If something caught her attention, Gillens would simply run inside, grab her camera and return to photograph it. Her daughter Florrie remembered one day when the children had made a makeshift tent in the back lane; Gillens arrived with her camera just in time to catch their dog Fritz tearing the whole thing down.

Decades later, Florrie’s son Robert was studying photography at Peterlee and was asked to bring in old negatives. He brought along his grandmother’s, leading to the discovery and celebration of this remarkable archive. The exhibition honours a personal and local perspective on working-class life in the interwar years, shaped by an instinctive photographic eye and deep community connection.