Dispatch 07 / Birmingham Canal District
The Last Lighton the Canal
A city of soot, brass and quiet bargains, where the night shift leaves a record in every brick.
At 05:42, the canal is old zinc beneath the smoke. Barges sit quiet while furnace doors open. I came to record the men who keep Birmingham moving after the respectable streets go dark.
The work does not disappear
By noon, the ledger holds three new names and a thumbprint in the margin. Martha Vale signs for the east yard; Rowan Pike takes the late shift. Their work is a pact with the next morning.