When Margaret Thatcher took to office in 1979, amid the frenzy of a government promoting Victorian family values, free markets, tax cuts and a small state, a generation of British photographers emerged. In the decade that followed, the likes of Chris Killip, Paul Graham, Martin Parr and Vanley Burke began capturing the world around them as the political climate shifted and the nation’s day-to-day reality began to cripple under the weight of the Iron Lady’s rule. A name which rarely makes it into the mainstream conversation when discussing photographers of the 1980s is Tish Murtha, who was on the ground with a camera in hand, standing shoulder to shoulder with her male contemporaries documenting the lives of working-class communities in her home town of Elswick in North East England.

Beginning her career as a photographer whilst still a young teenager, Murtha has amassed an archive ranging from politically charged series such as Youth Employment and Elswick Kids to London by Night, which saw her commissioned by The Photographers’ Gallery to explore the lives of sex workers in Soho amid the AIDS epidemic. Never approaching her subjects with a preconceived agenda allowed a sense of care, genuine fascination and intimacy to imbue every one of Tish’s photographs as the figures which populate her work were often friends, family and neighbours who found themselves inhabitants of the so-called ‘underclass’. Armed with a burning desire to expose the harsh truth of Westminster politics and the devastation of a ruthless wave of individualism, looking at her work today with the privilege of hindsight allows for a ghostly sense of premonition to shine through as the echoes of a warning rally cry are heard.

A decade after her passing, Murtha’s life and work are finally getting the recognition they deserve with the release of Paul Sng’s documentary, Tish. Painting a fascinating portrait of one of Britain’s most trailblazing female photographers, Tish’s story is told through a series of intimate conversations conducted by Murtha’s daughter Ella, who has dedicated her life to establishing her mother’s remarkable legacy. 

Ella Joyce: Congratulations on the documentary! What was it that drew you to Tish Murtha’s work and why did you feel now was the right time to create the film? 
Paul Sng: I think Tish’s work and what she stood for is even more relevant now. At the time she was making this very political work about what was going on during Thatcherism and the deindustrialization of communities in the North, particularly in England. Those issues have changed but I think Tish’s work is quite circular in that, the inequalities she documented and the marginalisation of the people have continued. Although Tish didn’t predict Brexit, she did warn that there would be a catastrophe if young people were ignored and disregarded, she wouldn’t have known it would be Brexit but I think that is the ultimate consequence of what’s been going on in this country for 40 or 50 years. Certain communities felt marginalised or ignored, and I think that vote was very much, an ‘up yours’ to Westminster politics. Tish’s work isn’t necessarily the very start of that, but documented a really crucial period when things didn’t have to go that way.

EJ: 100 percent, there is almost a ghostly prediction when you look at her work. Thatcherism and the 1980s have been heavily documented but her images have an intimacy to them unlike others, what do you think it is about those images that make them so captivating?
PS: I think it’s the empathy. She was able to get very close to people because she was one of them, they were literally her brothers and sisters – it’s Eileen, it’s Carl, it’s Glenn, it’s Mark. She was trusted and she explained what she was doing, I think that’s really important in documentary photography in particular because a lot of the time, the people you’re filming have never been on camera before. I think Tish’s empathy and patience in explaining what she was doing was really important because it enabled her to almost be invisible. I think what you see in the pictures and what drew me to them, compared to other photographers of the period is, that you can see they’re made with love, care and a sense of responsibility. Other photographers around that time have a distance in the frame and you sense that it’s taken on a long lens where somebody’s almost an interloper. Tish’s stuff isn’t like that, she is up close and she’s there with them – that’s what really drew me to it. I grew up during the 80s and looking at those pictures I was reminded of things in my childhood, particularly the one where they’re jumping onto the mattress. I grew up in New Cross and it’s probably hard to believe, but in the 80s, there were still derelict houses from bomb sites in New Cross where there were half-demolished houses and people would jump out of the first floor onto mattresses. I remember looking at that picture and being quite captivated by it. Now I’ve seen her work on a big screen in a cinema, there are little details I didn’t notice when I was looking at it in books or on a small screen.

