Presentation copy. Presentation copy inscribed to Hilary Gerrard, Ringo Starr's manager for over thirty years and a director of The Beatles company Apple Corps.:'To Hilary / With love! / Chris Killip'.

These photographs show the effects of the decline of traditional British industry on the people living and working in and around Newcastle upon Tyne. Killip has said that he tried to make it evident from the outset that photographs are not to be trusted and that he wanted 'people to be conscious of the subjective nature of photography. As his introduction states, 'the objective history of England doesn't amount to much if you don't believe in it, and I don't, and I don't believe that anyone in these photographs does either as they face the reality of de-industrialisation in a system which regards their lives as disposable... The book is a fiction about metaphor. To which John Berger adds in the afterword: 'Fiction, I think. Because it is a story, not just information. About a human tragedy not an acci-dent. Metaphor because it is through metaphor that, at first and last, we seek for meaning.'

First edition, a presentation copy inscribed to Hilary Gerrard on the half-title; black-and-white photographs printed in offset, text by John Berger and Sylvia Grant; black endpapers, black cloth-covered boards, upper side lettered in blind, spine lettered in silver, bowed, photo-illustrated dust-jacket printed in cream, text in black, toned; near-fine in an excellent dust-jacket; [viii], 96pp.

The Open Book pp340-1; The Photobook: A History II, p299; Auer Collection p675; Errata Editions: Books on Books no. 4.