Trespassers will...

He may look like a kid in a hoodie, but Bradley Garrett holds a degree in an anthropology and history, a PhD in social and cultural geography, and is about to take up a research post at Oxford University. But away from his lofty academic work, this bespectacled American is a trespasser – “urban explorer” has a nicer ring – who infiltrates abandoned buildings, sewers, bridges and office block rooftops, filming and photographing them to bring these hidden spaces to public view (his work is on show at the Brighton Photo Biennial from 6 October). 

Garrett’s curiosity about what lurks above and beneath our cities has taken him, among hundreds of other places, to the top of The Shard, the drains of Las Vegas, St Sulpice church in Paris and New Court, headquarters of Rothschild Bank in London, where this shot was taken. "I've been to lots of cities, and feel an intimate connection to them, but I couldn't recommend a good restaurant to you. I've spent most of my time underground," he says. 

While studying for his PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London – subject: Place Hacking: Tales of Urban Exploration – Garrett and his fellow explorers snuck into steam tunnels under campus and onto the college roof. With names like Winch, Marc Explo, Furtle and Shotgun Mario, they cut undeniably glamorous figures – young, good-looking, dressed in combats and tattoos, kit swinging from their backpacks. 

Garrett believes we aren’t drawn to off-limits spaces in built environments the way we are in the countryside, where we happily explore mountains and woods. “We’re reacting to increased surveillance and control over urban space,” he writes. “Essentially, we’re trespassing, so in some ways what we’re doing is always illegal. If we're ever caught, we're treated differently depending on where we are. Europe is more relaxed. But in the US, security guards will restrain you, and the police take it much more seriously, whether or not that's justified." 

Now he’s left Royal Holloway, Garrett hopes students there will continue to explore its hidden nooks. Meanwhile, he is currently “exploring” somewhere in the world until he heads back to the UK in October to take up his research post. Oxford City Council, watch out. 

Reactions to cancer

In April 2011, Angelo Merendino’s wife Jennifer was hospitalised. Diagnosed with breast cancer 2008, her condition had worsened and she remained there for two weeks. When she was discharged, doctors advised her to take a walk every day, so she wasn’t stuck in the

couple’s Manhattan apartment.

With no hair from chemotherapy, and a walking frame, Jennifer was “not what you would expect from a 39-year-old woman”, says Angelo, on the phone from New York. “We couldn’t cross the street without people staring.” Struck by people’s reactions – some shocked or pitying, others curious – he started to shoot these passersby when he and Jennifer were on their daily strolls. He photographed at hip height so people would react to her, not his camera. “We weren’t mad that people were staring. We just wanted to show this was what life was like for her.”

Angelo had already been documenting Jennifer’s battle with cancer, keen to show the daily reality of pills, injections, doctor’s appointments and paperwork, as well as the fear, sadness and frustration. He had no intention of making the photographs public, beyond friends and family, until he entered a few in a competition. It was then the emails started coming in – condolences, thanks for what he was doing, and experiences shared, all from strangers. 

“From then on, we felt we had an opportunity to help other sufferers, and to give people who had no experience of cancer a deeper understanding of what it involves.”

Jennifer died on 22 December. She fell ill just five months after she and Angelo were married, in Central Park. He can still remember the numbness that enveloped him that day, and says it has still not left him. “Life is quite strange these days, and I am taking things a step at a time.”

Brief Encounters: frisbee

Plateau Mont-Royal is Montreal's bohemian quarter, full of bagel stores, coffee shops, bakeries, and young guys strumming guitars on their stoops. At the foot of the small mountain after which the city is named, is a park: tennis courts, a small baseball pitch with wooden bleachers, and best of all, shade. 
It was here I took shelter while I finished my book – by 11am, it was heading quickly towards 30 degrees and the sun was searing my shoulders. 
It was only when I stopped reading that I noticed the small group next to me: a cheery guy about my age, three boys aged between around seven and 12, and a tall teenage Indian girl and her father. They had a frisbee, rugby ball, football, kite, and a large cooler filled with snacks. They were clearly settled in for the day. 
After watching them for a few minutes, I wandered over and asked if I could play. For the next hour or so, we frisbeed, ate homemade egg mayonnaise sandwiches, and talked. 
The father and daughter were from Mumbai, on holiday, just the two of them. They, like me, had gatecrashed the frisbee. He was divorced, and this was his way of spending quality time with his daughter. They were headed, via Toronto and Buffalo, to New York in ten days' time. "I am soooo excited," said the daughter. I loved their company – they were intellectual, curious and sparky. He read the Guardian online back home, and she was filled with plans for her life. 
The guy was playing Dad to his friend's three boys for the day – "I love them to bits," he said. He threw them over his shoulders, wrestled them to the ground and flung rugby balls in their direction, shouting encouragement. He has travelled all over the world, but grew up a block from where we were, and used to play in the park as a boy. He had lovely brown eyes. 
A couple of hours later, as I packed up to leave and catch my plane home, I felt a tug of emotion in my chest. From three continents, seven strangers had converged on a park and enjoyed an unexpectedly happy morning together. These intense, but fleeting, friendships are both the best and worst side of travel. You taste the start of a friendship and then leave, too soon. But the best leave a strong impression. 

