Commentary on the photographs by Andrew Taylor
(1) A return visit to Stratford-upon-Avon as part of the UK tour. Hadn't been back since 1988.
I worked around the UK for 7 months from November 2009 - June 2010, usually a different location each week and we called it the UK tour. It was exciting to visit places again and to visit new places was a bonus!
(2) Houses of Parliament and the Thames from the London Eye wheel.
(3) Winchester Cathedral. Ancient Cathedral in a nice city we visited on the UK tour.
(4) River Thames, London. A favourite view from Hungerford Bridge.
(5) Afternoon tea at the National Portrait Gallery in London. I was working in London as part of my six month UK tour and decided to take a break in the basement Cafe of the NPG near to Trafalgar Square. A real oasis in the city.
(6) Yoko Ono ladders, St Luke's Church (the bombed out church - left empty after the Second World War to honour the dead) Liverpool. Great piece by Yoko Ono as part of the Liverpool Biennial.
(7) Guildford. Another stop on the tour. In my mind Guildford was a modern town and when I arrived I was pleased to see it was the total opposite.
(8) St John's College, Cambridge University at dusk. A friend's alma mater I took this for her.
(9) Liverpool. Not the city that most think it is.
(10) Stoors Hall Hotel, Lake District. Friends James and Clare married here, I read a poem at the wedding. Wordsworth read here too.
(11) Basket, Yorkshire Sculpture Park. This interactive piece gave great shelter when we were caught in a downpour! We took tea from a flask to warm up!
(12) A James Turrell's UK skyspace. We travelled from Liverpool five hours through snow to get here. We missed the dawn but still, what a view.
(13) One of Brighton's Piers. December 2009 before the snow.
(14) A familiar sight for travellers heading back north from London. The departure board at Euston Station, London.
(15) M6 toll booths in the fog. Driving home to Liverpool in the fog, late at night.
(16) A new camera and a new still life. Some favourite beer tops!
(17) We visited Cambridge as part of the UK tour and I was taken with the posters on the railings of a Church in the town.
(18) Former Eurostar terminal at Waterloo Station in London. Travelled to Paris from here a few times. Since the move to St Pancras Station it is much easier as we can walk from Euston Station. A little bit of France in London.
(19) Hotel in Brighton. The Metropole mentioned in TS Eliot's 'The Waste Land', home for a week December 2009.
(20) Sculpture of Dixie Dean, Goodison Park, home of Everton Football Club. Dean scored 60 league goals in the 1927-1928 season, a record that stands today. A legend.
(21) Paddington Station, London. Sculpture of Paddington Bear, a children's character in books and TV
(22) Snowdon Buffet Bar, Bangor Station in Bangor, Wales. A great old fashioned waiting room/buffet.
(23) Waveform by Sydney Smith English, Pier Head, Liverpool. A great sculpture that inspired a poem in my debut collection.
(24) St Thomas's Church, Melling. I was Christened here, got married here and six of my Aunts and my parents were married here.
(25) Oxford. A man chaining the punts up on the river at dusk.
(26) St Francis Xavier Church, Everton. Visited as part of the Heritage Open Days in Liverpool.
(27) View from the apartment at dawn, of Nottingham. Again, part of the UK tour.
(28) Birkenhead Docks, 'over the water' from Liverpool. This was taken as part of an Urban Exploration with my friend Billy Fallows, which took us under Birkenhead through disused rail tunnels. The area is now being redeveloped.
(29) Knowsley Village Post Office. No longer in a house! It has moved and been modernised!
(30) 28 Waterside, Stratford-upon-Avon, a cottage where I stayed as a guest of an actor at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988. First visit back and part of the UK tour 2010
(31) Liverpool Lime Street Station after renovation.
(32) Arnside near the Lake District. A recent visit to see friends who were camping there.
(33) Beach. One of the first digital cameras I owned. This is a shadow pic of me and a friend, James, which was later used on the rear of my collection 'Cathedral Poems'
(34) Scottish Plain bread, only available in Scotland.
(35) A London bus spotted in Hampshire, miles away from London in a garage.
(36) Iceberg on the Mersey - sculpture 'Beyond the Irish Sea' part of the Liverpool Biennial of Art, 2005
(37) East Grinstead in the snow. After the terrible snows of January 2010 we had to find a hotel in a rush. We stayed in a manor house near East Grinstead. We ventured into the town in search of a curry and this is what greeted us!
(38) William Wordsworth's grave, Grasmere churchyard.
(39) Sunset across the Dee Estuary, Wales is in the background.
(40) New Brighton Lighthouse. Again, on the Wirral 'over the water' from Liverpool. Many a seafarer will know this landmark.