Estuary: Working Lives

Estuary: Working Lives

Estuary: Working Lives originated as an oral history project in 2013. Rachel Lichtenstein recorded the stories of those who have spent their working lives on the Thames Estuary; fishermen, tugmen, cocklers, river pilots and the first woman to work on the patrol boats to name a few. She journeyed along the river in different vessels, from a kayak to a Thames barge, to a sailing boat. Ambient sound recordings from the Estuary were merged with edited excerpts from these oral history interviews, along with photographic portraits by James Price, to develop this short film (which was created during the Hadleigh in Place residency initiated by Ben Eastop and funded by Arts Council East) which later led to the development of Estuary the non fiction book (Hamish Hamilton, 2016).