This was your captain speaking
Houses vacated by the deceased are always depressing to photograph. I’ve done many of these in my time – usually during the cold winter months, which often seem to rob the infirm of their final scraps of the will to live. Each such property tells a story regardless of wether it’s been cleared out or not. If I’m sent in shortly after the death of the householder, I’m met with a complete home devoid of the homemaker – a snapshot of somebody’s everyday life complete with photographs, books and records, communications, notes to self, food and drink left out, and personal items scattered throughout.
Imagine that everyone in your household was removed at this instant. I would go in and make judgements based on the stuff I saw lying about – tastes in carpet & curtains, dietary and medication requirements, family history and friend networks, perhaps evidence of a long and successful career, quirks, interests, and physical capabilities. Photographing such sensitive things can be fascinating, a touch morbid, but always requires a degree of tact and respect for what I see there.
This house in the Northumberland village of Longframlington ( a place where the middle-class, non-employed women band into tightly knit coven communities and regard outsiders as common scum) wasn’t attractive inside or out. Decades of neglect had left it in a state of disrepair, with damp and mould throughout. It was one of the hundreds of bungalows in the large pensioner ghetto on the Western side of Rotbury Road, and had a nice position at the end of a cul-de-sac. the sky was a deep grey, the rain persistent and squally, and the message on the unlocked front door cemented my views about the general profile of the local populace.
The interior was a throwback to 1972, and alluded to a miserable, lonely existence in the squalor of a house being disintegrated by the inexorable passing of time. It was empty, apart from a few bits of cheap furniture, and I set about getting the rooms shot with no fuss.
When I looked in the kitchen I found about 12 huge empty suitcases of various sizes. They were adorned with stickers from all over the world, and offered an insight into the life of the occupant. Apparently an ex-pilot. the labels gave a running history of the barracks and RAF stations that he’d served in, and the subsequent travels as a commercial pilot presumably. I had to transfer the cases out & back in order to shoot the kitchen, but I was careful to replace everything exactly as it was left.
Just before I left, I took a look out of the side window to see if that bit of the small garden was worth shooting, and was faced with a lone, soaking rabbit just staring at me. Just for a second, I had the thought that if reincarnation was a real thing (it’s not), then this could be Captain Rabbit wondering just who the hell was walking around his empty house. Just for a second mind you.
