Liverpool and Merseyside

1980s-90s

Photographs by Rob Bremner

Rob Bremner’s photographs stand as a significant document of Liverpool in the 1980s and early 1990s. Made during the Thatcher years, his work records a city living through economic upheaval and social change, while holding fast to its humour, style and sense of self. Bremner’s pictures do not reduce Liverpool to hardship. Instead, they show the dignity and resilience of working-class life in a way that feels both grounded and immediate.

Photographing across streets, estates and communities, Bremner built a vivid account of everyday Merseyside. His portraits and street scenes preserve the texture of a place and time that remains central to the story of modern Britain.

Rob Bremner’s photography has been part of the British Culture Archive collection since 2018. His work has also featured in BCA’s touring exhibitions, The People’s City and A Celebration of Life in the North, 1980s–90s, where it forms part of a wider exploration of Northern life during a period of deep political and economic change.

"It was tough times, but I found everyone to be warm and friendly. On rainy days, they would invite me in for tea. One night, I left my college Bronica in a pub after some dockers invited me for a drink. I returned the next day, and they had left it behind the bar for me. I wish I could say I was a socially aware photographer, campaigning against Thatcher’s Britain, but I just felt comfortable taking photos there and liked the people."

- Rob Bremner

“I know how to take portraits in the sense that I’ll look for a background and people, but basically I just asked people if I can take their photo. Obviously, you’re hanging around the same area, so you get to know people.”

- Rob Bremner

Laura Losh (nee Paolini) was a resistance fighter during the Second World War. One day, she encountered three British soldiers, including one from Anfield, Liverpool, who had escaped from a POW camp and were freezing and starving in a snow-covered field in Italy. Risking her life, she hid them from Nazi soldiers in an underground storage bunker until the end of the war. After the war, she married the soldier from Anfield, Harry, and lived out the rest of her life in Liverpool until passing away on Remembrance Sunday in 2013 aged 96.