New Roots, Old Soil - Fenland Lives In Transition
Year
Considering the impact of the EU’s A8 Accession legislation on the Fens of East Anglia, where migration has reshaped traditional industries & communities. An exploration of the effect on the population & the tension between economic growth & the idea of a cohesive society.
New Roots, Old Soil
Farm workers harvesting cabbages during a rain storm near Sibsey, Lincolnshire. Leafy vegetables like cabbages, kale and cauliflower are pulled in the early winter when the first frosts come. Known as the Brassica season, much of the working day is spent in the wet and cold.
New Roots, Old Soil
The Reverend Ian Cuthbertson of Gosberton Church blessing the Council gritters at Pode Hole Depot, Linconshire. Prayers are given for the safety of drivers during the Winter months before the gritting vehicles set off to deposit salt on the county's roads to combat the icy conditions.
New Roots, Old Soil
A woman from Estonia walks along the A47 in Cambridgeshire between her two jobs at McDonald's and a petrol station, Cambridgeshire.
New Roots, Old Soil
Pest controller in Southery, Norfolk.
New Roots, Old Soil
David Bishop, aka Lord Byro of the Church of the Militant Elvis Party campaigning at the Sleaford & North Hykeham by-election, Lincolnshire. He polled 55 votes, losing to Caroline Johnson of the Conservative Party.
New Roots, Old Soil
Migrant workers from Eastern Europe shopping in Boston town centre on a Saturday afternoon.They’ve adopted the ‘gopnik’ look, popular amongst fans of 'blatnaya pesnya' - literally 'criminal’s songs’, a genre of music popularised by East European hip-hop artists but with its roots in 19th Century czarist Russia.
New Roots, Old Soil
Woman at car boot sale with dogs, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen, Norfolk .
New Roots, Old Soil
A hairbrush, a broken mirror, a plate.
An abandoned pigsty inhabited by two Latvian women who came to the UK seeking work but found themselves homeless and eating dog food to survive. Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.
New Roots, Old Soil
Tourists from China visiting Cambridge.
New Roots, Old Soil
Mr & Mrs Morris collecting for the Help for Heroes charity at the Anglia Motel, Fleet Hargate, Lincolnshire.
New Roots, Old Soil
Waiting for the first customer of the day at Baxter's chip shop window, Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire.
New Roots, Old Soil
Algimanta showing the Christmas turkeys at Mr Eagle's poultry auction, Swaffham raceway, Norfolk.
New Roots, Old Soil
Babak, a Hungarian of Iranian descent waits for his friends in Wisbech market place on a Saturday afternoon wearing his new jeans. Taking advantage of the Citizens' Rights Directive 2004/38/EC he came to the UK for work and is employed in a vegetable packing factory on the edge of the town. Initially working the night shift he has recently been promoted to team leader and now works days.
New Roots, Old Soil
Graffiti on a disused agricultural building near Lolworth, Cambridgeshire. The structure, known as the Conington Barn was originally built by the route of the Via Devana - the Roman road which skirted the undrained Fens. The road subsequently became the A14. The barn enjoyed a secret life in the latter years of the 20th Century as a resting place for hitch-hikers going North until the A14 became dualled and traffic speeds increased to the extent that it became impractical for vehicles to stop. After that it became a popular canvas for graffiti artists who were assured of an audience of tens of thousands of passing motorists daily.
The barn was demolished as part of the A14 widening project in 2018.
Kings Lynn Mart 2013
On the Waltzers at the Mart, King's Lynn.
Si Barber
Mr Andrew Fletcher's 784lb entry to the Soham Pumpkin Fair, 2019.
One of the intended consequences of the enlargement of the EU in 2004 was to create an underclass of foreign manual workers compelled to scurry around member countries to function as a check on the domestic workforce, ensuring wages and conditions were kept as low as possible. This was particularly acute in the UK agricultural sector which relied on foreign labour to deliver produce to the supermarkets at minimal cost.
The trickle down effect of Brexit combined with economic growth in their home countries emboldened A8 workers to militate for better pay, conditions and the ability to contemplate alternative employment, much to the disdain of the the large agricultural corporations who regarded their workers as an inconvenience rather than an asset. Ultimately prices had to rise to reflect the real cost of production, much to the disappointment of shareholders and shoppers, the latter of whom had been fooled into believing a low-wage, low growth economy was a feature of modern, successful society.
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Selling selfie-sticks, Cambridge.
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Shippea Hill rail station in Cambridgeshire. The request-only stop was once famous for being the least used station in Britain. In latter years it became more popular as migrant workers commuted from the villages surrounding the Ely interchange to catch the 07.17 train for the nine minute ride to Shippea Hill where they would be mini-bussed to the packhouses of the Fens which surround the towns of Soham and Mildenhall. However, during the Covid pandemic demand fell away as many workers returned to their countries of origin when it was thought that having the jab would become a condition of employment.
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Tribute to Margaret Thatcher at St Mary Magdalene Church, Gedney Lincolnshire. The memorial features coal, a handbag and a book on the Falklands war.
A Tullos threshing machine up for sale at a dispersal auction of the late Jessie Watson, farmer of Littleport, Cambridgeshire. Mr Watson purchased the vehicle in 1946 and paid for it to be transported to the Fens by train from Aberdeen, Scotland. Then it required three workers to operate it and another to tow it by tractor. Today, its tasks can be completed by one person.
