"American cop shows, a postcard, and a lifelong fascination. As a young kid in Leeds in the seventies I sat with Dad looking longingly through his Royal Navy photo album; tantalising images and postcards with sticky corners offered glimpses of an adventurous life and places I never expected to see. One postcard I returned to often, sent to my grandparents in 1958, showed lower Manhattan: late afternoon sunlight splashing over the skyscrapers as a steamer is guided from the pier by a powerful tugboat. I was hooked — New York would be the first destination when I grew up."