These photographs were taken as part of the project by the E.P.E.A.K. (Operational Programme for Education and Initial Training) to improve the level of the Greek language used in the minority schools of the region of Thrace.

For the purposes of the programme it was necessary to carry out a survey of the areas being visited by the researchers.

From October to December of the same year I may have made as many as 6 or 7 separate trips. I cannot remember precisely how many, but it is not of any importance.

In those days a journey was a much easier thing for me. I made up my mind at the last minute. My bags were almost always ready for departure.

Coaches, trains, planes - even rented cars when it came to visiting the most remote villages - and always, lots of shoe leather!

Thrace was the distant and magical world in which I had always dreamed of roaming.

When the programme was over I felt that something remained incomplete. I felt a need to go back and to seek out those places again - but it was a plan which was never fulfilled.

Because since that time too much has changed. It's harder for me to stir myself now, I need time to plan things, and my bags too now need time for packing. 'I've put on weight' my friends say, and meanwhile all those questions which begin with 'Why …' have made that new weight seem even heavier. What's more, my acceptance of the maxim that 'good photographs can be taken in your own daily environment, however confined it may seem', made it easy for me to avoid the effort of travelling and gave me an excuse to look for things, and for myself, closer to home.

Photography is an indispensable part of my life. It follows me at all times, wherever I go. It's there waiting for me at work, on holiday, when I'm eating and drinking with friends, at times of joy. At the lunch table and the dinner table, on a short trip or a distant journey. In everything I love, everything I taste.

My travel in Thrace is something I will never forget. I have assimilated it like all those things which, when you see them for the first time, seem so extraordinary that you are afraid to approach them again, afraid that they can never again give you that same pleasure.

The chill of morning at the market in Xanthi, just after dawn; the reflections in the window of the coach station in Komotini; the evening in the cafe in the Turkish quarter of Alexandroupolis; discussions with Ahmet and Yiousouf at the 'Hephaestus' settlement outside Komotini; the Pontian music in the taverna above the road to Thisvi; the ouzo we were treated to by the schoolmaster in Organi; the Turkish coffee on the wood-burning stove in Eulalos; the embrace of the children in the playground of the school in Dymi; the smell of kebab and Hungarian salad, which often burned the roof of your mouth.

Can you experience all these things, relish them one by one, and not photograph them?

In Thrace, every single step is a journey - and I like to photograph in my journeys following my steps.