Some brutal images here.

[Guest]

My mother used to keep an eye on prisoners families when the husband was inside. When I come home from school in the winter, I would go with mother into horrible areas and stay in the car to protect it from vandalism, it was a nice convertible. On one such house visit, mother came back to the car and told me to lock it up, she wanted me to see the conditions inside the house. I said what about the car, she said forget about it. I was truly shocked, I remember newspapers on the walls for wallpaper. The children were sitting on empty orange crates. The house was so depressing, I used to complain about how cold the dormitory was at boarding school, this house had no heat it was freezing. When we left, I remember crying in the car. Mother had given me a good lesson that evening.
Every Christmas mother would take the deaf and dumb children to the pantomime, they had front row seats and all of the drinks and food they wanted. When they left afterwords, there were two full buses of them, they would surround mother with arms reaching out to touch her. The movIe “Close Encounters of the third kind” always brings back that memory. These children were poorly dressed and obviously liVed in conditions that would have shocked me but their smiles said it all, even though they could not hear or talk.the
That story is the truth,I can still remember the evening as if it were yesterday, Father was paying for all of this via his allowance to my mother, she never ever had employment.

 

[raid]

Liverpool in the 1960's had the Beatles and also "this". Sad, but impressive photography. It makes you think about life and about how lucky we are not to have such a life as can be seen in some of the images.

 

[John Bragg]

Thankyou for sharing this fascinating documentary of what is a frightening example poverty in my living memory. Aside from the scant information that it was all shot with a Leica in natural light, I would love to know more about the masterful use of "available" light in such dimly lit rooms. It is almost like some extra light bulbs were employed. Difficult to read the shadows.