Seaham Colliery was commenced in 1843. Employing between 3,900 in 1914 and 493 in 1980, it closed for good in 1988, wrenching the heart out of the town. The beach is coequally called The Blast and is well know in these parts for its brief cameo in the 1991 film Alien 3.This beach, and the wider East Durham coastline in Northern England, is a hidden gem, and one of the things I like about The Blast is its rawness and the way in which its history is slowly seeping through the ground. Although it might not look it, there are remnants of the colliery everywhere you look, and like dust and detritus brushed under a carpet, it is slowly remerging.For me photography has always been a way of navigating the world, and giving me a reason to visit all manner of strange locations! Here I have used my camera like some sort of visual diving rod, allowing it to seek out the scraps left over when the mining industry collapsed.