Until relatively recently life in rural England would have been very different from how it is today. Full or partial self-sufficiency would have been common, fixing and re-using would have been a necessity, waste would have been minimal. That is, however, a bygone era. Consumerism obliges us to continually modernise instead of adapting what we already possess or purchasing second-hand. People who do not live like this are unusual.

Diary No.30 explores the realm of place, time, and memory through the life of Nanda: an elderly woman living in a small village in England’s rural South West. Utilising a combination of contemporary and archive imagery, with text taken from audio recordings of dialogue between Nanda and myself, this ongoing body of work attempts to lace together Nanda’s past and present.

 

The decision to photograph Nanda grew out of a personal fascination with her lifestyle and a growing desire to explore and understand the origins, growth and maturing of her identity. 

I’ve been snowed in three times. One winter was so snowed up I couldn’t get the car out. I went for a walk all the way round and got up to the top bit and found this sort of metal thing sticking up out of the snow, I thought, what on earth’s that? So, I kicked off the snow, and realised it was the corner of the roof rack.

I lived in the Alps. Have I told you? Stop me if I’m repeating myself.

 Meribel, Piste Lapin was my favourite. I loved going down through the trees. One day I tumbled over and ended up hanging from a branch by my skis! I eventually managed to wriggle free, thought it’d be too chilly to spend the night.

The cottages are medieval, the forge came later. There were two old ladies who ran a little bar in the cottage with cider from the orchard. Travellers would drink while the horses were shod.

Puss is seventeen now. She never did get over the death of her sister who was the hunter you see. Used to bring back half dead rats. Of course, back then they used Warfarin in the poison.