Making stuff, making places

As we endure this horrible pandemic it is common to hear people say that “when this is all over” – the regular phrase – it would be good if we could carry forward, into the resumption of normal life, new learnings and new behaviours that we’ve identified, under duress, as being desirable. Tellingly, some of these realisations are actually old learnings and old behaviours, since they relate to a slower pace, to quietness, to kindness and community spirit, to caring for others, to national pride, to an appreciation of nature, of beauty, of food, of people, of the good things in life.  To not be constantly dashing around; not being in crowded places, not getting and spending. Learning once again to stand and stare - at what we can see of a world stolen from us for who knows how long. To value “the important things in life”, like talking with people, love, good health, clean air and sunshine, freedom, simply being alive.

Also, motivated by the peculiar circumstances of this plague and inspired by some of our brilliant scientists, doctors, and engineers, there is a desire to regain more control over our lives, to “make things” like we used to, a desire which combines strong feelings connected with national security, purpose in life, and pride in ourselves. Making things ourselves means re-industrialisation, which would be good for psychological well-being and good for society in the sense that productive work provides a sense of meaning and purpose, a sense of community and, of course, wealth. Less obviously, it implies changes to the appearance of the landscape, and leads us to the main theme of this piece, industrial aesthetics and place making.

Some industries, not all, typically require large, varied and specialised facilities which impinge powerfully upon their surroundings.They help to create or intensify a sense of place, they donate character and individuality to their localities. I’m not advocating a return to the scars of open-cast mining, the mills and chimneys of L. S. Lowry, bronchitis-inducing pea soupers, or a stereotyped culture of clogs and cloth caps and trouble at t’ mill, but something more satisfying and specialised.  I want to see in this country lots of high intelligence making stuff, the manufacture of ecologically sound, high quality, high technology, world beating products for a better life, for healthcare, telecommunications, for the home, leisure, transport, housing, everything we need to make our lives easier, richer, cleaner, and more rewarding. Industries exploiting new materials with remarkable properties; commodities made with more intelligent design (not the religious variety) for people of all shapes and ages, abilities and disabilities. Let’s pick up the ball from this catastrophe and run with it. If we’re don’t, we’re stuffed.

Industry, while not necessarily pretty, is – or can be – sensually interesting, at least for those with an eye, an ear, a nose, a taste or a feel for such things. There are many such folk - people who have worked in or otherwise been associated with those industries, for instance, as well as architects, engineers, archaeologists, artists, photographers and local historians.

Here I have to get nostalgic by way of illustration, since there’s little in the way of current examples. I could have chosen the remnants  of steel and chemicals on Teesside, perhaps, a few sites around Runcorn and Widnes, the oil refineries along the Mersey, Thames, Humber, Forth, or Southampton Water. However, not so.

A significant percentage of my childhood was spent in Flintshire, where the estuary of the River Dee - the border between Wales and England -  provided the setting for many distinctive industrial installations. Some of them survive to this day, albeit in modified form. Most became victims to economic non-viability; some would not meet present day environmental standards or satisfy health and safety legislation. Some of the minor outfits were little more than industrial slums, already halfway crumbling archaeology, but all of them gave character to their locality as well as employment to the populace. They enhanced placefulness, they brought people together, they featured in conversation.

At the heart of Deeside (a bureaucratic term not then in general use) was John Summers and Sons steelworks, across the river from Shotton, and extending a long way downstream towards the estuary. My grandfather worked there all his life. At its peak in the early 1960s Summers employed over 13,000, and produced steel of the high quality that was the routine expectation of British manufacture.  Subsequently it declined in scale and ambition, under a variety of owners, buffeted by the economic storms of the late twentieth century and into the present. Some steel related manufacturing survives there to this day, but the old drama has long gone.

  Shotton steelworks, late 1960s

While Shotton steelworks was the industrial giant of the area, all the communities along the dead-straight left bank of the Dee from the suburbs of Chester almost to the resorts of the North Wales coast had their manufacturing offerings, and their distinctive architectures. Among them were the De Havilland aircraft factory, now Airbus, at Broughton; a power station with three massive cooling towers at Connah’s Quay; three large textile mills, belonging to Courtaulds, at Flint; a major chemical works, also owned by Courtaulds, at Greenfield near Holywell; an ironworks at Mostyn; and at Point of Ayr, where the Dee enters the Irish Sea, a colliery with miscellaneous surface structures and workings that extended far out under the sea.

Much of this was not conventionally pretty, some of it was malodorous, but it was interesting and it spoke of a society that was productively looking after itself, that had something worthwhile to do, some purpose in life. It was certainly a lot more fascinating to look at than today’s big sheds full of “stuff” in transit, or the many small business parks that have sprung up in the same area, for instance around Sandycroft, Queensferry, Sealand and Bagillt.

But back to the virus, the loathsome virus. I mentioned Airbus at Broughton. We learned a day or two ago that more than 10,000 ventilators for the NHS are to be built there. This is excellent and uplifting news. Maybe this could be just the start of an industrial rebirth not only along the Dee estuary, but throughout the UK. And, as a by-product, the start of a new growth of interesting features in our landscape, in which we can take pride and – for some of us at least – a sense of visual pleasure. Something for future artists to tackle.