An unflinching portrait of 1980s Birmingham

An unflinching portrait of 1980s Birmingham
Back to Brummie — In the late 1980s, photographer Richard Davis set forth documenting Birmingham's working-class neighbourhoods and spotlighting injustices that were too often ignored.

In 1984, at the age of 18, Richard Davis left home and moved into a shared house in the Moseley District of Birmingham. “It felt a good fit for me – alternative, full of young people and open-minded,” he says.

“I remember someone in the house telling me about a centre for the unemployed run by the Birmingham Trades Council, which was located within walking distance of our house in Sparkhill – an inner-city neighbourhood with a large Asian and Irish population.”

At the centre, Davis discovered a darkroom and making photographs, an expensive practice made possible by the generous supply of free film, paper, and chemicals. “Its staff offered nothing but encouragement and support. They would often send me out onto the streets of Birmingham armed with a camera and tell me not to come back until I had a decent set of photos,” he says. 

This really made me aware of my everyday surroundings and helped me create a lifelong love of the light, the architecture, the people, and how everything interacts together. I would then spend the next few days developing and printing my films in their darkroom. This was the education I’d craved but never found at school from a few years before. There was no turning back.”

Over the next four years, Davis would traverse the city making photographs, which have just been published in Tales From The Second Cities Birmingham 1985–1988 (Café Royal Books). 

Inspired by the photographs coming out of the 1984-85 Miners Strike along with the works of Gordon Parks and Don McCullin as well as filmmakers Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders, Davis set forth to document the local working-class neighbourhoods. 

As an 18-year-old, seeing how communities came together to support the strikers helped me understand politics and class issues, and how powerful solidarity could be. Photography played an important role in highlighting injustices for the working classes who normally were just ignored,” Davis says. 

“From the beginning, the Centre staff helped me learn how a photographer could help. They sent me to a run-down house where an Asian family with young children lived in very poor, unhealthy conditions. My photographs were published in the papers and the family’s problems were finally dealt with. Things like this were a lesson in the power of photography.”

It was a lesson Davis took with him when he left Birmingham at the age of 22 to teach photography at Manchester Polytechnic and continue his journey through photography there. 

“The book has made me quite nostalgic for my old life in Birmingham and in particular for Sparkhill. I was young and all of a sudden I had this new world opening up in front of me. Various family members still live in Birmingham so I return from time to time but never for long. The City Centre is unrecognisable from the 1980s. Everything is glass. Birmingham doesn’t feel like home anymore.”

Tales From The Second Cities Birmingham 1985–1988 is out now on Café Royal Books.

Follow Miss Rosen on Twitter.

Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter

Latest on Huck

Bobby Gillespie: “This country is poisoned by class”
Culture

Bobby Gillespie: “This country is poisoned by class”

Primal Scream’s legendary lead singer writes about the band’s latest album ‘Come Ahead’ and the themes of class, conflict and compassion that run throughout it.

Written by: Bobby Gillespie

Vibrant photos of New York’s Downtown performance scene
Photography

Vibrant photos of New York’s Downtown performance scene

‘Balloons and Feathers’ is an eclectic collection of images documenting the scene for over two decades.

Written by: Miss Rosen

Picking through the rubble: Glimpses of hope in the US election results
Activism

Picking through the rubble: Glimpses of hope in the US election results

Clambering through the wreckage of the Harris campaign, delving deeper into the election results and building on the networks that already exist, all hope is not gone writes Ben Smoke.

Written by: Ben Smoke

US Election night 2024 in Texas
Photography

US Election night 2024 in Texas

Photographer Tom “TBow” Bowden travelled to Republican and Democratic watch parties around Houston, capturing their contrasting energies as results began to flow in.

Written by: Isaac Muk

In photos: “Real life is not black and white” – Polaroid x Magnum Open Call winners
Photography

In photos: “Real life is not black and white” – Polaroid x Magnum Open Call winners

See pictures from the competition organised by two titans of contemporary photography, which called upon artists to reject the digitalisation and over-perfectionism of our modern world, technology and image-making.

Written by: Huck

In photos: Rednecks with Paychecks
Photography

In photos: Rednecks with Paychecks

‘American Diesel’ is a new photo series that looks at the people, places and culture behind the stereotypes of rural America.

Written by: Ben Smoke

Sign up to our newsletter

Issue 81: The more than a game issue

Buy it now