Silencing the Dog
Jon Wisbey
Like Winston Churchill, Jon describes his depression as a “black dog” that plagues him. When he had to leave his home and move to Barton Hill he dreaded the place’s reputation as a lawless inner-city area of Bristol, known for drug-abuse and “chavs” – a slang term for uneducated, uncultured people who are prone to antisocial behaviour.
Transcript
I didn’t want to come here. Barton Hill? That crime-ridden concrete jungle with all the chavs, druggies and car thieves? Why the hell would I want to go there?
In the end I didn’t have much choice; an upswing in the housing market, a land lady with pound signs for pupils, a notice to quit… that was it. I was there. I suppose I was lucky in as much as I didn’t have to suffer the nightmare of the B & B hostel.
So there I was, stacked up on the twelfth floor of a suicide machine, all alone with the Churchillian black dog that had been barking at my heels for the past five years.
Funny, but misconceptions can be so fragile. Maybe it was the smiley faces of my neighbours. Maybe it was their “no bullshit” attitude. Maybe it was the magnificent views of Bristol from my windows with its ever shifting moods and interplay of light and shadow.
Maybe it was just the change of place, but over the coming weeks and months the Hill began to grow on me. It began to adopt me as one of its own. I began to find a sense of belonging which I have for very many years been missing from my life. I began to smile again.
Then I found my camera. To be honest I’d never lost it – just lost the will to use it. But now I had a desire to capture my newfound home in its many guises.
I took a course, learnt the rules, and how to break them and set out to capture for all time the changing face of Barton Hill.
I photographed everything: I photographed construction, I photographed demolition, I photographed my friends and neighbours. I photographed industry and the green oases which had managed to survive the repeated assaults from wave upon wave of town planners and redevelopers.
Every change, every image that caught my eye I would record on film and I would try and make those images available for all.
Why? I think it’s to say “thank you”. Barton Hill has helped me muzzle that black dog that had been plaguing me for most of my life. It has given me a direction and a purpose and I owe it to the Hill to show the world that their preconceptions of this area are like mine – so very very false.
