First of all, my apologies for the long silence. I have been finishing off four books and moving offices at the same time. I needed to clear my head, so have given the blog a break. Now I can do some serious catching up, starting with three great images taken by Tom Owens in 1972. A student at the time, Tom recorded the area around the new Royal Hospital on Prescot Street. His two images of a School Health Clinic made me smile. I have tried to locate it but without luck. The third photograph is definitely Prescot Street and shows the hospital near to completion. That was forty years ago and, before long, the hospital will be replaced. Perhaps medical changes over four decades demand a new building. Rather, I feel, the 1970s building was ill-conceived from the start; a near-obsolete model that has never been much more than an eyesore – like many of the 1960s tower blocks which have also been mercifully demolished.



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