Title of publication: A1 – The Great North Road
Publication date: 1983
Name of artist: Paul Graham
Artist Website: www.paulgrahamarchive.com

This was a groundbreaking book in Britain, taking new and radical influences from the US and grafting them in a unique and extraordinary way onto British subject matter and a British documentary tradition. A1 is a transitional book, one that in many ways is nostalgic for a pre-Thatcherite Britain of working people going about lives that hadn’t changed that much since the end of the war. Then of course it all changed, the book opens with Thatcher’s trademark blue flashing across a picture taken on the street in the city of London, and there are also intimations of impending unemployment and hardship in the book. The book is something of a minor masterpiece, the photographer’s self-confidence and boldness blaze from the pages. And it represents what Paul acknowledges as the spirit of new wave, the punk ethos that enabled young people to create things for themselves, on their own terms. Of course Paul was astute at mobilising the embryonic photographic culture in Britain at the time to support him. But that’s also part of his success!

David Chandler is a writer, editor and curator. He was Director of Photoworks from 1997-2010, and is now Professor of Photography at the University of Plymouth.