Congleton

Congleton is one of those towns that I was aware of in my youth. It was part of the vernacular of everyday conversations with my family and friends but apart from going to the swimming baths there I realised today that I had never visited the town centre before.

I drove there this morning and parked very near the leisure centre where I used to swim. A bit like Wagon Wheels or Curly Wurlys it looks a lot smaller now that I am an adult.

Similar to Macclesfield, Congleton is strewn with old mills, both silk and cotton. It was famous for bear-baiting and cockfighting and has history going back to Neolithic times. Today it’s known for the manufacturing of airbags and golf-balls and indeed a lot of the mills are converted into sterile offices and yuppie apartments that I suspect no one can afford. I would describe Congleton as Macclesfield injected with a good dose of Crewe. It has the potential to be a stunning town but it has downtrodden running through its veins.

I found today to be sluggish. No one wanted to stop and I abandoned positions only to return to them later. I think this is a good way for me to look at life, in other words, if I find I’m stagnating or I feel like I’m on a treadmill then it’s better to abandon what I’m doing and look for pastures new. Opportunities arise and I now take them as they come, however, they don’t always pay off but I find that another opportunity takes its place further down the line and its often a better one. Note to self: just relax and go with the flow.

I am now fearless and I’m greedy for images so whereas at the start of the project I would have found setting up my camera in the middle of a town centre slightly frightening now I don’t give it two thoughts. I feel bold as a peacock. However, this fearlessness is like drifting away from my old sensibilities and I realised today that I was often putting people in embarrassing situations. One thing the British cannot bear is embarrassment or being made a fool of in public, they would rather be made to marry a badger or pluck their eyeballs out with a fork than be embarrassed. So for me to stand by a derelict shop in the middle of Congleton it was no biggie but I began to realise that for other people this was a dreadful thought and hence a lot of people said “no”. I was very glad in the end when a woman with a bag saying “I love to shop” stood for me.

So I took my twelve images and I tried different things but I feel in my gut that very few of them will be successes. However, this bothers me not.