Re: Early explores.
The one I regularly kick myself over is Colney Hatch Asylum in Friern Barnet... I explored it during the exceedingly brief period it was doable, many years ago now... Went with one camera, one 50mm lens, and some Kodachrome - got pictures of the huge chapel with parque floor and dark wood pannelling all over as well as a very large organ [cheeky], the longest [arched, waffled ceilinged] corridor of any asylum in the UK, secure cells, the panelled board room, dispenseries, wards, the grand staircase, the projection 'box' - which was just that, a huge metal box with a door, suspended from the ceiling by bloody great bolts, reached across a little bridge & dangling over the central well of a large square/spiral staircase... I remember it like yesterday - what a gorgeous place it was. BUT then I had a photographic hiatus for the best part of 10yrs and ended up throwing out loads of negs and slides - what a silly fecker I was. I have only ever seen one other urbex shot of it [the corridor], and I was probably one of a handful of people who ever went in & even fewer who took a camera. My slides - crap as they were - would've been priceless now. Even Simon Cornwell never had the honour [I asked him], and the asylums he hasn't done over the last 15 or so years you could write on the head of a pin.
Although I'd been exploring for some time before hand, that was the one that made me determined to do things properly and never throw anything away.
"Look. Ready? This is it. Forget all previous orders. Just give me a sack of coke, two large rocks, two pink boobs, an enormous lemon, and a large bare lady of the house."