Just a short (but picture-heavy) piece this time, and it’s about a project I’ve been involved with for the best part of a year; the Pit Stop Mile Cross Photo walks, in conjunction with a Norfolk-based charity focusing exclusively on the health and wellbeing of men, named MensCraft. Men were invited to join me as ‘The Mile Cross Man’ (or just plain-old Stu) on bi-weekly photo walks within the Mile Cross Estate, starting at Civic Gardens. No photographic experience or fancy photographic equipment were necessary, and my tagline was: “We’ll go for a wander about the estate with our cameras to find some interesting new angles. I might even bore you with some history along the way”.

Being a photographer and knowing most of what there is to know about the history of Mile Cross already, I thought that this would be an easy task, and it was easy, when it came to me rabbiting on about the history of every little nook and cranny of the estate at least, but what wasn’t quite as easy was always finding the best photographic opportunities for a range of variously skilled photographers as we took a stroll around looking for them, week in and week out. Wandering around on a grey and wet Sunday morning, during the depths of winter could be quite challenging at times, but that was part of it’s charm. This was Mile Cross in all of it’s, ahem, glory, and why do something if it’s always going to be easy? I do love a challenge.

The photography wasn’t the whole point of this exercise though, the idea was to get men out, socialising, communicating, connecting and generally helping to improve our mental wellbeing; which was far more important than whether our depth of field was correct, or if we were using the appropriate ISO settings, and this is exactly what we did, as well as me getting to show off some of Mile Cross’s more interesting little corners that people unfamiliar with Mile Cross probably wouldn’t visit with their cameras.

All that aside, here’s quite a selection of pictures taken from our walks that should be making their way into an exhibition piece somewhere in the near future.

So there you have it, quite a selection of lovely photographs that hopefully give you a good feel for Mile Cross over the last year. The Mile Cross Photo walkers left Civic Gardens for one last walk on the 13th of this month (August, 2023), but that’s by no means the the end of it all. The Mile Cross Photo Walks may be over for the meantime, but it’s something we may revisit it in the future as an extension to the ever-evolving photo walks being led by me, The Mile Cross Man (or just ‘Stu’). As of Sunday the 27th of August (2023) the Photo Walks will be starting off in a new direction as we head out of Mile Cross to explore the centre of Norwich. My historical knowledge isn’t just limited to Mile Cross, so I’ll still get to rabbit on about history with my camera in hand, and I’ll be starting this new journey from outside the Maddermarket Theatre (where Menscraft are now based) at 11am and then every second Sunday after that. If you want to get involved, all men are welcome, just turn up with anything that can take a photograph, be it a top-end Mirrorless, a battered old DSLR, a mobile phone, a disposable 35mm or even your Polaroid. It doesn’t either matter if you don’t have a camera as I can supply one, or if you just want to come along to see what we get up to, or to listen to me go on about all things Norwich. At the end of the day, the camera matters not, it’s the piece of grey matter that lives a few inches behind the view-finder that is the important bit.

And remember that happier and healthier men make for better brothers, partners, fathers, sons, colleagues and friends. If you’d like to know more about Menscraft and what they do, a link to their website can be found here: Take me to Menscraft.

Other dates for the Calender are the 13th of September where I’ll be doing a Mile Cross History Walk for the Norfolk Heritage week and 16th September where I’ll have my FONCS (Friends of Norwich City Station) hat on and conducting a history walk from Norwich City to Hellesdon Station along the Marriott’s Way. If you’d like to attend either of these events, you need to book a space on the Norfolk Heritage Open Days website by following this link: Booking Tickets.

Thanks for looking,

Stu