I was asked to become involved in the photography project by Martin and the Side Gallery, I agreed that I would be one of the participants, to make the numbers up, as you do. In my job as a councillor I was receiving a number of complaints about the dreadful, overgrown state that St. Thomas's churchyard was in. So I went up to have a look.

I was disgusted that the church had absolved themselves of responsibility for looking after the graveyard, so I decided that I would make that my project. After highlighting the problem, first to the MP and to the new encumbant of the church, and numerous telephone calls by myself and talking to people, I managed to resolve the problem for the time being.

Anyway, back to the project. I remembered the war hero's grave of Michael Heaviside, also I took photos of the graves that had been allowed to fall into disrepair and I took two photos of young men who died in the pits of Craghead mining for coal, black gold, and found out this was why the churchyard existed: to bury the young men who were killed in the pits. I have also learned that this is why Craghead exists, because of the mines.

I am very proud of what has been achieved with this project, it shows Craghead's good, bad and ugly points; in saying that, we now have a website of the present and the future. But we must also remember the past, because without those people of the past we would have no future.