TORIES OUT - Grange Road, Bermondsey, London SE1

Another old photo of mine. This time taken in Grange Road, Bermondsey, London SE1 in the late 1980s. This was a study of T.W. HASTINGS Boot & Shoe Repairs, which had evidently been closed down for quite sometime. The picture was part of a series of derelict shop fronts that I was collecting at the time - and this example really had a splendid worn out wooden facade. And there is so much wood. The padlocked door, the shuttered window, the large hand-painted pale blue sign. Even the number 205 is encased in a gorgeous trapezoid-like red box, which matches the colour of the name of the shop.

Oh - and I've just spotted a rude hand written word scribbled on the door, next door

After all that dead wood had been skipped, the building eventually got converted into smart-looking apartments. The former life of No.205 was obliterated. No-one would ever know that T.W. HASTINGS had ever existed. However, the attractive blue bricked dividing column does still remain to this day.

So with just over a week to go until the General Election, this photograph is now appropriately topical...