Robert Gaunt

Abstract

In this essay, I bring memories of the creative working-class community of the lost neighbourhood of Brinksway, Stockport, England to a new audience. I have done this by way of my own memories and those of others who also lived there, though mainly through the photographs of Brinksway life that were taken by Michael Danyliw in the 1960s. Within the ageing Brinksway diaspora there is a growing desire to preserve the photographic evidence that we were there and this was how we lived. I give particular attention to the work of the Sunday School and the folk-art event of the annual Rose Fete parade, as an example of working-class creativity. I recall the texture of the physical and social environment of Brinksway before its demolition under slum clearance, including the contentious issues of working-class respectability and social mobility. As a young witness to all this, I bring my own account of losing contact with the Brinksway community and finding my way back there sixty years later. Our fond memories of what was lost are sustained by Michael Danyliw’s photographs, and this essay is an attempt to help to preserve the photographs and the memories they help to sustain.

Keywords: Brinksway Sunday School, Stockport, Michael Danyliw, working-class creativity, working-class respectability

Full text: OAJ ISSUE 11 FINAL_Article_4

DOI: 10.5456/issn.2050-3679/2024s04

Biographical note

Robert Gaunt works in social care and is an independent researcher with an interest in overlooked working-class creativity. His MA thesis ‘Arthur Dooley: His Place in Post-War British Art History’ (Manchester Metropolitan University, 2014) examined the importance of this overlooked, politically motivated sculptor from Liverpool.

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