Alan Burnett's Picture Post

Picture Post Has Moved

2011-07-06T09:03:00.000Z

I am trying to fit my blogging into my new post-retirement lifestyle and therefore I have decided to merge my two regular blogs - News From Nowhere and Picture Post. In future my pictures - old and new - will be posted on the News From Nowhere Blog. If you would like to keep following my picture posts, please make sure you are a follower of News From Nowhere.

GO TO THE NEWS FROM NOWHERE BLOG

1008 : Todmorden Turrets

2011-05-30T10:17:00.000Z

High on a hill overlooking Todmorden is the third in my trio of buildings designed by John Gibson, Dobroyd Castle. Built as a home for the mill-owning Fielden family. The story is that John Fielden Jnr fell in love with a local worker, Ruth Stansfield, who said she would marry him if he built her a castle. The couple got married in 1857 and Dobroyd Castle was the built a few year later. It would be nice to say that they lived happily ever after, but they didn't. But that, as they say, is another story.

1007 : Todmorden Gothic

2011-05-27T16:56:00.000Z

Todmorden Unitarian Church is the second of my three featured Todmorden buildings designed by John Gibson. This astonishing church stands on the hillside overlooking the town and is a Grade 1 listed building. Built in 1865, the Church continued to provide services until 1987 when it closed. Happily, it was brought back into use following its acquisition, and restoration, by the Historic Chapels Trust, in 2008.

1006 : Todmorden Pediment

2011-05-26T12:08:00.000Z

Last Sunday we took a trip up the valley to Todmorden. This amazing building is Todmorden Town Hall which was built in 1874/5 to a design by the London architect, John Gibson. Gibson was also responsible for designing the Todmorden Unitarian Church and Dobroyd Castle - photographs of both of these I will be featuring over the next couple of days. The Town Hall is currently undergoing restoration work, hence the scaffolding around the lower parts of the building.

1005 : Heads, You Win.

2011-05-23T11:06:00.000Z

A picture taken last Friday whilst visiting the breath-taking exhibition of work by the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa which is being held at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

1004 : Paddock Curves And Gritty Lanolin

2011-05-16T08:24:00.000Z

Paddock Viaduct, Near Huddersfield

Paddock Viaduct takes the Huddersfield to Sheffield railway line out of the town centre and enables it to fly over the steep valley of the River Colne. Trapped beneath its huge and gracefully curved arches are rows of stone-built terraced houses. There is something so Yorkshire about the scene : not Dales-decked Herriot Country, but gritty, lanolin-soaked West Yorkshire. The magnificent viaduct is the work of Sir John Hawkshaw who was also responsible for the Lockwood viaduct about a mile further south.

INTERREGNUM : The normal order of things is going to be a little disturbed over the next six weeks or so. Tomorrow, the Good Lady Wife (GLW) retires from work and there then follows a round of parties, visits and celebrations.. In June we are away on holiday for three weeks. Until we go on holiday I will try and post something each day - sometimes to News From Nowhere and sometimes to Alan Burnett's Picture Post. I will try to include links between blogs so you will be able to keep up with where I am. The weekly calls for Sepia Saturday posts will not be interrupted.

1003 : No Fire Without Smoke

2011-05-12T05:59:00.000Z

Another picture of Oakwell Hall, this time the side view. What struck me was the scale of the chimneys : one tends to forget just what an important and dominant part of a house of this age the chimneys were. There is no fire without smoke, and without fire, life would be very cold indeed. Coal, however, was cheap and plentiful : indeed the Hall is built on top of what was a rich coal seam.

1002 : Antique, Rambling And Incommodious

2011-05-11T07:20:00.000Z

Amy and I took a walk in the grounds of Oakwell Hall the other day. Located a few miles away from where we live, Oakwell is a late sixteenth century "yeoman and gentry house" which is now a museum and the heart of a country park. In the early nineteenth century, Charlotte Bronte was a regular visitor to Oakwell and she used it as the model for "Fieldhead", the home of the heroine Shirley Keeldar in her novel Shirley. In the book, she describes it as follows : "It was neither a grand nor a comfortable house, within as without it was antique, rambling and incommodious". Far be it from me to argue with Charly, but I suspect I could be quite comfortable there.

1001 : Gorse, Moors And Nont Sarahs

2011-05-10T10:19:00.000Z

This photograph of Scammonden Moor and Reservoir was taken this morning. The building you can see in the distance on the extreme left is the famous Nont Sarahs Hotel. The tale goes that an earlier proprietor bought the pub with money he borrowed from his Aunt Sarah and it was named - albeit it in Yorkshire dialect - after her.

1,000th Post : Back To The Beginning

2011-05-09T07:44:00.000Z

I have just realised that this is the 1,000th post on Alan Burnett's Picture Post so in celebration I return to the very first post which was dated Monday 1st January 2007 and titled "Storm Clouds Over Dorchester Road". If I look out of my window today, that same tree is still there, but in full leaf and bathed by the Springtime sun.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 20 : Home

2011-05-06T10:35:00.000Z

You can go where you want, but few locations surpass the place you call home. I was neither born in Halifax (I was born in Bradford, seven miles to the north), nor do I now live in Halifax (I live in Huddersfield, seven miles to the south), but Halifax is where I grew up and will therefore always be home to me. The photograph show the tower of Halifax Town Hall. If you click to enlarge you can just about make out the words above the clock face and they are words worthy of the end of this mini-series : "DELAY NOT TO DO WELL"

Around The World In 20 Memories - 19 : The Wheel On The Acapulco Bus

2011-05-05T08:15:00.000Z

When we went to Acapulco last year it was my first sight of the Pacific Ocean. But beautiful as the palm fringed beaches and the blue sparkling water were, my eye kept returning to the amazingly decorated and spectacularly named buses. Would you be in front of the queue to get on a bus named Apocalipsis?

