What is working-class England if not grey, sullen, broken, monochrome, damp and sad? That’s the classic vision of this crumbling nation presented to us by photography, film and TV. But in the early 1990s, photographer Nick Waplington rocked the metaphorical boat by showing another side of England; one filled with colour, laughter, love and happiness.
‘Living Room’ documented the community of the Broxtowe house estate in Nottingham. The book was a sensation, and this amazing little exhibition brings together previously unseen photos from the same period. It’s the same families, houses and streets, but seen anew.
There are scenes of outdoor life: dad fixing the motor in the sun, oil staining the tarmac, his kid in blue sunnies hopping on her bike; a trip to the shops to pick up a pack of cigs; everyone out grabbing an ice cream in the sun or play fighting in the streets.
It’s ultra-basic, super-mundane, but it’s overflowing with life and joy.
But it’s in the titular living room that the real drama plays out. This room is the stage, the set where the community acts out its relationships; a cramped, filthy, beautiful world unto itself. Babies are fed, toddlers are cuddles, fags are smoked, teas are split, clothes are ironed. It’s ultra-basic, super-mundane, but it’s overflowing with life and joy. Everyone is laughing, playing, wrestling.
It’s also brimming with signifiers of late-1980s English working-class life; the clothing, the hair, the brands. Some of it shocks (the mum filling a baby’s bottle with Fanta, the kid having a smoke and cuppa, the endless fags) but our shock is just judgement masquerading as concern, and it’s a shock that makes you realise you should shut it and keep your nose out of their business. Because Waplington captured these people living their lives, doing what they had to, what they wanted. It’s obvious that times were hard here, that money was tight, but these people aren’t just forlorn and miserable symbols of Thatcher's Crap Britain. They’re not just a window back in time, they’re not just emblems of working class culture to fit a neat narrative or generate empathy. They’re real people with real lives, getting on with it. They’re living.
Waplington’s photos work because they’re not patronising. He isn’t a passive observer, but an active participant letting us into this world for just a second. Nothing really happens in these photos, but the whole universe is here, and it’s as beautiful, powerful, genuine and moving now as it would have been three decades ago.