When I came to photograph the river Wey in Surrey it was more difficult than I imagined. It’s a wide meadow down beside the river, full of waving grasses, surrounded by oak woods and it filled with a low level mist through the night that was cool relief from the heat of the day. It is a simple beautiful, field, hidden from the business of Surrey’s network of roads and pathways and I grew up here.
I learnt to fish in the deep pools, catching dace, grayling and perch. I built campfires with my Dad here and learnt to canoe downriver to meet friends in the village. It has always been the starting place for me, where the world begins; the river coming from somewhere up there, flowing through the field in one great meander and heading off down that way to bigger places that seem quite unimportant. The path down through the wood is where I conquered my deep fear of the dark, it's where I first drank and smoked, where I took my first photographs, and where my father's spirit abounds. I love this field more than I could describe.
From the introduction to Journey Through the British Isles.