EJ: We see a lot of Tish’s daughter Ella throughout the film, what was it like working with her and how did your relationship develop over the course of filming?
PS: Ella and I have known each other for just over five years now. I edited a photography book called Invisible Britain: Portraits of Hope and Resilience and Laura Dicken, who I worked with on the book, knew Ella and put me in touch. As someone who runs the Tish Murtha archive, she knows a lot about photography and not just her mum’s work but about the whole thing. For the second book I did she recommended a photographer, we were just messaging and I said, “Have you ever thought about doing a film about your mum?” And she said, “Well I’ve been approached and I’ve always said no, I’m not interested. But, let’s have a chat.” So we had a phone call which went on for two hours, we got on really well and then we met up in Newcastle. We brought in Jen Corcoran as our producer and once we had Jen, she was the third piece of the team. They were both working-class women from the North-East which was essential, as a man making a film about a woman with her daughter, Ella often joked that I was the token man in the team. [Laughs] I think there were only three guys on that production in senior roles and I think it was only right because a lot of the time when you make these sorts of films, they can have a male lens and we needed to know it would be made with the similar kind of aesthetic Tish had. It’s very important what you make, but I think it’s also just as important how you make it and as a director, I committed a while back to everything I work on having at least 50 percent of the people on the team from underrepresented backgrounds, across race, gender, class, disability, etc. I don’t do that because it’s the right thing to do or because it’s a box-ticking thing, I think by being inclusive you get more diverse creativity.

EJ: Conversationalists include members of Tish’s family, school teachers and fellow photographers such as Chris Killip. How do you feel these different perspectives all aid in telling her story?
PS: Very early on we thought about how to tell this story and the original plan was that we would use each person as a stage in Tish’s life so you’d start off with family and then make your way into friends and professional acquaintances. But it wasn’t really working in the edit because we couldn’t tell a rounded story, we wanted everyone in it to have either met Tish or have a very close connection to her. Chris Killip was a close friend but what we didn’t want to do was bring in, a well-known photographer who might like Tish’s work, we wanted it to be people who actually knew her. People who could talk about her, not just praise her and say she was brilliant but acknowledge her flaws too, she had flaws like we all do. We weren’t really interested in saying, “Tish was amazing – the end.” It needs to be something that is rounded and balanced.

EJ: Why do you think it was that Tish didn’t receive the same recognition as her contemporaries?
PS: Tish was stubborn and I love her for that, she was stubborn because she cared about the work and it meant that some opportunities didn’t come her way because of that. That was part of the reason she wasn’t more successful, but of course, being a working-class woman from the North-East played a part. If she’d been middle class, male and had come from Surrey she probably would have made it purely on the back of her talent but because of all those things she didn’t get her due.

“Tish’s empathy and patience in explaining what she was doing was really important because it enabled her to almost be invisible.”

EJ: I wanted to touch upon the reconstructive elements of the documentary because it felt very naturally integrated, where did that idea come from and how did you strike the balance between real life and reconstruction?
PS: We had diaries, letters and postcards, but no recordings or video and we knew that Maxine Peak was always the first choice for the voice. We’ve got lots of photos but I think the audience needs to see something different. There was a guy called Richard Drew, who’s a big Tish fan and was a production designer for Ricky Gervais’ show Afterlife, they had a set that was just about to get demolished so he asked if we wanted it. On Darlington High Street there was an old M&S branch and the council would rent it out but you had to do something arty in there, so that’s where we built this set. It was amazing to see it completely empty and then the next time I went back, there was Tish’s living room and kitchen built to the exact same dimension. Ella came in and was like, “I can’t believe this. This is really weird.” When I saw it come to life I thought, “I think we should put Tish in here because it won’t feel as personal otherwise.” So, we had two actors in mind but we sent them both to Ella and asked her to pick, she chose Shin-Fei Chen. We were never going to show the face because I think if it doesn’t look exactly like the person then you’re not going to believe it but Ella said Shin Fei was the exact same size as Tish, so we went with her. We filmed those scenes over three days, the challenge was trying to come up with different scenarios in only two rooms because you can only have so many shots of someone writing by candlelight, smoking and drinking a glass of wine.

