It’s a little like living in sandpaper, the coarseness of it takes a while to get used to, while it rubs away your corners and gets to the core of you. It exposes the truth of you. Snap, snap, snap. Celluloid snapshots of an ever-present alternative reality. I like the grit of it. There’s no pretence and no sheen. People are who they are down here. They’ve no time for strangers but hang about for long enough, blending into the brick walls and you’ll see some of the greatest acts of kindness and heroism here too. I don’t mean heroism in the way you’re thinking, I dare say. Not the sort of heroism that runs into burning buildings but the kind of heroism that thinks nothing of sacrificing its own needs and desires to give someone a happy moment or a smile. Everyday heroism, is what it is.

It’s been a while since I was there: things have moved on, passed by, grown up. I’m not the same either. But sometimes I like to go back, in my memories to how it was. Back to days of scalding teas in dirty cafes on the Coatsworth road, and a pint in a seedy pub a little way along, where the locals at the bar looked like they’d mug you given half a chance but behaved better than many of the ‘gents’ I know nowadays.

Living in the dirty side of town taught me lessons I wouldn’t have learnt anywhere else. Lessons about judging people and places. Lessons about the secrets that places like this hold. The beauty you find that most people are blind to the flourishes untended in the cracks. I suppose it tells you a little about me too, my flirtation with the seedier side of town. It becons to me, and seduces me with its whispers of secret dramas. I find myself enticed by the flashing neon promises and flirting with danger.

People walk by the dirty end of town, carefully avoiding coming in. Others scowl from the bus and wish this little blot on the landscape would shrivel up and disappear but I love it, and occasionally in my dreams, I still find myself scurrying along the road, flanked by little dirty shops, in a place that would never be trendy, but to me, was always friendly and real, especially in the middle of the night, when I went walking with my camera.

I was nervous. Being in front of the camera is not my favourite location. I feel naked and vulnerable, and having consoled myself with chocolate brownies after my Dad passed away, was more than aware that I’m not currently looking my best. I was expecting to look acceptable but I’d figured beautiful was an option that had leapt out of the window to save itself a long time back.

The first few photos that came on screen were family shots of us and the hounds, and were lovely momentoes of the day. They were bright and bubbly and fun. Pictures of a family that were happy and loved each other. It couldn’t fail to make you smile.

… and then the photos seagued into the individual shots. I was dreading it. My hands had already crept up to my face, ready to cover my eyes and my heart was beating ten to the dozen. And then THEY appeared and my breath stopped for a moment. I blinked. I shook my head and I heard myself say ‘Oh My God, I never knew I could look like that’ and there it was. There were three. One was cute, and cuddly and wintry and warm and one was all wild eyes and sexy (Me! Imagine that!) and then there was THE ONE. It didn’t have the definable fun factor or sexy elements that the other two did but it had a something that caught me perfectly. It was slightly sultry, mysterious with a hint of my mind’s on other things. It looked on the outside the way I felt on the inside. It’s a work of art.

THEN we got to sis’s shots. Christ she’s photogenic, although she’d never believe me. She had a couple of stunning shots but she too had a ONE and it’s fabulous. Despite her preoccupation with being perfectly coiffed all the time (Joan Collins, eat your heart out) her amazing picture had a really grungy, moody element to it. Almost slightly dark and dangerous. Like you could imagine a classy Courtney Love in a ballgown, leaning against a brick wall in an alley on her way to the Oscars, ready for a dangerous rendezvous. It’s the sort of image that seems to talk to you; it challenges you to try and take her on, provokes you to try with the knowledge she could squash you like a bug. It suits her. It suits the conversation we had over dinner after the shoot.

As well as a beautiful reminder of a fabulous day, the pictures are more than that. Amongst them, there is not only a tale of our relationship but a reminder to us, of who and what we are. Lest we ever forget.

This evening, we gathered at approximately 4pm to watch them gather as the sun went down, and as we slowly lost feeling in our limbs, it was more than made up for by the sight of tens of thousands, if not more, of starlings swarming through the sky like a giant amorphous cloud. The photos don’t do the experience justice but they may give you the beginnings of an idea …