Around The World In 20 Memories - 18 : Between The Moon And Lanzarote

2011-05-04T07:28:00.000Z

2007. Lanzarote, The Canary Islands. Or was it the moon?

Around The World In 20 Memories - 17 : A Poem And A Mistake In Constanta

2011-05-03T06:26:00.000Z

It is 1974 and we are visiting friends in Romania. The picture is taken in the Black Sea resort of Constanta and shows the statue of the Roman poet Ovid, who was exiled here in 8AD. Ovid would claim that the reason for his exile was "a poem and a mistake" (carmen et error). At the time we were there, Nicolae Ceaușescu was at the height of his power. Fifteen years later, Ceausescu would be executed by his own people : his crimes were too little poetry and too many mistakes.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 16 : Out Of Focus In Paris

2011-05-02T06:54:00.000Z

Memories don't have to be in focus : indeed the best memories have been blurred by time and then burnished by significance. So here we are, in Paris in 1973. Our honeymoon. The Good Lady Wife takes a brave but watery path in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 15 : Sea And Skye

2011-05-01T07:40:00.000Z

This photograph was taken in 2006 when I went on a brief trip to the North-West of Scotland. I was staying in Mallaig and caught a ferry over to the Isle of Skye. It was early in the year (April, I think) and still very quiet and peaceful. Gorgeous place.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 14 : Sunburnt In Juan-les-Pins

2011-04-30T09:28:00.000Z

It was 1962 and I was 14. My father, mother and I set off for a great adventure, driving down to the South of France. We took plenty of English tea and a contraption to keep the foreign flies off our sandwiches and with our multi-coloured tent we set up a holiday home in Juan-les-Pins. Unfortunately we didn't take any sun-cream and my poor father spent most of the time sheltering under a suitably placed railway tunnel. What an adventure.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 13 : Doing Nothing In Budapest

2011-04-29T06:54:00.000Z

In 2005 I eventually decided to close my European Social Policy business down. The growth of the Web had fundamentally changed the way information was available, and the need for the kind of service I had provided was no longer necessary. To celebrate my new found freedom I took a few days off in Budapest, reading novels, writing about anything but European politics, and taking photographs of the fabulous buildings.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 12 : Tories In Paradise

2011-04-27T07:24:00.000Z

The picture shows one of those paradise beaches you can find all over the British Virgin Islands. The time is the early 1980s and the GLW and myself are visiting my brother and his family who were, at the time, living on the island. Not only is it paradise, but it is a paradise thousands of miles away from the world of my everyday life : quiet, isolated, remote. There is hardly another human being in site : just the sun, the blue sea and the occasional tropical bird. Seconds after I had taken this photograph a figure emerges, walking down the beach towards me. As he gets nearer I see a man wearing shorts and wearing a Panama hat. He strides up towards me, purposely, a practiced smile on his face, hand outstretched in greeting. "Donald Thompson", he says, "Tory MP for Calder Valley".

I never discovered what particular shaft of fate threw me together with my local Tory MP on a desert island thousands of miles from home. My brother, knowing well my aversion for all Tories, insisted on inviting him to various parties during the rest of my stay, but I managed to avoid him. But die-hard Tory and friend of Margaret Thatcher that he was, you have to admire the ability of a man who can spot a potential constituent thousands of miles from home and glad-hand him accordingly.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 11 Shopping In Panama

2011-04-26T08:32:00.000Z

I have hundreds of photographs of the Panama Canal : photographs of massive locks and ships in transit, but this photograph taken in a canal-side market in Cristobal at the northern end of the canal seems to bring the memories flooding back. I suppose one could go on and on about the false nature of t-shirt tourism : but if one of those shoppers had turned around and taken a photograph of me, they would have captured an image of a little fat man wearing a Panama Canal t-shirt taking a photograph of them. People who live in cotton shirts shouldn't throw pineapples.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 10 : Poster In Amsterdam

2011-04-20T06:33:00.000Z

Posters roughly pasted onto lamp-posts often provide perfect conduits to time and place. Even if the details of the exhibition were not on this most striking of posters, I would remember where it was taken : indeed I am sure I could take you back to the same lamp-post. I spent a couple of days in Amsterdam, and whilst I didn't get to the Theatreschool Festival, I spent long and happy hours in the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 9 : Vaguely In Basle

2011-04-19T06:02:00.000Z

This one was a bit of a struggle. It is a city alongside a major river, a city in Europe. It could be Cologne, it could be Basle : I visited both during the early 1980s. It took a modest Googling of hotel names to pinpoint the Swiss city of Basle. Our next door neighnours in Sheffield had moved to Basle and we went to stay with them. Once I have pinpointed the city the flood gates open and the memories come flooding back.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 8 : Cafe In Amsterdam

2011-04-18T08:24:00.000Z

It is the summer of 1968 : the summer of protests. Three members of the Labour Party Young Socialists - Darrel Oldfield (left), Dave Hebblethwaite (right) and myself (behind the camera) - are hitch-hiking through Europe visiting the various sites of student protest. Often we could not pick up lifts as a group so we would vaguely arrange to meet up in the next city on our tour and take to the road independently. Here we had just met up in Amsterdam. I seem to recall that we pitched our tents in a muddy camp site just outside the Ajax football stadium. Memories, memories, memories.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 7 : A Visit To Weatherfield

2011-04-15T10:19:00.000Z

I was scanning some old negatives the other day and came across this one and decided it would fit nicely in my "Around The World" mini-series. So here is a photograph of a place that doesn't actually exist : the fictional town of Weatherfield which is the location for the longest running TV soap opera in the world - Coronation Street. It was taken in about 1991 and shows my parents just entering the corner shop. Although the picture was taken at the Granada studios in Manchester, the passing crowds help to give it a realistic feel. All we need now is the theme music ....... dah, dah da dadah dah.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 6 Peace In Venice

2011-04-13T08:49:00.000Z

It is November 2002, the era of cheap European flights. For a few pounds you could get on a plane and fly to some of the most exotic European destinations. I would pack a bag full of books and my camera and see where the cheap ticket lottery sent me to. In this case it was Venice and it was an almost perfect time to visit. The summer crowds were absent and the November light seemed to bring out the Venetian colours to perfection. For three days I explored the twisting alleyways and marveled at what must be one of the most beautiful cities on earth. At peace in Venice.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 5 : Barricades In Gothenburg

2011-04-12T07:58:00.000Z

It was June 2001 and the EU Summit Merry-Go-Round had worked its way around to the Swedish city of Gothenburg. It was to be a special European Council meeting which would involve the participation of all the new candidate States from Central and Eastern Europe. It was also special because the American President George W Bush was going to be attending the meeting and this meant that, even more than ever before, the meeting became the focus of widespread protests against everything from Globalism to GM foods. The police quickly decided that the majority of the protesters were staying in the area of the city close to the University and therefore decided to seal that part of the city off with massive containers brought in from the nearby docks. As a tactic it was fairly effective, the only problem was that the hotel I happened to be staying in was in the same street as the University. Thus, each morning, clutching my official press pass, I would walk down to the bottom of the street and begin what was a perilous climb over the container barricade (they are bigger than they look), and each evening I would have to make the return journey. Ah, you can't buy memories like that.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 4 : Ice Bar, Sweden

2011-04-07T07:28:00.000Z

Sweden has a famous Ice Hotel, and for the May 2001 EU Summit meeting the Swedish Government got them to establish an Ice Bar in the grounds of Stockholm Town Hall for the formal reception for the world media. Everything was made of ice : the bar, the fittings, the glasses, the tables (although I did find a convenient block of granite to rest my glass on). Although it was May, little melted other than the hearts of the grateful, and rather inebriated, journalists.

