Just over 30 years ago, John Darwell was asked by the Untitled Gallery in Sheffield to produce a series of photographs documenting the changing face of the city. “Oh God, don’t tell me things like that,” he says, contemplating the passage of time.
Born and bred in Bolton “within earshot of the factory whistle”, Darwell was already known for his work on the Manchester Ship Canal and the industrial landscape around Manchester. So he was a natural choice to explore the regeneration of Sheffield and its move away from heavy industry after the closure of its steelworks under Thatcher.
“What I found in the city was this melting pot with Turkish cafes and chip shops and Indian fabric shops all side by side that were in danger from gentrification,” says Darwell, now a professor of photography at the University of Cumbria. “It felt like this colourful way of life that was getting left behind.
“I was going in and out of shops and cafes with my camera on a tripod when these two guys asked me what I was doing. One said, ‘I do kung fu, I’ll show you my kung fu!’ He was about 6ft 4in so I wasn’t going to say no. I set up and said, ‘OK, show me what you can do.’ It’s hard to see in the picture but if you look on the other side of the street there’s a little old lady with her hands over her mouth. I’m sure she was convinced I was being attacked.”
Darwell spent two years photographing Sheffield and its citizens; his pictures were published in a series of five books called Sheffield in Transition 1988-89, now reissued in a box set by Café Royal Books. Afterwards, he moved to Cumbria, where he found himself living in the shadow of Sellafield and became fascinated with nuclear power. He went on to photograph Chernobyl, Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Three Mile Island. “You wouldn’t be able to do it now,” he says. “Security would be on you so quickly. It was different then.”
Sheffield in Transition 1988-89 by John Darwell is published as a box set of five books by Café Royal Books (£40)
