OFFSHORE
REMOTE
DISTANT
COMPLEX
STORMY
EXPOSED
FLARE
BLOWOUT
From a hundred photos of the original Greater Ekofisk & Albuskjell oil and gas industry fields in the Norwegian North Sea during the 1970s. Taken by my Dad, Allan John Stow, a rig worker from Hull.
and left behind in his work briefcase.
As I preserve and digitise your archive, I blow away shreds of tobacco, but keep the tea stains and ink blotches, and the shadow of your thumb at the edges.
After oil was discovered here in 1969 Ekofisk became Norway’s first producing field and one of the largest in the North Sea. Rig workers spent weeks offshore working 12hr rotating shifts on platforms drilling through waters 230ft deep. In the early days especially, death rates were high due to pressure to find oil and get it flowing fast. Oil workers were more at risk of death than coal miners and fishermen, and suffered psychological disorders.
I wait by the net curtain
See a taxi arrive under the street lamp
Rush downstairs
You enter our front door looking wild, rough, shattered
And sit in your chair under a dark sea cloud