The Portuguese Pepperpot

As long as I've known my adored, talented writer/English professor/DJ friend Jason Tougaw (we met in Mexico six years ago under extremely funny circumstances and have remained friends ever since), I've known about his grandfather, Ralph Neves. 

Neves was a jockey, 4'9" and "dominated any room he inhabited". Hot-blooded and fast-living – nicknamed the Portuguese Pepperpot – he hung out with all the Hollywood celebrities of the day. 

He started riding at 13, after he ran away from a Catholic school for orphans, where he landed when his father was institutionalised for schizophrenia, and found his way to a horse ranch in Oregon. He was ruthless on the track. In life, he was as charming as he was callous, writes Tougaw. 

One day in 1936, he came back from the dead. You can read Jason's piece about that amazing day here. Enjoy. 

Less pomp, more circumstance

When you've done something so often it becomes routine, it takes someone pretty special to lift that experience out of the ordinary. Adrian Brown is that man. 

Brown is a conductor who recently started working with my orchestra. I met him for the first time a few weeks ago. He is twinkly-eyed, charming, quick-witted and sounds a lot like Michael Caine – Carry On humour his speciality. But more importantly, he has a deep, spiritual passion for music, and knows instinctively how to convey this to an orchestra full of people like me who have been playing long enough to have heard it all before. 

A conductor will tell you how he – and sadly, he is usually a he – wants something played: shorter, faster, quieter. A good conductor will try to explain why. Brown did both, using language not usually associated with music, while also exploring the more interesting idea of why the composer might have written what he – and sadly, he is usually a he – did. 

An example. A passage in Edward Elgar's magnificent First Symphony sees the strings surging forward in a crescendo and then stopping, abruptly, to play almost inaudibly quietly. Brown told us he believed this was a musical manifestation of Elgar's passion pouring out of him, before he remembers where he is – prudish, Edwardian England – and pulls back, keeping his emotion in check. 

"This is autobiographical stuff!" he told us, more than once. "People think Elgar is all Pomp and Circumstance, but he was actually incredibly fragile." In an interview before the concert, he said: "I am deeply, emotionally attached to Elgar: his foibles, his moods, his difficulties, and his inferiority complex."

He also encouraged us to try to forget the last century of history and imagine we were hearing this music for the first time – not easy. "That key change would have been incredibly radical back then," he said. Later, sitting down to play Beethoven's fifth piano concerto, he stopped us after the first note, as he thought we weren't giving it our all. "This was written for an Emperor!" he said. And thus, without telling us how to play, he conveyed so much more. 

For me, I responded more than I ever have to a conductor, caring deeply about how I played and coming away with a more profound understanding of what I was playing. "Go to the tenderest place in your heart," he told us when we were rehearsing the symphony's exquisite slow movement. We did, and our performance on Monday was all the better for it. 

"I didn't think I'd ever recover"

In February 1964, Angela Patrick was a happy, carefree 19 year-old living outside London, working in the city, and having fun with her girlfriends. One Saturday night in Essex, she did what most teenagers that age do – went to a party, got a bit merry, and slept with her new boyfriend.

The consequences of that night are still being felt by Angela and her loved-ones nearly 50 years later. She found herself pregnant, and was forced to do something almost unimaginable – give up her baby son for adoption.

We met a few weeks ago over coffee in the National Gallery and she told me her story, published in yesterday's Guardian. Nearly 50 years on, re-telling it still makes her cry. She was beautiful – less polished than above, pictured left with her daughter – intelligent and warm.

What impressed me most is how she survived her ordeal and went on to live a happy life. And how one tiny event can affect you for life. For once, the platitude "what doesn't kill us..." seems apt.

Photograph: Sarah Lee

Drawing inspiration

Quentin Blake was ten minutes into a chirpy monologue about who inspires him as an illustrator when something occurred to me: with his small, bird-like features, wispy hair and lively eyebrows, he looked not a little like the people he draws (self-portrait, above; portrait, below by Eamonn McCabe).

I cast my eyes across the rest of the panel taking part in the talk at the British Library –illustrators and cartoonists, Posy Simmonds, Martin Rowson and Jamie Hewlett. Simmonds had the soft, open features and grace of her Tamara Drewe and Gemma Bovary characters; Hewlett, the cheeky, boyish grin of the Gorillaz crew, below (and see him speak briefly here).

Do people who spend their lives creating other people turn to the most obvious person for inspiration – themselves – even if it's subconscious?

My theory, of course, ended with Rowson, a brilliant "visual journalist" whose intricate, political cartoons resemble modern-day Hogarth but look nothing like him. Hey ho.

I adored Blake as a child, never sure if it was his drawings, or Roald Dahl's words, that I loved best. So it was fascinating to discover who inspired him: turns out, he was not alone in his idolatry of Ronald Searle, who died last December (below). "The Godfather," said Blake. "He had the best line," said Rowson (it's a drawing thing). "The greatest illustrator of all time," said Hewlett. "He has completely inspired me all my life."

Hewlett, Blake, Simmonds and Rowson were intelligent, funny and generous, and gave the impression that being an illustrator is an extremely rewarding way to spend your life. It worked for Searle, too: he lived in France, with the woman he loved, and drank champagne every day. As Hewlett said: "What's not to admire?"