LOCATION 1
Chatterley Whitfield Colliery // Stoke-on-Trent
Field Notes:
‘Meet you face to coal face. Only sounds here are the birds. And our voices. And the brickwork’s blank verse.‘
In Groundkeepers, the headstocks of a disused colliery stoically stand watch, as the site around them decays. The film draws connection to the former colliery workers, whose community were altered forever by the closure of the coal mine, and who now volunteer to protect the site’s industrial heritage.
Read by Len Eley – my grandfather, and resident of a Midlands mining community.
Created in response to an artists’ tour of Chatterley Whitfield, near Stoke-on-Trent.
With thanks to:
The Friends of Chatterley Whitfield
Urban Wilderness CIC
Keele University
(Ben Anderson, Ceri Morgan).
Groundkeepers
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