00:00Born and raised in Ashen Inn, Mick Critchlow amassed an archive of over 50,000 pictures
00:06during his 44-year photography career. Part of a mining family, Mick often referred to
00:11coal as being in our blood. His family moved to Northumberland in the mid-1800s to work
00:17in the region's coal mines. Mick's grandfather worked at Woodhorn Colliery for 52 years,
00:22his father spent 45 years as a miner, and his two brothers also spent 25 years working
00:28underground. Mick died on his birthday aged 68 in Ashen Inn. Two years later, a mixed
00:35family in Woodhorn Museum announced his collection would once again be showcased at the museum.
00:40The new exhibition at Woodhorn Museum will celebrate the legacy of Critchlow and his
00:44work and the hugely important role he played in documenting the end of Northumberland's
00:48mining history. I spoke with Liz Ritson, Director of Programs and Engagement at Woodhorn Museum.
00:55Woodhorn Museum is a colliery heritage site near Ashenton in Northumberland and it's also
01:01the home of the Pitman Painters, the Ashenton Group collection, and it's a lively, vibrant
01:05museum exploring the social history of south-east Northumberland and our mining heritage.
01:10Yep, so today we're in the process of putting up a new permanent home for the Mick Critchlow
01:17collection and in particular it's his coal town collection. This will be a new permanent
01:23display at the museum, showcasing Mick's work that has particular relevance to Ashington
01:28and to the museum itself, Woodhorn Museum. So Mick Critchlow was born in Ashington and
01:35he spent a remarkable period of time documenting his hometown, starting in the late 1970s but
01:42continuing for over 40 years, documenting the town, people and the members of the community
01:50for a time of really quite great social and political change over that period. We're going
01:55to be able to present these images here at Woodhorn Museum, offering people an insight
02:01not only into his excellent photography but also as a sort of social history document
02:07over that period of time. So Woodhorn Museum already houses the Ashington Group collection,
02:14which many people will know as the Pitman Painters, who were a group of miners who started
02:18painting in the 1930s and they painted their ordinary working lives and home lives, really
02:26up until around the late 1970s, early 1980s. Mick Critchlow actually saw an exhibition
02:33by the Ashington Group of Artists in the late 1970s and it was that that prompted him to
02:39pick up his camera and to choose to document his own hometown for the next 40 years. So
02:46by having both the Ashington Group collection and the Mick Critchlow Coal Town collection
02:51here at Woodhorn, visitors will really get the opportunity to gain insight into the town
02:57over a period of really a 90-year period.
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