Stranger than Paradise . . .

I couldn't have begun to realise what I was letting myself in for when I first spotted the house with the red roof, on the outskirts of the city of Hull. It stands opposite a big industrial plant: a sprawling aglomeration of buildings that seems to have grown over the years like some medieval castle, with bits tacked on by successive generations. The house is one of a number, all but three of which are now unoccupied. They stand empty, though with eerie touches of domesticity: a basket-ball hoop and backboard with a US flag, still attached to a garage for example.

 

 

 

 

 

Industry in many forms has had an impact on this small community. The plant mentioned earlier and shown above produces industrial ceramics and as a by product of this process, a great deal of dust. Each evening, vents in the roof of the plant are swung open to release heat from the cooling ceramics and when this is done a great plume of dust is drawn up into the cool evening air and (when the wind blows the right way) is promptly deposited onto the roofs, gardens and inhabitants of the houses oppposite.

The impact of this dust is part of the story, but only one element of it; this isn't just a story about industrial pollution. It is though a story about how industry and industrial development of various kinds impact on a community.

This impact is though far more complex than you might at first imagine.