For most of us, a motorway service station is a place we pass through without a second thought. It’s a stop on the way to somewhere else, a break in the journey. Our stay there is usually short, an interlude, before heading off to the real destination.

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Yet if we were to stop there and linger, we would perhaps find ourselves fascinated by what went on around us. As resident photographer at Gordano for a full year, I had the opportunity to do just that.

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What I found in this most unlikely of places was a window like no other on to Britain today. People of every age and background, travelling for every imaginable reason, converged there in continually shifting patterns. It showed something of how we live now, while also presenting itself as a kind of ongoing drama made up of individual stories.​

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In Greetings from Gordano, I tried to capture some of these stories, as people arrived and left, queued and waited, or found other ways to pass the time. These things may have been mundane in themselves, but together they paint a picture of our everyday life – and show how the extraordinary so often reveals itself in the ordinary.​

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I would like to thank Ellie Wilson, Matt Hampton and Chris James at Welcome Break for making this project possible and for their interest and support. I would also like to thank all the staff at Gordano for their help and kindness, whilst working so hard to keep the whole show on the road, day and night.