EJ: You said you were initially drawn to a kind of familiarity you felt with Tish’s photography, did your relationship with her work change after immersing yourself in it?
PS: It’s funny because Ella said to me about six months ago, “You love my mum, don’t you?” And I was really taken by that because I do. Obviously, I never knew her but in making this film I feel I’ve almost got to know her. I think she had a beautiful soul and I think it is such an acute loss that she didn’t get to see how much her work is loved. Not only was she a great photographer, but she was also a brilliant writer, she was a great activist, she’s someone who I think I’d have gotten on with – I would have definitely loved spending time with her. When you start making a documentary you have a level of knowledge, you might know a little or you might know everything and I think if you know everything, that’s not a good way of approaching a film. I knew some of Tish’s work, I’d read some of her essays, and I knew that she was an artist who hadn’t received their due. You have to bear in mind that films are made for audiences, directors who say that they just make films for themselves, I think are lying. So if an audience knows nothing about Tish’s work then you’re making the film for those people. Obviously, Tish has fans out there but I knew early on from talking to Ella that what the world knew was nowhere near enough – in the film you find out everything. There was lots of stuff that I found out for the first time, I think there are probably a couple of things Ella learned about her mum through going out and meeting people too. I had enough knowledge to realise how important Tish was, but I think I was able to retain the ability to have fresh eyes on all of this stuff as I was finding it out at the same time as the audience.

“I never knew her but in making this film I feel I’ve almost got to know her. I think she had a beautiful soul and I think it is such an acute loss that she didn’t get to see how much her work is loved.”

EJ: I was aware of her work going into it but admittedly knew nowhere near enough. I felt like there was quite a mixed reaction when people watched it, it was very emotional but there was also an anger there I think partially as a reaction to the climate at the time but also in reaction to the unjust recognition she received. What do you hope people take away from it when they leave?
PS: Absolutely. When we were making it, we did want it to be a rallying cry for what’s going on in the present day. I think what I would love is for people, whether they’re younger people or people who have wanted to do something in life, not necessarily photography, but any kind of artistic expression, to not wait for permission in the way that Tish did. In the arts, it is still very much a place where if you are from a lower socioeconomic background or anything that could perhaps hold you back it is hard, I want to encourage people to go out there and just try to make something. Tish shot a film which was expensive but these days people can use camera phones if they have them but of course not everybody does. In terms of politics, I despair of the people that govern us whether they’re Tories or whether they’re Keir Starmer and I think if people were to take something away from it, it’s that politics in local communities is very important. It’s about what we can do to help one another in smaller ways rather than just thinking about Westminster politics to help because, of course, the government should and can help the majority of people but I find that the number of people slipping through the net is increasing year on year. I don’t think films necessarily change society, but I think they can change individuals and there are certainly things that I’ve seen which have changed me, watching London, the Patrick Keiller film really changed me politically. I think films can affect individuals and individuals can then change things in small ways, when all these things connect up you do see significant changes.

EJ: What’s coming up next for you? 
PS: We’re making a film about Irvine Welsh, called Am I Irvine Welsh? That’s almost ready and we’re planning to release in early or mid-2024 at festivals and then see where that one goes. It follows Irvine for about 18 months both at work and at play, it’s a very up close and personal film. He’s never really looked back on his life and so in this film, the inciting incident is him in Toronto, and he’s been experimenting with the drug DMT for a fair while because it’s legal to do it out there. This DMT trip that he takes, we then use as a device to explore his life, his past, his present and his future.

Tish is out in cinemas now.