Rob Gee spent several weeks wandering around Moira and Donnington, Leicestershire, accosting unsuspecting residents in order to gather impressions, memories and anecdotes about the place they call home. He spent time with community groups and visited local places of interest as well as simply hanging around the village. People’s comments were recorded and, from a cross section of these responses, Rob created a selection of poetry and prose. Photographer Linda Young, inspired by Rob’s text and her own conversations with locals, took pictures. The books, My Daughter is a Donnington Goth and Pig on the Wall will soon be available from Mantle Lane Press
Geoff at the Ashby Canal Trust:
The Perils of Success
“Well I reckon that if the furnace at Moira had been any kind of success, we’d have some very significant problems now. Think about it: As a furnace, i.e. one the thing it was supposed to be, Moira Furnace was a massive failure, basically because it’s the wrong kind of coal round
here for burning at that heat. And so, it continually reinvented itself: it became a home to several families, now it’s a museum.
Conversely, if it had been an economical, successful and productive furnace, well… then sooner or later they would have knocked it down and built a bigger, bolder, much more productive furnace. And then, eventually, say, in the 1950s it would have become “British Steel Corporation Moira”. And then, a few decades later, manufacturing goes pear shaped, the whole country forgets how to make things, and, by now, the whole site would now be industrial estates and business parks; at best.
So basically if the furnace had been a success, this village would now be an industrial estate. Its failure has been its survival.”
“The expression of putting “a pig on a wall to watch the band go by”, i.e. to make a big fuss about, or celebrate, something, definitely comes from around here. They used to put a pig on the wall in Moira”. Steve, Moira Furnace
