate. Many are here to congregate for its own sake; they cluster in little confidential groups; they laugh a lot but conversation soon turns to the more serious issues of the day - perhaps over the breakfasts in the steamy cafe that richly deserve the label ‘full English’.

This is another England where ‘stewardship’ is the core value - a concept based on deep generational roots in their soil and an imperative that keeps them farming when it may make little economic sense.

The market is soon to move to new premises. Its social function may well survive but these are precarious times for these independent men and their families. Their ability to survive is squeezed by the cold winds of a globalised world and the power of commercial giants to dictate prices and the terms of trade. Once politically powerful, the rural community find themselves marginalised as the British population has become used to cheap food and their voting power is drowned out in what is now overwhelmingly an urban nation. And of course, the oldest adversary of the farmer - the weather - remains as potent as ever.”