Charnwood Street, Leicester . This unglamorous place totally disappeared in 1970 under slum clearance, but not before I documented it piecemeal on a non-panoramic 35mm camera. Records of such an environment are seldom more than fragmentary, but I wanted to capture the entirety. Prints from each negative were then assembled sequentially to create the illusion of walking down the middle of the street. It has been on temporary exhibition a couple of times, but has no permanent home except my attic One reason it seemed worth doing was that it had been the Leicester equivalent of Petticoat Lane; "Charny", as it was known, had over 100 small shops which for a century had been the place for working-class people to buy their staple needs at rock-bottom prices. It was a lot of work which I did without payment or public support or expectation of such; but the steady demand over the years from people who wanted a specific part of the overall image e.g a particular shop, could only have been met because I have a complete record. It has been very heartwarming to be able to satisfy such widespread nostalgias for a long-vanished neighbourhood
