Rae’s photographs focus on the everyday routines of the village, showing homes, streets and social spaces with clarity and restraint. There is a quietness to the images that reflects the atmosphere of the moment, a sense of life continuing in the face of uncertainty. Rutishauser’s text built on the photographs, drawing on local voices to reflect the concerns and resilience of the people living there.

The project toured widely during the Miners’ Strike alongside John Davies’ Durham Coalfield and formed part of Amber’s wider engagement with coalfield communities. It sits alongside related works such as News from Durham, Where Are We Going?, Why Support the Miners? and Keith Pattison’s Easington, August 1984, contributing to a collective portrait of a place shaped by industry, solidarity and political change.

Bruce Rae, born in 1946 in Aberdeen, is a British photographer known for his rich tonal work, meticulous compositions, and deep engagement with light and shadow. His still life, landscape, and portraiture possess a timeless quality, balancing precision with a sense of mystery, transforming everyday subjects into something meditative and atmospheric.

Rae’s work is shaped by a strong response to the social and political landscape of his time. His portraiture, in particular, was given structure and context through Side Gallery on Tyneside, where he developed a body of work that served as a reply to the market-driven forces of the 1980s and the dominant vision of Thatcherism. His images do not simply document people or places; they explore the effects of economic and cultural shifts, offering a quiet but powerful commentary on the world around him.

Known for the use of his wooden field camera, combined with his mastery of darkroom techniques, gives his work a depth and luminosity rarely seen in modern photography, ensuring that each image stands as both a technical achievement and a reflection of broader social forces.