Heritage Research
The voices, photographs, and landscapes that underpin Paths You Walk — oral testimonies recorded in Walsall, a local photographic archive spanning the 1950s to the 1970s, and images of the industrial world that migrant workers arrived into.
Oral Testimonies
Anonymous oral histories recorded in Caldmore, The Butts, and Willenhall. First-person accounts of migration, labour, and belonging in the Black Country.
As part of our heritage work, we translated audio transcripts from Walsall Library from Punjabi and Urdu into English. A panel of students from Walsall College then selected passages for the exhibition's interpretive materials.
Available as a printed booklet at the exhibition and as a free download.
Local Photographic Archive
This selection draws on the work of several local photographers, including John Henry Westley, whose images span the 1950s to the 1970s. Working methodically across the borough, Westley and others recorded the streets, factories, and public life of a town in the midst of profound industrial and social change — terraced rows giving way to tower blocks, foundries still glowing at dusk, children playing on streets that would soon be redeveloped beyond recognition.
These photographs are held by the Walsall Local History Centre and other local archives, and form a vital visual resource for Paths You Walk. They capture the physical world that South Asian migrant workers arrived into during the 1960s — the houses, shops, and workplaces of The Butts, Caldmore, and the wider Black Country. Billy Dosanjh and the production design team drew directly on these images to reconstruct period-accurate street environments for the film shoot.
The exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsall presents a selection of original prints from local photographers alongside the production stills and moving image works, inviting visitors to see how the documentary past and the reimagined present sit together.
- John Henry Westley & other local photographers
- 1950s – 1970s
- Walsall Local History Centre
- Streets, industry, public life, Walsall & the Black Country
© Walsall Local History Centre & local collections
The Industrial Landscape
The Black Country that migrant workers arrived into — foundries glowing at dusk, cooling towers breaking the skyline, terraced streets pressed against steelworks. These images place Paths You Walk in its industrial context, the physical reality of the towns, factories, and skies that defined everyday life for the communities at the heart of this project.
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Heritage archive images © Walsall Local History Centre & local collections. Oral testimonies published under CC BY 4.0. Credit: Billy Dosanjh / Reimagining Industrial Migratory Stories CIC.