It was when I was walking round Soho with Geoff Lloyd recording for his Absolute Radio show that I noticed the closure of Madame JoJo’s, that great icon of Soho nightlife to the extent that closing it could be as catastrophic as releasing the ravens from the Tower of London.

I later connected with Soho resident and musician, Tim Arnold, one of the co-ordinators of the Save Soho campaign that includes local residents, small businesses and luminaries such as Stephen Fry and Benedict Cumberbatch. Tim offered to take me round some of the venues under threat and also the ones needing to be preserved if the Spirit of Soho was to survive.

Although not actually in Soho we decided to start outside the 12 Bar Club in Denmark Street and were there the day it closed. Almost immediately afterwards it was squatted and occupied by the Soho Bohemians so again I went along with a camera to capture the moment.

Denmark Street (known as Tin Pan Alley) is the historic heart of the music industry in London (and indeed Britain). It was where the early sheet music publishers were based, the music press, management companies – it gave us rock’n’roll and pop music, the Top 40 and the Sex Pistols. It’s probably more famous now for the guitar shops. Many of the buildings date from the 18th Century with the street plan being older still.

But this all now risks being swept away by development, driven by the destructive force of Crossrail and that fact that it sits in the heart of a parcel of land worth around £980million.

If action isn’t taken now a precious ancient district of London will be erased from the map and replaced with a characterless complex of steel and glass blocks. The soul of Central London is being squeezed in the talons of rapacious development.

Sign the petition to Save Tin Pan Alley