The Shed

Nearby Hampstead Heath and South End Green there's a very special place called the "Shed" where writer and actor Neil Tittley live.

Recently quitting smoking because of the ban Neil started doing Snuff instead . When I hang out in the Shed I snort snuff too. This is quiet appropriate for me because snuff was used down the coalmines for centuries. My mother said it was the cocaine of her day and she would snort a pinch off her hand in the local pub.

Neil acts out Oscar Wild and has travelled the world. The Shed is full of stuff collected from all over the world. After my appearance in Houses of Parliament last November Niel said I should keep a diary along with his son Shaun. This blog is therefore dedicated to them.

In 1984 Neil was an active supporter of the Kent and South Wales Miners, because of this he invited me round to the shed to watch a film about the Strike and to drink beer. The film was very moving for me and protrayed how the spirit of the mining communities were broken under the jack boot of Thatcher and Ian McGregor. It is always shocking to be reminded of the poverty of that era, whereby, people lost everything, even having to burn household furniture to keep the house warm.
The history and memory has been airbrushed out of public conciousness. Sometimes it scares the hell out of me to think the current economic change is predicted to be worse that the 1980s.


Neil has written poetry on the miners’ and I hope to hear him perform it one day.

I spent the aftermath of my 23 birthday party in the shed watching collections of music videos from the sixites, snorting stuff and eating oatcakes with my best friend Scarlett. We usually end our conversations declaring "power two the people".

Mine the Notion: The Foundry, East London 2008

An installation of artwork appeared at the Foundry, near Old Street, London in November 2008 . With a guest appearance on the Foundry Late Late Breakfast Show on Resonance FM with Tracey Morbley too.

The Foundry was recently voted the best bar in the U.K, its a very magical east London treasure. A place you always see something new and interesting. With a deep creative atmosphere, it is packed full of artists, musician and writers. It's the sort of place where anything goes. I once took my friend Alex, who was 18 and a former coal miner, for him it was a freak show and a complete shocker. He’d never seen guys wearing tight drainpipe denims before. By the end of the night Alex was spinning on the rotating disk in the downstairs Main Room, drinking the Pitfield Beer. Anyone who has been drunk at the Foundry will know what I mean. He couldn’t wait to go back to Yorkshire to tell his colleueges what he’d been up to in London.

People might complain that the Foundry is dirty or too Shoreditch but the Foundry is just the Foundry. It’s so unique and could never be tamed or imitated.

At the radio show Tracey told me she keeps a book of news clipping of our campaign articles. I was very flatted by this and told her I would send her more of the articles. She had a son born in 1984, in South Wales and was very active during the strike. Her work as an artist combines social political issues like my own.
She has been a supporter of the project since 2006, she is a good friend with Mark Thomas and Tony Benn too. Pete Docherty hosted the poetry session on Sunday afternoons, they were later took over by Dennis Mohanagan who appeared in my film Mine the Notion. There are pictures of Pete Docherty next to the bar when he looks young and well, not like the ones you see in newspapers.

I was rubbish at publicising the event and didn’t document the artwork. The only picture I have was taken by Tracey at the Radio Show, you can see the installation in the back ground. The paste-ups where the best part for me, the rest was old work and I am bored of it now.


Tracey and Jonathan from the Foundry were really pleased with the installation, they gave me some nice feedback, I was happy with their reaction because for me the installation was boring.I wanted to create a large visual statement drawing the viewer into the visual language I had created through my drawings and collaged artworks. I hoped for the imagery to create a poetic flux around subject matter of the campaign. It was a response to my working class culture and this was exemplified through cinecam footage. The rest was assembled collages and drawings, a few of Thatcher, obviously representing the cultural shift post 1984. Some imagery was ambiguous; this is because I like the idea that the viewer can freely associate with the artwork. It is important that the viewer can draw their own meaning from the work. The piece is a retrospective and is a social commentary of British History and Northern Culture.

A French guy commented that the installation gave him an insight into the traditional British lifestyle , explaining that as a visitor in London it is very difficult to see what is authentic English. Another guy commented on the Strike and the de-industrialisation and the man's experiences during the 1980s. The work always provokes that sort of reaction from people. This was a massive improvement from last time, when someone said “no ones interested in the fucking Miners’ Strike, we’re interested in more spiritual things here”. I can understand why people aren’t interested but it always is a heart breaker to hear that people think your artwork is shit. At another exhibition an Art Director told me “the best thing Margret Thatcher ever did was great rid of those fucking awful miners”. I was so stunned an educated man could be so rude an offensive. At least I got a reaction, I guess that's what the Foundry does best.