A demonstration in Boston, Lincolnshire, calling the invocation of Article 50, which would initiate the process of the UK leaving the EU. It was finally granted by PM Teresa May on 29th March 2017 sending a formal notification to the European Council, triggering the two-year period for withdrawal negotiations .
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Ali Dent, Butcher in Hilgay, Norfolk,UK
Si Barber
Cliff Carnival Parade, Navenby,Lincolnshire
Dr Victoria Bateman
Dr Victoria Bateman, academic and economist presenting her thesis called Brexit Leaves Britain Naked, in which she postulates on why she believes the UK leaving the EU is an error. Whilst speaking, Dr Bateman strips off her clothes and invites the audience to sign her body in a gesture of support.
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At the Knicat Cafe, Downham Market,Norfolk.
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Children playing in the street, Kings Lynn,Norfolk.
Image by Si Barber
Whittlesey Straw Bear, Cambridgeshire. Originally held on the first Monday in January, the event has celebrated the beginning of the agricultural year since the Middle Ages. Farm labourers, unemployed in the winter months would black up their faces to prevent identification and perform dances in the town in return for money or food.
Latterly considered begging and criminalised before making a comeback in the 1980s over the weekend of Epiphanytide, the Straw Bear inevitably involves a number of street fights and the occasional good natured stabbing.
In the 2000s as property prices in Whittlesey rose, aspirational people who wanted to live in Cambridge but couldn't afford city prices came to the town and occupied the new builds. They disapproved of the application of blackface and conspired to make it forbidden. These were the same well intentioned, but naïve people who supported the smoking ban which did so damage to the culture of England, closing pubs like the Bricklayers Arms.
Amy Harrison, Dowager Flower Queen of Spalding, Lincolnshire, instructs her presumptive heirs on the duties and responsibilities of her role as a representative of the town and its civic duties. Pivotal to her role is representing the town at various events, including the Spalding Flower Parade which celebrates the area's heritage in flower bulb growing. Candidates for Flower Queen are selected through a pageant where they are judged on aspects of their personality, their community involvement, and how well they represent the town.
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Antek, Denisa and Vendula, seasonal workers from the Czech Republic hoeing weeds in the brassica fields of South Lincolnshire. Weeding, needing the application of the eye to determine between the crop and invasive plants is one of the few agricultural tasks that has yet to be mechanised or automated.
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Mummers recreating the legend of St George & the Dragon on St George’s Day, Downham Market, Norfolk. The dragon is played by the town's mayor, Frank Daymond, St George by Councillor David Sharman.
A room (kolhata) to rent advertisement in a newsagents window. The text is in Russian cyrillic and deliberately designed to appeal to prospective East European migrants tenants of a certain age. Anyone who went to school within the USSR before its collapse 1991 learned Russian as part of the curriculum, and as part of the Soviet cultural domination of its occupied territories. Although widely loathed and abandoned after the fall of communism, the practise of having a common language proved useful for migrants when those countries joined the EU under the A8 accession rules in 2004 and they were given the right to come to live and work in the UK. That meant Czechs, Latvians, Lithuanians, Slovakians, Slovenians, Poles, Hungarians and Estonians could communicate with each other. Useful if you’re trying to make yourself heard on a factory floor or field in the Fens. Even today If you go into any of the East European shops in the town the transaction will often complete with the assistant exclaiming “spasiba”, the Russian word for thanks.
Si Barber
After his resignation as prime minister in September 2022, Boris Johnson's portrait is removed from the wall and Winston Churchill resumes his place of prominence at King's Lynn Conservative Club, Norfolk.
Si Barber
Prospect House, Southery, Norfolk. Built in 1907 for a farm manager and their family in such a way that the land in cultivation and in particular its workers could be continually observed. The home was ultimately abandoned due to subsidence which was a fate that similar properties in the Fens suffered. In subsequent years such buildings were reinforced with concrete underpinnings to attenuate the effects of the wet land, but often to little effect.
Members of the Spalding Lithuanian Society celebrating their annual Day Of The Restoration Of Independence with a picnic of traditional foods and the red, green and yellow colours of the Lithuanian flag.
Lithuania's independence began on 11th March 1990 when it officially rejected the rule of the USSR which had occupied its territories since 1944. Subsequently the day has become a celebration for Lithuanians around the world.
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The cross of St George painted on a the door of a home at 11 Falcon Road,Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, the day before the Brexit Referendum in 2016.
Exodus 12:23 "And when He seeth the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you."
©Si Barber Moral Rights Asserted
A man with a tattoo of Trojan Skins on his forehead.
©Si Barber. Moral rights asserted
World War Two reneactors recreating the German defence of Normandy and interacting with the public. Holme,Lincolnshire,UK
Migrants in Wisbech Cambridgeshire.
migrant workers seeking work in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.
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A demonstration against the prorogation of Parliament in King’s Lynn, Norfolk,UK, 2019.
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Anti loan shark promotion in March, cambridgeshire
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Members of Spalding LIthuanian Society in the town celebrating their country's independence, Lincolnshire, UK.
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A butcher delivering meat to ZP & VP Butchers in King’s Lynn, Norfolk,UK
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A English flag painted on a the door of home in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire,UK
Little Europe convenience shop, in Wisbech market place.
“Foreign cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco are not subject to the strict regulation and control measures that would benefit UK authorised sale items and in most cases have not had UK duty paid on them. Distribution and sale of illicit / counterfeit goods is linked to serious and organised crime and nationally is a drain on the economy.”