When my parents left their respective countries to settle in France and start a family, photo albums were not a big thing for them. So growing up stories were told but never really illustrated. In 2012 Le Bal organised the exhibition « What Happened / Chris Killip » with the sub-title Great Britain 1970-1990, I asked my mother to come with me. It was a photographic revelation for sure but also a deep dive in my mother’s memories of places, sites and people: lunch was then about the North of England when she was little. That exact encounter with Killip’s craft was one of the triggers for my taste in looking at photographs in search for stories. A few years later, working for the Barbican on the Parr show I had the privilege to visit Martin’s house and discovered his Killip print hung next to his desk. As I searched for more photobooks « Father and son watching a parade, Tyneside » (1980) was looming over me and my dear friend (then colleague) Jilke. Today as we learn about the passing of Killip, I became someone who critically looks at images but I’m somehow caught up with the memory of a first love. Killip’s photographs are powerful nostalgic objects: they remind us of a time that no longer exists but which ghosts still inhabit this country and its people. #chriskillip