After a flurry of exhibition and creative activity, what better way to enjoy the Summer weather than a relaxing stroll around Telford’s Stafford Park Industrial Estate?
It was a baking hot and humid day at the end of July and a storm was building to the west as I made a circuit through the estate…
…before going over and across the roar of the M54, ambling around Priorslee Lake and the quiet suburbs…
…some found paintings:
then back into the estate:
I find something enticingly eerie about the huge monolithic sheds, the boom, clank and hiss of machinery, the almost complete lack of people visible, and the incessant movement of vehicles. I feel a part of a larger machine, where stuff is made, moved around and, sometimes, stuff is brought back in.
Around lunchtime, some people, mostly men, emerge to walk around the block, to stand smoking, staring at the traffic, or to dodge across the road to the uninviting cafe for a sandwich.
“…And there’s no thanks
From the loading bay ranks…”
Always in such places, I recall the Fall’s “Industrial Estate” and “Container Drivers”, Mark E Smith… so clinical and relentless. So evocative of my youth, listening to the Kicker Conspiracy EP, “Wings” again and again.
Detritus lies scattered in the verges and under every bush. Landscaping so carefully planned for a life of minimal maintenance.
I am curious about the large numbers of discarded, or perhaps just lost, gloves. Poignant remnants of human contact. Always just a single glove. Were they dropped by accident? Or were they jettisoned once the owner realised there was no longer a pair? Or are they a secret sign… a code between drivers … of a place they can go to escape? Or are they a call for help?
No Time Like the Present 