Afternoon sun shines on slate roofs. Front gardens sit neatly below small square windows, framed with frilly net curtains.  There is no-one around. The quiet is disturbing but the dramatic view of a Rhondda Valley hill, rising up at the bottom end of the road, is breath-taking, as if it was just created, a universe being born.

I face the neat row of terraced houses, taking in every detail of the house where I was born. Imagine what it would feel like to open the little garden gate, to walk the short path to the front door, just as my mother did, starting her new life far from the comfort and security of her Irish home and family, but this was no refuge for her, creating painful memories that would blight her whole life.

The secrecy of net curtains. Watchers, waiting. Someone who still remembers. I cannot take the step towards the past, and yet, I capture this place of my beginning with my camera. It seems important somehow.