Larry Clark was a Weatherfield Gazette photographer who visited Coronation Street in November 1973 after a fireworks accident in which Mark Hillkirk was badly burned. He accompanied reporter Clive Shawcross and the two called into the Rovers to "sound out local opinion" and found Alan Howard there who Clark identified as the organiser of the event. The residents stood by Alan as Shawcross asked them if they thought that fireworks ought to be banned. Bet Lynch was interested if her photograph was going to appear in the paper. Their next port of call was the Kabin where they got Councillor Len Fairclough to be spokesman for a new anti-fireworks campaign that the paper was to run, with Clark taking a picture of him with Rita Littlewood, not realising that she had sold Mark a box a fireworks a week earlier.