Tish Murtha gives us Six of the Best

In 1970s Newcastle, a teenage Tish Murtha originally started carrying a camera around to protect herself and her friends who were pestered by middle-class curb crawlers. The third of ten children, Tish received a grant in 1976, aged 20, and left home to study at the famous School of Documentary Photography at The University of Wales, Newport under the guidance of Magnum member David Hurn.

Tish Murtha (c) Ella Murtha, all rights reserved.

Hurn fondly recalls the moment he interviewed Tish: “I asked her what she wanted to photograph and she said, ‘I want to take pictures of policemen kicking children,’ and I said, “You’re in.” It was the shortest interview I had ever done because I knew exactly what she meant and I knew she was going to be a social photographer.”

Tish went on to stage multiple exhibitions that chronicled the depravation and unemployment in Britain under Margaret Thatcher, in order to highlight the plight of what she herself had suffered. Unfortunately Tish passed away in 2013, one day before her 57th birthday. We spoke to her daughter Ella Murtha, who has expertly archived her mothers catalogue and works tirelessly to promote Tish’s achievements in reportage.

Kids jumping on to mattresses – Youth Unemployment (1981)

“In the 70s and 80s whole roads of houses in Newcastle were being knocked down and boarded up so the kids would all find a way into them and find treasures like the dummy there, Mr Parlanchin. The lad holding the doll is my uncle Mark, the lad jumping out the window’s my uncle Glen and the lad waiting behind him is my uncle Carl. This photo was part of the exhibition Youth Unemployment, which my mam described as the squandering of a whole generation of human potential. I chose this as the front cover for the book. I just love it and never ever get sick of looking at it. It’s part social history and part family photo and a wonderful moment. From everybody I talk to who was alive then this sort of thing was just commonplace, it’s just what the kids did.”

Cops Piss Off, Youth Unemployment (1981)

“This was my mam’s favourite in the whole Youth Unemployment series. She was very anti-establishment and enraged by the political landscape at the time. The police back then they weren’t very nice to the kids and that’s one of the things she’d say about the camera: when the cops came around and got heavy-handed the sight of the camera pacified them a bit. It was her safety device. The lad on the left is my uncle Carl and he’s with his best friends Robbo and Tony. The message ‘Cops Piss Off’ is symbolic of their alienation and the void between them and their parents’ generation. You can see the bond between them.”

Boy with pigeon, Elswick Revisited (1989)

“This is the only photograph in the selection that I was there for. I was about five in 1989 and we were walking to town and met these three boys a couple years older than me. All three of them had a pigeon and one of them said: ‘They’ll fly away if we let them go and then they’ll come back to us.’ The boys took us up onto the roof and they did! The pigeons would fly off and then they’d come back. It’s a really vivid memory from my childhood.”

Angela and Starky, Newport, Wales (1976)

“This is Angela and Starkey, taken in October 1976. The were vagrants from Newport, where she’d just started college. This exercise was the first thing they were asked to do as students and I still think they do it to this day – they’re asked to photograph someone at work, to ingratiate themselves and go out and meet people. But also on the contact sheet is ‘a study on relationships’ followed by ‘Two Happy Tramps in Newport Market entrance’. They might not have been important but these small moments in other people’s lives that were important to them were very special to my mam.”

Jake Thackray at his home in Monmouth (1978)

“Jake Thackray was a famous singer-songwriter from Leeds. My mam absolutely adored him. He lived in Monmouthshire in Wales when she was in college at Newport. She wrote to him and asked if he would let her photograph him as part of her college course. He replied and said to come as many times as she wished, I’ve still got the letter! She’s really captured his essence here and that’s because she never made you feel self-conscious or anything. I just loved the thought that she liked Jake Thackray, wanted to take his photograph, and just asked for it.”

Richard and Louise Wood – Elswick Kids (1978)

“That’s Richard and Louise Wood in 1978. They were thick as thieves and you can see it. You can just see this is a brother and sister who love each other so much. When my mam finished college and came back to Newcastle she wanted to get to grips with what she’d learnt and photograph her old area with the kids. There doesn’t seem to have been any intention to ever show people these pictures, but I never get bored of looking at it.”

Tish Murtha’s photobooks are on sale at Bluecoat Press and her Instagram is @tishmurtha.

Ella and Tish together, 1986