Around The World In 20 Memories - 3 : Barbados Palms

2011-04-06T08:06:00.000Z

I seem to recall that when I launched this mini-series I promised there wouldn't be too many palm-fringed beaches. So how about a palm-fringed plantation house? It is January 2001 and we are in Barbados (a holiday not, I assure you, another EU summit meeting). It was our first day out there and we were still getting used to it not being January in West Yorkshire. Sipping rum cocktails and allowing your eyes to scale a majestic palm tree up into the bright blue sky is a pleasant way of getting used to this particular form of climate change.

Around The World in 20 Memories - 2 : Spring In Lisbon

2011-04-05T08:44:00.000Z

It is Spring 2000 and I am at another wonderful EU summit meeting, this time in Lisbon, Portugal. Back in those days the location of the six-monthly summit meetings used to rotate through all the Member States : these days it is much more boring and they all take place in Brussels. The photograph shows the media centre (you can tell they are journalists, they are playing computer patience). Of course I didn't kill time whilst waiting for the final press briefing by playing card games on the computer, I escaped the building and caught a train down to the lovely seaside resort of Cascais. I remember walking on the beach in the Springtime sun giving thanks to Jean Monnet for coming up with the idea of a united Europe.

Around The World In 20 Memories : No 1 Finnish Dancing

2011-04-04T09:08:00.000Z

It is April and it's still cold outside. There are no holidays planned for a couple of months and therefore I thought I might run a short series featuring trips gone by. Don't automatically expect imposing cityscapes or palm-fringed beaches, these are pictures that incite my own memories of places. Se welcome on board as we take off to go around the world in twenty memories.

No 1 : Finnish Dancing. It is December 1999 and I am Helsinki, Finland covering the 1999 European Union Summit meeting. Helsinki was cold and coated with alternate layers of snow and ice. To keep spirits up, the Finnish Government organised a party for the visiting media at the headquarters of the Finnish Radio and Television service. Somewhat bizarrely the musical entertainment was provided by an all-female 1930s swing orchestra. The Finnish journalists and media representatives all turned up in ball gowns and tail suits and danced the evening away. The rest of the world's media turned up in jeans and thick pullovers and drank the evening away. And as you will have guessed, I was in the latter group.

A Pot-Boiler

2011-04-01T11:11:00.000Z

Chapter 1 : Boiler installed
Chapters 2 - 35 : Boiler fails and is repaired thirty-odd times.
Chapter 36 : Gas engineer comes on Wednesday and says "I know what the problem is, we need to replace all the left side of the boiler, I will need to order parts, back tomorrow"
Chapter 37 : Gas engineer returns and replaces all of left side of boiler and cheerily says - that will be all right now". Five hours later, boiler fails.
Chapter 38 : Gas engineer comes on Friday and says "I know what the problem is, we need to replace all the right side of the boiler, I will need to order parts, back later today"
.... to be continued, and continued, and continued.

Unwanted Palaces Of Pleasure : The Royal Oak, Halifax.

2011-03-31T08:25:00.000Z

If you have £125,000 (just over $200,000) to spare why not buy the Royal Oak Inn, Halifax? Built in 1929 by the renowned firm of local architects, Jackson and Fox, on the site of an old coaching inn, the mock-Tudor pub is a Grade II listed building. Many of the timbers incorporated into the rebuilding came from the 19th Century wooden battleship, HMS Newcastle, and some of the external wood carving was by the renowned Harry Percy Jackson of Coley. I remember the pub well from my time working as a bus conductor in the late 1960s. The terminus for the Southowram bus was immediately outside the pub, and often, whilst the bus was filling up with passengers, I would nip into the public bar for a quick half. Just the ticket.

Pleasures Past

2011-03-30T09:20:00.000Z

Scooter in the grounds of what used to be Sunny Vale Pleasure Gardens, Hipperholme, Near Halifax.

What A Difference A Few Decades Make

2011-03-29T08:32:00.000Z

One or two people asked what Sunny Vale was like now after I published the rather forlorn picture of the Victoria Boating Lake at Sunny Vale Pleasure Gardens last week. Some suggested that it might have become a housing estate, but I am glad to report that, other than a very small development conversion near the top of the gardens, this isn't the case. Amy and I took a walk there yesterday and the old boating lakes are still in place : indeed they look a lot better than they did 45 years ago. How this little hidden valley has managed to escape the hand of the developer I do not know. there are few roads, so access is tricky and this means the area is gloriously peaceful and quiet. But, of course, 100 years ago the valley would have been bursting with the screams of delight of thousands of children and their parents. What a difference a few decades can make.

Sad Says Caroline Ann

2011-03-28T07:24:00.000Z

I am still scanning away, working my way through a huge collection of old negatives and slides. What drives me is not the belief that the photographs are of any significant quality as photographs, but that - somewhere within them - a little piece of history has been captured. This photograph must have been taken in the 1960s and I have a feeling that it was taken somewhere in Scotland. I did a search for the trawler "Caroline Ann" and this resulted in this rather sad picture of two rusted old trawlers in some kind of maritime graveyard. I can't make names out, nor could I find any supporting description, but the one in the front does seem to have the same basic shape and size. In some ways it is sad : but who knows? Perhaps those two rusted hulks are chatting away to each other and looking at pictures of me back then and now. "Sad", says Carline Ann, "the way humans deteriorate".

