Let’s crash the Austin Maxi in the basement of the Victoria Centre in Nottingham, with historian and raconteur Lucy Brouwer, who runs the very entertaining and illuminating tours Watson Fothergill Walk.

Opening in 1972, the vast and vastly ambitious Victoria Centre became the nexus of all things shopping for a city on the up, where full employment was spoken of in the launch brochure. By the next decade the government’s war on miners, as well as rising unemployment and the destruction of the city’s rag trade made the Victoria Centre’s optimism look out of step with the times.

But behind its rough concrete facade you could find a cornucopia of delights: an indoor market with a stuffed bear; a multi-themed Berni Inn, and the Emmett Clock, a magnificent kinetic whimsy that held passers-by transfixed. Lucy takes us on an odyssey to see a different side of this colossal beast, the railway station it replaced, and the many businesses that have come and gone.

Alongside that beast, Lucy’s minor monster is a lost single – lost, it has to be said, at the request of the band who made it. ‘Pop is Dead’ is a Radiohead song from 1993, that is as much manifesto as it is musical bombast. Why has it been erased from the band’s history, how did it inspire Lucy to set up a fanzine, and is it actually any good?

Lucy Brouwer is a Nottingham-based tour guide and historian. You can find out more about her tours at https://watsonfothergillwalk.com or follow her on Instagram @watsonfothergillwalk or on BlueSky @notrock.bsky.social

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