Aunt Smoke

The six towns of Stoke-On-Trent lie close the beating heart of dear old England. Amongst the chimneys and the kilns, on the street of Grayshot Road, lived a woman called Aunt Smoke. Aunt Smoke was bullied throughout her life because she was different, both in appearance and in the way she thought, and because of this, she never left her house. Aunt Smoke collected mementos that arrived through her letter box, which she lovingly arranged in a series of scrapbook’s, in a bid to capture and understand the precious yet brutal world that she hid from so desperately. The stories she collected were from news articles or word of mouth stories from Bigg, about real people and real moments. A recluse for her entire life, she died in the very house in which she was born into. Upon clearing the house these books were discovered. An excavation of treasure in which entailed the stories of local folk. These stories Kidda now illustrates.