The Talented Village Of Ripley

2011-03-25T09:22:00.000Z

On our return from Knaresborough we visited the lovely village of Ripley, to sample the renowned local ice cream. The original village was so decimated by the plague that it had to be rebuilt, but in the nineteenth century the local squire decided he didn't like the rebuild, so he pulled it down ans started again. The "new" village was built in the stile of an Alsatian town complete with its own Hotel de Ville. The Boar's Head Hotel you can see in the middle distance looks wonderful old and historic : but it wasn't opened until 1990. You are never quite sure what's what in Ripley. Patricia Highsmith would have been proud of it.

A Grand Day Out

2011-03-24T10:05:00.000Z

As News from Nowhere readers will know, the GLW is off work this week and this means that I am on "day-out" and "shopping" duty. From the point of view of the weather, she couldn't have picked a better week, temperatures were almost summer-like yesterday and there was a brilliant clear sky. We visited the Yorkshire Dales market town of Knaresborough yesterday, had a quick look at the shops and then walked down to the river. The spectacular viaduct was built in 1851 and takes the railway high above the gorge carved out by the River Nidd. I sat in a riverside cafe for 30 minutes waiting to catch a picture of a train crossing : as soon as I eventually moved on, the train came. Nevertheless, a grand day out.

Victoria's Fall From Grace

2011-03-23T09:16:00.000Z

I am not absolutely certain that I took this photograph, but if I didn't, I wish that I had done. It might have been taken by my brother Roger, I seem to remember that we only had one old and battered camera between the two of us back in the 1960s. I can remember where it was taken : so maybe I did take it, or at least it was taken when the two of us were out walking together. It shows what remained in the mid 60s of the Sunny Vale Pleasure Gardens. Sunny Vale - or Sunny Bunces as it was known - was the great resort and amusement park that served the mill workers of Halifax and the Calder Valley. During the early part of the twentieth century thousands would visit its' strangely innocent collection of swings, skating rinks and fairground rides. By the 1960s, it had fallen out of fashion. Part of the gardens where being used as a go-kart racing circuit, the rest had sunk into a state of overgrown disrepair. This is what remained of the once imposing Victoria boating lake. Sad.

Positively Gone

2011-03-22T09:19:00.000Z

Whilst most of the photographs I took back in the 1960s were taken using black and white negative film, I would occasionally experiment with using positive film and using the negatives to make black and white slides. This is one such slide of the goods yards in the shadow of North Bridge, Halifax. Some kind of date (mid 1960s?) can be guessed from the car - there will be folk out there who will be able to identify the make and the model and - in the case of Chairman Bill - most probably the name of the driver. Railway sidings, gas works and cooling towers are all now long gone.

Forget Me Not

2011-03-21T09:23:00.000Z

I always tend to take photographs of half constructed buildings in the belief that I am adding a fairly unique image to the global archives. Once the new West Yorkshire Forget Me Not Trust Children's Hospice, which is being built a few hundred yards from where we live, is completed later this year, it will no doubt be photographed time and time again. But this picture of the build - twelve weeks in - is worth a few thousand pixels of anyones' hard disk space.

Chairman Sherlock And The Strange Case Of The Missing Stele

2011-03-18T16:50:00.000Z

My picture of a milestone the other day and my question about the possible location of "Junction" which was thirteen and a quarter miles away got that most intrepid - and delightful - of bloggers, Chairman Bill, working hard to solve the mystery. Initially I sent him on a wild goose chase by sending him the wrong grid co-ordinates for the milestone - or stele as he correctly called it - but after many ninths of tramping the sidestreets of West Yorkshire he finally came up with a solution. I quote from a long series of e-mails I received from him:

"In order for the distance to Rochdale to be 19.25 miles, the route would have to be along New Hay Rd and Huddersfield Rd, which was probably the old route. Now if you go 13.5 miles on that route, you come to Denshaw, where there is a big junction, and a pub called The Junction. I think that's your place".
"Bang on!
There are a number of small named-localities in and around Denshaw, including Denshaw Fold, Cherry Clough, Junction, Old Tame, Slackcote, Grains Bar and Woodbrow".
Even better:
"The village of Denshaw was formerly called Junction."

The stele I am showing today contains no such mysteries, so Chairman Bill, you can have the weekend off.

As Beautiful As A Stone Wall

2011-03-17T08:47:00.000Z

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree

Nor see a painting in a hall
As beautiful as a stone wall

With apologies to Joyce Kilmer

Last Exit To Junction

2011-03-16T07:16:00.000Z

Mileposts can still be found along the byways of Britain, their stone faces whitewashed and their hand-carved letters picked out in Municipal black paint. Few people notice them these days - they are not easily spotted from cars - and some of the places they point to have faded into obscurity over the years. Where, for example, is "Junction" which is thirteen and a quarter miles from the above milepost in Rastrick? I have done a quick check on Google Earth, rotating a compass point the requisite distance from the starting stone, and I can find no village or hamlet called Junction. Is this the last exit to Junction, or is there somewhere I have missed?

Some Basic Questions Of Galactic Astrophysics

2011-03-15T10:50:00.000Z

Because of its location high above the earth's atmosphere. the Hubble Space Telescope is capable of taking some stunning photographs of planetary bodies in our solar system. Some can look at their most recent pictures of the Martian surface and see the famed canals brought into sharp relief so that we are forced to question whether they are simply chance geological features or something far more meaningful. Whilst some gaze into space and ponder such questions of galactic astrophysics, others lie in bed and take photos of the ceiling light.

Birds On A Wire

2011-03-14T08:26:00.000Z

"Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free" THE SAINTED LEONARD
Taken from Bog Green, Huddersfield, looking down towards the Calder Valley. March 2011

Scarborough Saunter 3 : A Grand View

2011-03-11T11:18:00.000Z

Looking at the Spa Theatre complex (currently being redeveloped) towards the centre of Scarborough. The fine building in the middle distance is the magnificent Grand Hotel which was built in 1867. It was supposedly designed around the theme of time, with four towers representing the seasons, 12 floors representing the months, 52 chimneys representing the weeks, and 365 bedrooms representing the days. From above it displays a V shape : in honour of Queen Victoria. I have mentioned the hotel before in a News From Nowhere post and looking back at that I realise that, by chance, I have almost taken the same shot as in the 1913 postcard mentioned in that post.

