Blue Fence Blues

Mr Foster, who described himself as a "fieldwork photographer" for Waltham Forest, had been keeping a meticulous record of the Lower Lea Valley, the shifts in land use, for more than thirty years.

Until today.

When he was challenged, and threatened with summary arrest by private security guards, for the crime of pointing his camera at the fence.

A fence which shadowed the towpath, accompanied the Greenway, stuttered through Stratford, and marked out the half-abandoned estate due for demolition on Clays Lane.

Foster's dispiriting experience was a commonplace.

Stephen Gill, another compulsive cyclist-photographer, haunter of scrub woods, produced two finely observed elegies to the doomed territories.

A celebration of the sprawling, Babel-voiced boot fair held at the former Hackney Wick Stadium.

And a documentary record of the Olympic Park in its limbo, before the first conceptual stadium slid from its computer screen.

"I used to wander the Wick, completely on my own, exploring and taking photographs," he told me. "Now there are lots of people in yellow coats, boots and hard hats. 'Sorry, mate, you can't come in here.' Suddenly there are places where you can't walk freely. 'Health and safety. You're not insured.' It"s always the same: health and safety."

On Waterden Road, that improbable assembly of exotic food warehouses, evangelical African churches, steel-door nightclubs, bus garages, Gill snapped the Queen of England on a private and unannounced tour. Brave smile, like her late mother, tripping over rubble as she visited the East End war zone.

"I was standing by the roadside. There were a lot of helicopters overhead. I waved. She waved. I took a few shots. The policeman said, 'That's enough.' The big black car purred through all the barriers, down the length of Waterden Road, past padlocked allotments, the abandoned travellers' camp, sweeping back towards the motorway. She looked quite relieved to be getting out unscathed."

Gill has another nice capture: Lord Coe and David Cameron. Ties coordinated with the blue of the coming fence, dark suits, hands in pockets. Cardinals of capital strolling through the ruins of a captured city. It was in that moment I realised the game was up for Gordon Brown: he doesn't stroll, he can't do hands in pocket. He doesn't drop in on Hackney Wick, he hits Washington looking for consoling handshakes, shoulders to squeeze. Brown won't look good schmoozing athletes and freeloaders, he'll have to go.

from Ghost Milk, published by Hamish Hamilton

Iain Sinclair has lived in and written about Hackney, East London, since 1969. His novels include Downriver and, most recently Dining on Stones, which was shortlisted for the Ondaatje prize. Non-fiction books exploring the myth and matter of London include Lights Out For The Territory, London Orbital and Edge Of The Orison. His most recent book is Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire.

Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter