posted on 30 Jun 2016

Born To Work by Nick Hedges and Huw Beynon

If you want to understand the extent of change in Britain – social, economic and political – that has taken place over the past two or three decades you can do a lot worse than take a look at photographic essays such as this one. Photographer, Nick Hedges, teamed-up with the labour sociologist, Huw Beynon, to produce this study of factory working life in the 1970’s and by the time it was published in 1982 it was already an historical peep into a disappearing world.

Although the world of work depicted here may have survived in some of the least visible back streets of our big cities, for the most part it now looks like an environment that was swept away by the global tidal wave of neo-liberal ‘modernisation’. What Hedges and Beynon have captured here is not just a disappearing old industrialism but something critical about social class.

Depicted in these photographs is a working class culture – a workplace community – with its own history and values. There is a mixture of hard graft, humour and dignity sitting alongside less admirable traits such as the deeply embedded sexism evident in the grades and tasks performed by men and women. However, what can’t be denied is the intrinsic nobility of their labour – people bound together by their shared triumphs and adversities.

Nick Hedges was, for some time, the staff photographer with the housing campaign Shelter and, as such, has the ideal mix of artistic capability and social empathy that enables him to see the shots that distil those key moments everyone who has worked in factories will immediately recognise. Huw Beynon, author of Working For Ford and renowned sociologist,  is also the perfect person to interpret and make sense of the moments that are captured here.

This book appeared at a politically critical moment as the Thatcher revolution was taking root and the writing was evidently on the wall for the old manufacturing industries. For those that would survive the onslaught of monetarism, there was more bad news just around the corner – the new technologies that would see many of these jobs automated. Born To Work stands as a tribute to the working class but also as an obituary to the world of work it casts its light on – but it’s a beautifully realised memorial and one you should read if you want to understand what has been lost.

It has to be said that copies of this book now seem very hard to find. I did locate a handful on booksellers advertsing through internet sites and that might be the best way to locate a copy. The few that are out there aren't too expensive so that, at least, shouldn't be too much of an issue for anyone wanting one.

Terry Potter

June 2016