Scarborough Saunter 2 : This Way And That Way

2011-03-08T09:17:00.000Z

What is it about the British? It might be early March, the temperature might be hovering around freezing point, but as long as it isn't pouring with rain people make for the nearest stretch of sand and wander. This way and that way, backwards and forwards, walking or running, riding on donkeys.

Scarborough Saunter 1 : Printer Test

2011-03-07T10:29:00.000Z

We were in Scarborough at the weekend and I took this picture of the bathing cabins at the North Bay for a specific purpose. My old colour printer died a couple of weeks ago and I have just invested in a new one. But with all the winter-grey photographs of recent months there has been nothing to properly test its ability to reproduce vibrant colour. Just printed a copy of this. It passed.

Wyke Walk 4 : More Odd Fellows (Upper And Lower)

2011-03-04T11:02:00.000Z

The Oddfellows in Wyke (you know me, I can't resist taking pictures of pubs). If you are interested in the origin of the name of the pub, take a look at my entry in yesterdays' News From Nowhere. Wyke must at one time have been quite a hive of Oddfellow activity as I have found reference to an old pub called the "Lower Oddfellows" which presumes there was also an "Upper Oddfellows". Whether this is Upper or Lower I do not know, but I suspect someone will write in and let me know.

Wyke Walk 3 : The West Yorkshire Broom Tree

2011-03-03T08:50:00.000Z

In most cases broom is classified as a shrub rather than a tree, but in certain parts of West Yorkshire a tree-like species of broom has developed which is characterised by a resilient,circular, almost plastic-like trunk and solid branches bearing a mixture of spade-like fruit, mop-head flowers, and spiny foliage.

Wyke Walk 2 : A Lock And An Ornamental Portcullis

2011-03-02T07:51:00.000Z

I know I should think about lines and patterns and shapes and all that sort of photographic stuff. But all I could think about was how the fire exit door appeared locked and guarded with a form of ornamental portcullis. Visions of skewered and barbecued flesh came to my troubled mind.

Wyke Walk 1 : The Advantages Of A Fully Articulated Waist.

2011-03-01T11:44:00.000Z

The sun shone today and Amy and I walked through the village of Wyke which is a few miles away from where we live. The first of my Wyke Walk photos shows the rather strange entrance to the village recreation ground. There is obviously a purpose to its design, but I cannot imagine what it is. Unless you are a supermodel. you need to rotate your body through 90 degrees and shuffle through the gate. If you had a body which was somehow fully articulated around the waist, I suppose you could get through without shuffling, but such a body doesn't seem to have emerged out of the gene-pool lottery yet. Amy couldn't understand what I was complaining about, she managed to get through without any problem.

As Long As Coal Seams In The Bedrock?

2011-02-28T07:58:00.000Z

There was such a certainty about those days : as if traditions built over generations would survive as long as coal seams in the bedrock. In a way they did, what we didn't know was what an astonishingly short period of time that was. Try searching for Barrow Pit now? What has happened to the memory of Eddie Clarke's solid features?

Through Rivers Of Pit-Spoil Mud In Search Of A New Dawn

2011-02-25T09:29:00.000Z

Those were the days, when men would come to the surface after spending a long shift underground and, with their weary limbs, proudly hoist their union banners and march through rivers of pit-spoil mud in search of a bright new dawn. Or at least push the banners mounted on cushioned wheels and hitch a crafty lift over the worst of the puddles. But who am I - who has rarely lifted anything heavier than a fountain pen or a telephoto lens - to make fun. South Yorkshire Miners' Gala, Doncaster, Early 1980s.

The Watching Crowd And The Marching Miners

2011-02-24T09:28:00.000Z

Strangely enough, I don't think this is the same Yorkshire Miners' Gala as the one depicted yesterday. It is around the same time, and they are marching past another Conservative Club, but I suspect this one is in Doncaster, whilst the one yesterday was certainly in Rotherham. I must have had a thing at that time for photographing trade union marches passing Tory Party clubs. In this particular shot, it is the watching crowd that is far more interesting than the marching miners.

The Defiant Faces Of Manvers Main

2011-02-23T08:34:00.000Z

I'm scanning again. I must have taken this photograph in the late 1970s or very early 1980s. It certainly pre-dates the Miners' Strike of 1984-85. It was taken in Rotherham on the occasion of the Yorkshire Miners' Gala and it shows one of the wonderful banners of the individual miners' lodges. Manvers' Main Colliery was in Wath-on-Dearne, near Mexborough, and the pit closed for good in 1988. By 2006 all the pits in the South Yorkshire coalfield had closed down. In the late 1980s. I used to drive through the ruined Manvers Main complex on my way home from work. Later, the buildings were demolished and have now been replaced with a series of light-industrial workshops and call centres. Working in a call centre may be less romantic than hewing coal, but it is certainly safer.

One of the delights of scanning old negatives is discovering the pictures within the picture. In this case it was a group of faces, fighting for exposure in the bottom right hand corner of the main photograph. There is not a single full face in the group, and when enlarged they are grainy and of less-than-perfect quality. But there is something about the eyes, the way they stare in defiance : a defiance that was tested to the full - and it must be said, broken - in the years ahead.

Footprints In The Snow

2011-02-22T12:44:00.000Z

I am hoping that this might be the last of my snowy scenes for 2011. In fact this was taken over the weekend and most of the snow has now been washed away by damp drizzle. On the left hand side of the main road you can just make out the entrance to the new housing estate, the story of which you can find on today's News From Nowhere Post.

Wet. Cold. White.

2011-02-21T12:15:00.000Z

Whenever you think it's gone, whenever you think that the seasons have turned, back it comes. Down it comes. Wet. Cold. White.

Shopping Week : Store Twenty One - A Shopping Odyssey

2011-02-18T11:13:00.000Z

My week is almost at an end. We are in Brighouse again and looking at a storefront that originally was the local Woolworth store but a few years ago became the Yorkshire Discount Store (a.k.a. Woolworth's without the Pension Fund). In its' turn that is currently undergoing metamorphosis into something called Store Twenty One. Brighouse is in the heart of the British textile belt. Two hundred years ago cotton would be imported from places like India, transformed into textiles and then sold back to the Indians. There is something mildly appropriate about the fact that the new store is owned by an Indian company which specialises in selling Indian cotton goods to the British.

