"Take anything you want, it is all going to the dump anyway" she said referring to Albert's belongings.
I never knew Albert Grant. He lived for 100 years in the same square mile as I have lived for the last 30 years. Had it not been for stumbling upon the entire content of his home laid out on the sidewalk waiting to be taken to the dump a year ago, I would have no knowledge of him today.
In photographing this spectacle, I started to talk to some of his neighbours who had gathered wondering why all of these possessions were being cast into the street. They told me Albert had lived to be 100 years of age and 6 months. He had married his childhood sweetheart, Alice who died several years before he did. They never had children so instead cared for generations of dogs. He went to the same school as my son does. He trained as a Cooper in the old brewery, now gone. He had a lovely singing voice, which was often heard across the park from his open window. He had been a charming man.
Every Wednesday, he went tot he Greyhound Races, now gone, the land they stood on being turned into flats. He and Alice loved to dance in the dance-halls, now gone, and she worked all her days in Rankins, the posh local fruit shop which "sold exotic fruit and veg" until, like the brewery, it closed and was forgotten.
I was let into the house by the clearers "help yourself to anything that's left" they said. I found no photographs. The only evidence of Albert and Alice having existed was their treasures which were being thrown away. I was so saddened by this scene and story. I felt compelled to try to capture something about them which would make people stop and think of this forgotten, somewhat wonderful couple and perhaps feel that slight twinge of something akin to grief, a "pluck" in the chest and a warm tingle in the eyes followed by a question.
Having heard about Albert's life, he and Alice seemed to be truly happy but they will be forgotten. Is that not the same for everyone no matter how great their achievements? Does it really matter that all we leave this earth leaving no trace eventually be that within a decade, a century, or in this case, a morning?
