When I first started school a factory hooter at five to eight and another at eight o’clock signalled when we had to leave home.  The hooter was at the Kodak factory in Harrow, which then enployed around six thousand people. Started in 1890, it was Kodak’s first factory in the UK and for most of its life it was one of the largest photographic manufacturing sites in Europe. It wasn’t just a set of manufacturing plants turning out film. It was a whole city, dominated by a massive chimney. It had its own artesian well and water supply and its own electricity generating plant. It had its own fire station and fire engines. Its own theatre. Its own playing fields and cricket pitches. Its own football team. Its own everything. Nearby Harrow and Wealdstone station was built to bring the workers to the Kodak plant. For those with parents who worked there, it was a handy source of summer jobs and we were frequent visitors to Kodak’s pool and billiard tables. But the factory made film and nobody uses film anymore. When I heard today that once mighty Kodak had filed for bankruptcy I did a quick surf and, sure enough, what had once been a vibrant city, its machines humming and lights shining all day and night, is now a development opportunity. You can visit it here. Progress always comes at a price…