David Burn

It's not that I subscribe to the notion of Fate as a mischeivous entity but I suspect that there was no way I was going to avoid last summer's 'call to lenses' ever since I moved to Faringdon in 1988.

You see, we'd just bought the old London Street chippy with the rash intention of turning the building into a house. Apart from the functional tin chimney and all-pervasive pong of old oil (still with us when the fire's blazing) the hardest part was going to be replacing the plate glass windows. So I wrote to the National Monuments Register and asked if they had any photos of old Faringdon houses from which we could get some idea of local window styles. And what did they send me? - a photo of our very own house from March 1934 - complete with two front doors, an awning, swinging sign, and one of each type of window ever invented!

Since that day I've had a soft spot for photographic records of buildings and thought Hilary's project was an excellent chance to do my little bit for the record.

You never know, in 2100 Goodlake Avenue may be a classic urban street with a new generation of renovators trawling through these photos trying to find the authentic 1990s window style for their own restoration.