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the rush taking pictures

This space where I'm stood for this one was previously the dimly-lit floor of the Hoval commercial boiler factory, under its final incarnation. It was probably the tallest industrial building in Lincoln.

I remember being scared working my way up the metal staircase to the walkways where the hoist operators were stationed. (Amongst many nervousnesses, fear of heights is one.) But mostly I remember an afternoon exhilarated making hundreds of pans of the rows of rooflights above and feeling entranced looking up and the extensive window structures. It felt like being in a cathedral, but an historic, obsolete entity that would leave no legacy. Then a lorry or some large-engined deisel vehicle came and pulled up outside and I could here some guys talking above the sound of the engine and expected at any moment to be busted. So I was hurrying to take more and more pictures of the rooflights in those final minutes... and those men never came in, eventually driving away around the back of the site. As the lorry noise faded, there was only the flutter of pigeons, high in the roof space.