to happiness, endlessly

To happiness, endlessly

Hannah Jones

11

I set off from this place I’ve known all my life. I don’t know where I’ll end up, or how I’ll get there. I don’t want to have to decide anything at all.

19

It was when I found out I was having a baby. I’m twenty, and I’m going to be a Dad. They weren’t tears of joy, we were split up at the time. But it’s going to happen, so I’ve just got to make the most of it. That’s life. We all just want to be happy, don’t we?

26

The teenagers say they are goths, and that they can always be found either by one of the supermarkets, or here on the grass outside the shopping cen-tre next to the war memorial. There is nothing to do, nowhere to go, so they sit here together. Someone is gently strumming a guitar, and they pass cigarettes around. ‘It could be better’ suggests Liam. ‘Yeah, but it could be worse’ says someone else.

I don’t think things are respected like they used to be, but I don’t know, it might just be me being funny! But there’s some lovely buildings isn’t there? Oh heck, last time I cried?....Can’t remember, can we Millie?

36

45

He’s not allowed to play with guns. That one from the pound shop’s the first one he’s had.

Stephen and Ray are having a pint. Stephen wishes he didn’t have to live with the memories of things he did in the army, but he’s still proud to have fought for his country. He dreams of having his daughter living back with him. And hopes to be a better person. Ray is drunk, and says my questions make him shy. ‘You shouldn’t be on your own,’ he tells me. As I leave he slips a piece of paper with his number on it into my hand, ‘I get lonely,’ he says. ‘Text me.’

54

Edith invites me to what she calls her ‘happy clappy’ church. I am welcomed as a sister, but admit after the service that I’m not exactly practising. Edie says I should really think about it. She says being born again is wonderful. When I find her to say goodbye, Edith gives me a miniature bi-ble. She has written ‘To Hannah, God Bless, Edie’ inside it. I think she hopes I can still be saved.

61

Oh I don’t do dreams. I just think if you get up the next day it’s a bonus isn’t it, that’s how I look at life, if you get up next day it’s a bonus. There’s no use making plans because you never know what’s around the corner. No, I don’t do dreams. I live for how it is.

68

74

John looks after the birds for a friend in the day to keep himself occu-pied. His good shoes sit on the stove in the shed - he changes out of them when he’s here because his wife doesn’t like the mess anywhere near home. John’s been made redundant after forty years. ‘I’m not bitter. What’s the point in that?’

The sunset was beautiful here last night. Sheila tells me that of all the places she’s been, the sunsets here have been the best. It’s possible, she says, smiling, that this place has the best sunsets in the world.

79

Stuart tells me a little bit about his life. His Mum died two weeks ago aged ninety, and he says really he has been living for her. When he was thirty he came home for a night and pitched his tent in the garden, because he wanted to try it out before setting off on a journey to anywhere, ‘like a rolling stone’. That night his Dad died suddenly, and he felt he couldn’t leave his Mum alone. And for almost forty years he never did. Now she has left him.

We go to the centre of the dome and clap our hands, where the echo resounds as if to remind that you are here! You are alive! Then we say goodbye like old friends and part company. As I walk up the hill I hear clapping, and when I turn around there is Stuart in the distance, waving.

86

The family garage is a dusty relic, lined with husks of dying cactuses and tyres piled metres high behind the smudged and fading glass. Mute and ancient cars patiently wait for attention. Steven tells me of his wife who died, and how when he thinks of her he often cries. He’s looking forward to a pint at the end of the day, like every other. ‘The last time was friday night. Memories of the wife. After 33 years you’re bound to aren’t you. I thought I’d got over it but all it takes is some prat to say something and it all comes back. There was no warning, just gone. People say I ought to meet someone else, but no, I don’t think I could, I’m not interested now. I’m too old for it anyhow, sooner have another beer. Yes I’d sooner have beer, less trouble. Cheaper too!’

97

The boys playing football in the street are angry at whichever government

it is. They haven’t been able to find jobs since leaving school. They

wear their frustration in loud voices and tattoos.

‘I want to be famous with loads of money, like a footballer or something.

Or I’d fight for my country. I bet I would kill more of them than could

kill me.’

101

It was for love that he moved countries first. When that didn’t work out, and after the divorce, he tried moving cities.

109

It’s when the light streams through and all of the things, even the ugly

things, are glowing, that I believe that despite everything that’s hap-

pened, it will be alright after all.

112

For Neil

To happiness, endlessly is a series of encounters from a journey around England. Curious about this country I’m from, a little lost in my own life, and feeling unable to make decisions, I opted to travel with no planned route or destination. Instead I was led by the suggestions of the people I met, many of whom spoke to me of their dreams and sorrows.

With no intention to characterise the English as a nation, or England as a country, the trip was imagined more as a series of disconnected experi-ences joined by their happening within England’s borders, a melancholic psychological journey, and a visual diary of what I saw, who I met, and where I went.

Hannah Jones, London, 2010

‘To happiness, endlessly’ is a line from High Windows by Philip Larkin

Index

4-5 Ravensthorpe, Northampton

shire

6-7 Ravensthorpe, Northampton

shire

8-9 Blackpool, Lancashire

10 Ravensthorpe, Northampton

shire

12-13 Ravensthorpe, Northampton

shire

14-15 Bus journey from Windermere

to Keswick, Cumbria

16-17 Newquay, Cornwall

18 Bath, Somerset

20-21 Newquay, Cornwall

22-23 Blackpool, Lancashire

24-25 Durham, County Durham

27 Blackpool, Lancashire

28-29 Blackpool, Lancashire

30-31 Bath, Somerset

32-33 Blackpool, Lancashire

34-35 Newquay, Cornwall

37 Buxton, Derbyshire

38-39 Blackpool, Lancashire

40-41 Tunbridge Wells

42-43 Newquay, Cornwall

44 Newquay, Cornwall

46-47 Blackpool, Lancashire

48-49 Morecambe, Lancashire

50-51 Sunderland, Tyne and Wear

52-53 Morecambe, Lancashire

55 Carlisle, Cumbria

56-57 Durham, County Durham

58-59 Newquay, Cornwall

60 Tunbridge Wells, Kent

62-63 Blackpool, Lancashire

64-65 Durham, County Durham

66-67 Bradford, West Yorkshire

69 Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

70-71 Newcastle, Tyne and Wear

72-73 Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

75 Blackpool, Lancashire

76-77 Blackpool, Lancashire

78 Blackpool, Lancashire

80-81 Morecambe, Lancashire

82-83 Blackpool, Lancashire

84-85 Dungeness, Kent

87 Buxton, Derbyshire

88-89 Blackpool, Lancashire

90-91 Durham, County Durham

92-93 Buxton, Derbyshire

94-95 Train journey from Sunder

land to London

96 Bath, Somerset

98-99 Northampton, Northampton

shire

100 Sunderland, Tyne and Wear

102-3 Newquay, Cornwall

104-5 Newquay, Cornwall

106-7 Tunbridge Wells, Kent

108 Durham, County Durham

110-11 Durham, County Durham

113 Sunderland, Tyne and Wear

114-15 Sunderland, Tyne and Wear

116-17 Lydd, Kent

118-19 Durham, County DurhamW

120-21 Durham, County Durham

122-23 Blackpool, Lancashire