Then there is Harmeet, the indefatigable designer of the envelope and the inserts, fantastic at realising my ideas while bringing his own and pushing us both past what we imagined.

Bradford Square owes a conceptual debt to The Text, another envelope of new writing I produced with Keith Jafrate of the Word Hoard in the late 1990s, and which they still produce now.

What follows are extracts from my notebook during the evolution and delivery of the project.

11.6.07

As I wrote the project proposal I realised this is going to be a very quick project, a flash project, at most the writers will have three weeks from commissioning to delivery. I named some of them in the proposal and now it has been accepted by the Stir group begin to imagine everyone saying no, then trawling around for writers to complete in under three weeks, in two weeks, in one. And I am anxious that they write new for me and don’t just pick out/recycle something from the bottom drawer. It is a big ask and I prepare myself for the noes. All six say yes.