By next week Store Twenty One might have become something else (Store Twenty Two, perhaps) but hopefully I will not need to tell you about it. My current shopping odyssey is drawing to a close and the GLW is about to return to work : until May, at least, when she is due to retire. I don't suppose there is any chance that the Government might rapidly increase the retirement age?

Shopping Week : The Lion In Winter

2011-02-17T13:48:00.000Z

Shopping in Huddersfield today. The buildings are much grander and at first site that general air of economic and social decline is less noticeable. But if I had turned the camera through an angle of 90 degrees I could have focussed on a row of pawn-brokers and cheque-cashers. The shop on the right trades under the name "Spring : The Future Of Work" and has an empty look about it. The original stone lion was removed in 1977 and sent to Newcastle where it was remodeled in glass fibre. According to White's Directory of 1853, Lion Arcade comprised "externally, long ranges of elegant shops and warehouses in the Italian style; and internally an extensive arcade or covered market, fitted up with warehouses and stalls for the sale of cloth".

Shopping Week : To Let And Let Not

2011-02-16T22:17:00.000Z

"What's the matter with you, we are having a nice day out at the shops, and all you want to do is to take photographs of old boarded-up buildings".

Shopping Week : Life With Pies

2011-02-15T09:26:00.001Z

The first day of Shopping Week and we are the North Yorkshire market town of Skipton. But the streets are quiet and, according to one shopkeeper we spoke to, "people just aren't buying". Not even buying, it would appear, the wares Drake & Macefield, National Pie Champions.

UPDATE 19.00hrs

In response to the request from Michael & Hanne, this is the best I can do without returning to Skipton

Shopping Week : Last Exit To Peel Street

2011-02-14T09:23:00.000Z

To celebrate the Good Lady Wife having the week off work and endless shopping trips having been planned, I have declared this as being "Shopping Week" on Picture Post. We start with shopping from the archives : a market picture I must have taken thirty or forty years ago. I am not quite sure which market it is. The only clue is the Peel Street sign and I have checked out all the possible contenders on Google Maps without any definite hits. Barnsley Market would fit the bill - there is an adjacent Peel Street - but I can't remember ever having been there. Who knows, maybe it is one of the treats I have in store for me this week.

Sidetracked And Lost

2011-02-11T09:39:00.000Z

Over on my News From Nowhere Blog I have established National Sidetracked Week and the pastime of getting sidetracked seems to have made its way over to Picture Post. Today I intended to take a walk and check out whether the mill over the river is still there, but it is raining and misty and cold and miserable so I have decided to stay in and get sidetracked. Just where I am being sidetracked to, I do not know as I cannot recognise this scene I photographed 45 years ago. I have been wandering up and down several possibilities using Google StreetView but I have yet to spot this rather solid looking house with the strange blocked-up opening in the chimney piece. My guess is that there was originally a house next door but that had long gone, even back in the mid sixties.

Plastic Flowers And The Happiness Of Youth

2011-02-10T09:13:00.000Z

The final picture on the negative strip gives a better indication of both date and location for it turns out to be this picture of Isobel which was clearly taken at her parent's house in Elland. Taken in either 1969 or 1970, it has always been one of my favourite shots of the girl who three years later would become The Good Lady Wife. The kitchen table, the plastic flower in the vase come back to me as though it was yesterday .... as does the sheer happiness of youth.

Littered Fruit On A Barren Tree

2011-02-09T08:49:00.000Z

At first I thought this might be one of the old mills in West Vale, between Halifax and Elland, but its position on the negative strip suggests it is in Elland. The mill itself seems empty - not a strange state of affairs for West Yorkshire textile mills in the late sixties - and the splendid collection of cars in the lower right corner (yes, that is an old Ford Anglia) help to date the shot to the late 1960s or early 1970s. But it is that mountain of old metal pressings that captures the eye; the way they almost flow like magma out of the factory yard and become littered fruit on a barren tree.

Phoebe In A Strip Show

2011-02-08T08:37:00.000Z

Although my old negatives, cut into strips of six, have been carefully filed away over the years, the individual strips were not sorted and filed sequentially. Thus there is no connection between one strip and the next one, nor is there any logic or reason as to why I have filed negative strips in any one location in the album. So the only definite relationship is between the six negatives that appear on the same physical strip, they must have been taken at approximately the same time and by tracing the location of the shots I can re-map walks I must have taken over 40 years ago.

And so with the current strip under investigation we start with a picture of an old mill building straddling a river. I am almost sure that the river in question is the River Hebble in Halifax and the building is off Phoebe Lane in Siddal. The Google StreetView camvan didn't make it down Phoebe Lane so it looks like I will be off on my travels again this week. I will report back in due course.

An Incongruous Car In A Congruous Close

2011-02-07T10:19:00.000Z

The strange thing about scanning old negatives isn't so much the fact that you can't remember taking a particular photograph, it's that you can't remember ever having set foot in the location in the first place. This particular photograph conveniently has its own embedded location tag, but I had to look up Oakfield Close on Google Maps. I found it - it's in Elland West Yorkshire - and Street View confirms it is the same close, but I have no recollection of ever having been there are why I took this particular photograph. Perhaps it was because, even back in the 1970s, the rusty old car looked incongruous next to the gleaming new bungalows. Maybe, as I scan the rest of the negatives on the film-strip, a story might emerge.

Hopping Down The Years

2011-02-04T09:56:00.000Z

Just around the corner from the Wool Merchant Hotel - and conveniently just opposite the Ring O'Bells Inn - is an old railway siding. Under the arches that support the railway line are a set of old coal hoppers. The railway trucks would tip the coal into the hoppers and the horses and carts (and later the wagons) of the coal merchants would collect it. This photograph was taken yesterday, but whilst taking it I remembered having photographed the same scene 45 years before. Maybe I will come across the negative during my trawls through the negative files.

Unique Access For Well Proportioned Guests

2011-02-03T09:04:00.001Z

As promised, I returned to the Wool Merchant and managed to get a contemporary shot, although not quite from exactly the same angle. Those keen-eyed analysts will notice that the ghost pointed out by Chairman Bill seems to have moved rooms and transformed itself into a sheep. The row of terraced houses on the top of the hill is gone but little else is changed. I am glad to see that the hoists are still in place which must be useful for obese hotel guests.

