The bricks on the houses in this neighbourhood are still smoke-blackened and the streets are still as quiet and empty as they are in my memory of them from childhood days. Gone though, is the faint and pervading smell of smoke, and of freshly creosoted fences in the Summer sun hanging in the air.

Every now and again I refresh myself of these Northwood and Birches Head streets; the streets of my parents' early life, and those of their parents before them. Neither the geography nor topography has changed; the long ribbons of streets intersected by alleyways and entries only accentuate the steep drops and high inclines of the landscape on which they are built. Cars are infinitely more prolific now of course and they gatecrash my memories. These streets weren't planned for these machines and they throw the scale of Victorian Architecture askew in crowding the pavements and tight corners as they do. As a child I walked these near empty streets with my granddad, on the way to one or another park, or perhaps longer still, to Burslem across the reclaimed land that was Hanley Deep Pit to visit his five sisters for an afternoon tea and a chat.

My memory is of a brutal industrial landscape punctuated with the redeeming features of postage stamp sized immaculate gardens and flowering plants. Occasionally there was a person tending to such, to which there was a brief and courteous acknowledgement or succinct conversation sharpened to a point made.