Aunt Violet Gwendoline Woodhead

In 1964, a knee injury sent Charlie limping down Bensham Road to call on his aunt at 262 Bensham Road. Sitting in her front room with a cup of tea, he looked out at the back lane opposite and decided to paint it. The result was Back Cotfield Street, his first finished work.

Cotfield Street was demolished not long after. Mrs Woodhead's front window had, without ceremony, launched a fifty-six-year mission to document Tyneside before the bulldozers arrived.