The Future As A Grainy Haze

2011-02-02T09:34:00.000Z

Commenting on the promise I made yesterday to try and get a photograph of the Wool Merchant Hotel as it looks today, my blog friend John said, "I suspect it wouldn't be the same with a 'crisp' digital SLR. Prefer the old film". We will see - I still intend to try and get into Halifax later today to take the modern photograph - but I do know what he means and the next negative on the film strip illustrates the principle well. There isn't a lot of contrast, and even less fine detail, but this grainy shot of the view from the back of the house where I grew up is full of atmosphere. If the photograph had been taken with a modern digital camera you would probably be able to make out - up on one of those grainy hills in the middle distance - the house I now live in. But that was in the future, and the future is always something of a grainy haze.

Where There's Muck There's Culture

2011-02-01T08:34:00.000Z

The negative adjacent to the Trafalgar Square shot featured yesterday is this one of a Wool Merchant's warehouse in Halifax (one can therefore presume that it also dates from 1969). The building is on the corner of the delightfully named Mulcture Hall Road. I always think that the word Mulcture sounds like a West Yorkshire mixture of muck and culture, but in fact it referred to a toll that millers were entitled to back in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Holdsworth's have long vacated the building which, some 25 years ago, was converted into a hotel which still bears the name "The Wool Merchant".

Watching A Cigarette Emerge In A Dish Of Developing Solution

2011-01-31T09:00:00.000Z

Another week, another strip of old negatives. Stealing a quick overview of the images by holding the strip up to the light, there seems to be few connections between the pictures other than they must have been taken around the same time. But the joy of scanning comes when the scanned image appears and you can search down through the detail : it is the closest feeling I know to the delights of watching a print emerge in a dish of developing solution. Emerging today - from 42 years of slumber - are The Good Lady Wife (4 years before she became the Good Lady Wife), my mother and my father. The setting is undoubtedly Trafalgar Square in London - that is the National Gallery in the background - and the visit was made when the GLW was doing her Latin degree in London (long before she decided to become a doctor). In such pictures it is always the detail which is interesting : in this case it is the cigarette in my fathers' hand. I had almost forgotten that he used to smoke during this period of his life.

Audience For Band Grows By 500% In A Click Of A Shutter

2011-01-29T11:04:00.000Z

I have been trying to find out whether the bandstand in Peoples' Park still exists and whether it is the same one that I photographed in the 1960s. Nobody seems to know. Therefore I need to pay a visit next week. This is a scan of the final negative from the strip of six, the audience is a little bigger : but not much.

And The Band Played Whilst The Mill Burnt

2011-01-28T09:56:00.000Z

The final two negatives on the strip of negatives which date back some 40 or 50 years are of a bandstand in a park. The great beauty of 35mm negatives were that they were stored in strips of six rather than individual negatives and therefore you can deduce things from the company they keep, so to speak. The bandstand I recognise, it is the one in People's Park Halifax. And therefore I must have walked by the mill fire on my way to or from the park. But there again it could have been another day, another walk, another country. Ah well, back to the drawing board.

When iPads Covered Sore Eyes

2011-01-27T13:57:00.000Z

Back in those days we didn't have the home entertainment options that they have these days. Televisions were small and grainy and and their content was small-minded and grey. Computers were prehistoric and an iPad was something for covering sore eyes. So, when the local mill caught fire, people would flock outside to sample the free entertainment. The kids would gather around the fire to keep warm and even Auntie Doris was pushed outside so she wouldn't miss all the fun.

Arms And The Man

2011-01-26T09:34:00.000Z

Next negative on, and there is the lad again and the question of whether he is really arm-less can be solved. What childhood experience, what schoolroom admonishment caused him forever more to run around with his hands clasped tightly behind his back. And before anyone else suggests it, can I say it surely wasn't playing with matches. Was it?

Freeze-Dried Social Commentary

2011-01-25T08:40:00.000Z

Same fire, same strip of film, same freeze-dried social commentary. So many people yesterday said that it wasn't the historical accuracy of the picture that surprised them but the fact that it took them back to an age that seems so long past - but an age in which they (and I) were alive. And these lads will still be alive, in their fifties now, still comparatively young. Time is strange isn't it?

Social History Frozen In Time

2011-01-24T12:41:00.000Z

Someone once wrote about an image being worth a thousand words. How wrong they were : it is worth far more than that. As I scan my old negatives I seem to spend longer and longer staring into them, seeing new details, reveling in new discoveries, decades after the photograph was first taken. This week I am featuring images from just one random strip of six negatives. The majority of them focus on a mill fire. I have no record of when or where it was, I would guess Halifax in the mid 1960s. But what life there is, what history burnt into the emulsion. My eye is immediately drawn to the group of people on the left of the shot : social history frozen in time.

Perfection Has Its Drawbacks

2011-01-22T09:47:00.000Z

The problem with digital photography is that everything is near-perfect. Point, shoot, record with mirror-like accuracy. What you see is what you will get. Gone are the days when you would hover over some evil smelling developing solution and watch a grainy, scratchy, under-developed print emerge. Well fear not, those nice people who develop iPhone Apps have come up with a solution : the Hipstamatic Camera. You get to choose your lens from a selection of cheap and fairly nasty ones, your film from a stock that appears to have spent too long hanging around on the shelf at the chemist's shop and even the plastic case the whole thing is housed in. The results are wonderfully mediocre and so far away from perfection that they would need an atlas to find it. But the whole thing is strangely addictive and has become a worldwide craze (even the Guardian has started featuring a regular Hipstamatic Gallery). My first effort is shown above and shows my desk shortly after downloading the App. As I get more experience with this crazy application over the coming weeks I will try to feature more shots, all of which will be a long way short of perfection. (Technical Note : The above photograph was taken using a Jimmy lens (on its maximum setting) and Kodot XGrizzled film)

Blue, Brown And Grey.

2011-01-21T10:02:00.000Z

An almost monochrome shot but not quite. The grey-brown of the stone crosses echoes the grey-brown of the winter trees. But, for the last few days here in Britain, the sky is blue. Bright, pulsating blue.

From The Outside Looking In

2011-01-20T11:18:00.000Z

Back to my walk yesterday. In the shadow of Wainhouse Tower (Yes I will get around to telling the full story of that particular landmark) stands a building which is full of memories to me. Built as an orphanage and funded by the local textile dynasty, the Crossleys, it later became the Crossley and Porter School. I went there, and so did my son. I still get nervous when I get too close to it, so the picture is taken from behind the boundary wall.

