Against the backdrop of cranes and ascending modernist edifices, Jacob Milburn cuts a weathered, elegiac figure, as his eyes drink in the remnants of a world being steadily unmade. Once a Collier, toiling in the area's deep subterranean shafts, this son of the soil witnessed generation after generation's hard-won legacies slowly consumed by the wrecking ball's indifferent maw. His elegiac interview, broadcast on BBC Television's 'Northern Anchor' show, brought the region's suffering to the fore.
"It's a bitter tonic, watching the city’s foundations get washed away b'y the tides of the new. The bones of generations of miners and working folk - our very lifeblood - gets treated as nowt but rubble to be crushed underfoot in the race toward reinvention.”
"Our culture and pride is inscribed in soot-stained bricks. But now, even those get razed without a second thought, flattened to make way for cold monoliths devoid of any soul or memory."
"With each swing of the wrecking ball, I feel our roots getting severed. Yes, progress must happen, but it cuts deep knowing the cost is forgetting those who came before, the very ones whose calloused hands and unbreakable spirits moulded this great city out of the very earth itself."
"So while others may celebrate the shiny future being erected, all I can focus on is what's being erased. The hearts and stories that pumped life into these old buildings now lie in rubble. Our heritage, our very identity, discarded like so much hazardous waste contaminating their grand visions."
