I first encountered stereo photography as a child of five or six when I came across a Holmes viewer and a set of World War I, or maybe it was Boer War views, in my mother’s old nursery, when staying with my grandparents. I didn’t find those particular views very appealing, but the experience was memorable. Later, like most children growing up in the 1950s and 60s I encountered the Viewmaster phenomenon, and red & green anaglyph 3D, and always loved that magic moment when two flat images combine to make a single three-dimensional one.

In 1976 my father passed on a copy of ‘Wonders of the Stereoscope’ by John Jones which he had been given to review. It included a stereoscope and set of reproduction cards and I thoroughly enjoyed looking at this survey of Victorian 3D photography, but afterwards put it away on a bookshelf and didn’t look at it again until the early 1990s by which time it had turned out to be a very prescient gift.

I had been immersed in holography, the ultimate in late 20th century 3D, since the late 1970s and had gradually begun to have a greater curiosity about earlier forms of three dimensional image making. A friend took me to a Photograph Collectors Fair where I was able to browse through hundreds, if not thousands, of mostly 19th century stereo views and acquire examples for as little as £1 each. It was irresistible, and has proved to be a subject of enduring fascination.