[flowing acoustic guitar music]
Female Narrator: Chris Killip first came upon the community of seacoalers that lived at Lynemouth Beach in 1974. It took 8 years before he gained their trust and was allowed to photograph there. In this image, Moira, a part-time resident, scavenges the shore for bits of coal.
[music ends]
Chris Killip: In a very good fur coat. That coat was always referred to as “that very good fur coat.” It was her only coat (laughs). She’s picking coal by hand in this photograph, picking up small pieces of sea coal and putting them into a bucket.
Female Narrator: The sea coal washed ashore as waste from a nearby mine. After the mine extracted all the coal that it could, it dumped that waste-a mixture of rock and coal-into the sea.
Chris Killip: People forget that coal floats. When it eventually breaks free, it floats back onto the shore. Legally, everything that arrives on the shore in England, above the highwater mark, belongs to the Queen, but nobody has seen the Queen come along with her horse and cart to collect this coal. So, it’s a bit of a free-for-all. Actually, what it is, is recycling.
Female Narrator: When the mine closed, sea coal stopped washing ashore and the community dispersed.
Chris Killip: I went back three, four years ago, to the site where people lived, where people collected coal from the sea, and the site has been landscaped. It looks like a golf course. The coal mine has been demolished. The power station which the coal fed has gone too. So, all these things have disappeared, and my book is probably the main evidence that they existed.
