Anne Worthington grew up in Blackpool before moving to Manchester, where she ended up in the middle of Hulme’s infamous squat scene. At the time, the area was full of artists, ex-students, and anyone else who didn’t quite fit the mould, all crammed into crumbling tower blocks that no one else wanted. Anne fell in with the Dogs of Heaven collective, known for putting on wild, anarchic art performances around the estate. It was during this time that she first picked up a camera and took photographs of the area as it was being demolished, marking the end of an era of squat culture.
Anne went on to become a documentary photographer, working around the country in an old Land Rover. Over the next two decades, she built a body of work that exposed the realities of Britain’s housing conditions and the fallout from the social and economic upheavals that kicked off in the 1980s.
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
These photographs capture the inner-city communities of Beswick, Clayton, and Openshaw — once-thriving corners of East Manchester that had fallen on hard times. They show the final days of these industrial neighbourhoods, just before and during the demolitions that cleared the way for new housing and businesses. Anne focused on the people who lived there — their day-to-day lives, and how they held their community together even as everything around them seemed to be falling apart.
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
“I took these photographs in Beswick, Clayton and Openshaw, three areas of industrial East Manchester. Areas that had employed thousands of people and very little remained. The streets housed a fraction of the people who used to live there. Like other parts of the UK, it’s a well-trodden story." -
Anne Worthington.
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
Anne: “The collapse of industry made this area one of the poorest in the city. East Manchester ended up being earmarked for regeneration. By the time I started taking photographs here, the streets in Beswick and Openshaw had been emptied and made ready for demolition. I met people living in the only house still occupied on an otherwise empty street. Kids would take over the streets, and walls were smashed, and fires were lit in the empty houses. I got to know a family who had started a club for young people to give them something else to do. They would check on the kids almost every night, especially the ones who were still out late into the night because some of them didn’t have a stable place to call home. They opened their homes and gave them somewhere to stay.”
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
“I met people down streets and on steps, and got more known as the photographer. It could be a tough place, sometimes a dark place, but rarely unhappy. People had a sense of purpose. They saw something wasn’t right and took it on. They’d been keeping their community going when other institutions had fallen away. And they knew how to have fun.”
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
“I got to know a few families and saw what can be overcome with that sense of belonging. Times have changed since I was there in the late 90s and early 2000s. Some of the streets aren’t there now, kids were outside a lot then, and the clothes were different. The tab and the temple have gone. Some people in the photographs still live in the area; they’ve married, grown up, and gotten older. Some of them have died. The regeneration scheme came and went; new houses were built, and the areas changed. They are distinct from the rest of the city, still dislocated maybe, and the people are still kind, enduring, wise, and angry.”
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
Photo © Anne Worthington, all rights reserved.
