“During my latest trip to Yemen I went to Bab al-Yaman every morning, and stood in the middle of the roundabout next to the metal fountain, with cars rushing past and the cassette shop behind me playing the same song over and over again. After a while people started to recognise me as the person who painted at Bab al-Yaman. They would call out to me on the streets - even in the really remote corners of old Sana’a I would be walking past and someone would call out ‘Bab al-Yaman’. And a few people approached wanting me to draw them. One time a man came up and led me down a small alley to a carpet shop with an old man siting inside. He asked me to draw him, so I did. When I had finished the sketch I showed it to the old man and he was genuinely amazed, he gasped. He didn’t want to keep it though. He was happy enough to see that it really was him on the page, and then he handed it back to me.”

“I liked working in old Sana’a, finding a little corner and just watching the world go by, seeing how people interact. There’s something different every day, every moment. The old man who looks like he is dressed up as a pirate; the salesman selling plastic bags; the women covered in their sitarahs when the wind catches the material, so that suddenly they remind you of a Renaissance madonna with flowing robes. They are tiny moments, but they encapsulate a lot.”