A Promenade By An Ornamental Tower

2011-01-19T11:05:00.000Z

A slightly different walk for Amy and I this morning, as we cut through the frosty morning air in the Savile Park area of Halifax. My photograph was taken from Albert Promenade, a residential road that skims the tops of the Calder Valley. The tower is the delightful Wainhouse Tower which was originally designed as a dye-works chimney. There is quite a story to it, which deserves telling in full, so I will return to it on my News from Nowhere Blog in the near future.

Tunneling Under Conwy

2011-01-18T11:31:00.000Z

Tunneling through the negative archives brings up this photograph of Conwy (Conway) in Wales. Conwy used to be a notorious traffic blackspot as the busy A55 road wound its way through its narrow streets. The cars moved so slowly it was perfectly possible to jump out of the car, take a photograph and jump back in again which is, I suspect, what I did with this shot back in the 1960s (I wasn't the driver I should stress). But tunneling has its advantages : twenty years ago an immersed tube tunnel was sunk across the estuary of the River Conwy and the traffic jams are no more.

A Yummy Building

2011-01-17T15:15:00.000Z

I was in Sheffield on Saturday skipping from bookshop to bookshop and dodging the showers. Chance took me up Devonshire Street where this entrance caught my attention. The building used to be the showrooms of the ornamental brick and tile manufacturers John Armitage and Son, whose fire-clay works was behind the building. Mr Armitage obviously tried to get as many of his products incorporated into the facade of the building - which dates back to 1888 - as possible. What John Armitage would think of the current use of his grand showrooms we can only imagine. But the building lives on, along with his name.

The Train Has Been Delayed Because Of Paper Leaves On The Line

2011-01-14T15:04:00.000Z

I am supposed to be filing papers today (actually I am supposed to be finding my tax return but to find it I have to file paper). There are few things more boring than filing papers (other than completing your tax return) and therefore I take half an hour off to play with a photograph I found as I was sorting through boxes of papers. I took it in the mid 1990s during a visit to EuroDisney. It is not a brilliant photograph .... but it wasted a bit of time.

Did Elland Town Hall Sink Along With The Titanic?

2011-01-13T10:09:00.000Z

This is a photograph of Elland Town Hall I took the other day. For the fascinating story behind it you will need to read the post on my News From Nowhere Blog. As you are working your way over there, ponder on the question : "Did Jack Poingdestre Get Shipwrecked On The Elland Canal?"

It Never Snows Like It Used To

2011-01-12T10:21:00.000Z

Another old photograph from my scanning schedule (scan one strip of negatives a day until you die). This one must date back to the 1970s or early 1980s. A few years ago the presence of snow on an old photograph would have been enough for us to make some comment like "it never snows like it used to". But the last year has disproved that one.

Britannia In A Beery Sandwich

2011-01-11T10:13:00.000Z

Back to the Britannia of Elland Bridge. She graces the splendid facade (are those Doric or Corinthian columns?) of what once was the Huddersfield and Halifax Bank and is currently the premises of a web and graphic design firm. But the delight of the scene that greets anyone lucky enough to drive across Elland Bridge is the way that this relatively modern building (it dates from the end of the nineteenth century) is sandwiched between two less pretentious - but much older - inns : the Malt Shovel and The Bridge. A Beery Sandwich if ever there was one.

A Grainy Old Hole In The Ground

2011-01-10T09:24:00.000Z

A dull and grainy old negative showing little more than a hole in the ground. But, on examination, this old photograph I must have taken forty-odd years ago, is full of surprises. On the left of the picture you can just make out the "Cock Of The North" brewery of John Whitakers & Sons (sadly closed in 1968) whilst high up on the hillside is the Claremont works of the machine tool company Crawford Swift. And the hole in the ground? That was the early excavations for the new Halifax bypass which was eventually completed in the early 1970s

Britannia Still Rules The Roofs, But Am I Getting Smaller?

2011-01-09T10:20:00.000Z

Last week I included an old photograph of Britannia sat amongst the roof-tops of Elland and I promised to check to see if she is still there. The answer is yes she is (minus some mill chimneys, plus some trees). However, try as I may, I could not seem to find the same angle to take the photograph from. The only conceivable answer is that I have shrunk considerably over the last thirty or so years. At this rate, I will vanish altogether by 2030.

Fiddling With Elland Wesleyan Church

2011-01-07T09:17:00.000Z

I took this picture yesterday and, yes, I have fiddled with it a bit. But fiddling is aloud, indeed fiddling is to be encouraged. In this case I fiddled with Elland Wesleyan Church, a magnificent edifice which was built in 1892 but stopped functioning as a chapel in 1974. It was recently included within Elland Conservation Area so hopefully the fine building will be available for people to fiddle with for years to come.

Nothing But Shapes And Surfaces

2011-01-06T08:29:00.000Z

I love the way in which the bright winter sun (during its' rare visits) can bleach out the colour from an image and leave a series of shapes and surfaces. This was taken in Huddersfield last week : before 12th night as the decorations were still up.

Neither Cute Baby Nor Doting Parent

2011-01-05T10:21:00.000Z

When I attempt to gather together all the photographs I gave taken over the last fifty-odd years and try to seek some kind of chronological pattern, the 1990s seems to be at odds with the other decades. It was a time when I took far fewer photographs and, of the ones I took, most were just of family and friends. Not sure whether this was because this was the decade when the Lad was growing up and I was otherwise engaged, or this was the last decade before digital photography became a real possibility and the plodding mechanics of colour processing had squeezed all the enthusiasm out of me. This picture of paddle boats in - I think - Brixham harbour was one of the few photographs of the period that didn't feature cute baby or doting parent.

Shampooing And Singeing A Speciality

2011-01-04T09:00:00.000Z

The photograph dates back to the 1980s and I took it, I think, in Elland, West Yorkshire (I am sure someone will tell me if I get the location wrong). The shop looks as if it is "on the turn" : undergoing that transition from old-style specialist hairdresser and tobacconist into a depressing cheap trinket emporium. For a shop that combined hair styling with cigars sales, I rather like the slogan "shampooing and singeing a speciality"

All Mixed Up On The Roof

2011-01-03T09:17:00.000Z

This is a picture I took during the 1970s and shows the roof-line of Briggate in Elland. The rather striking figure of Britannia sits on top of what was originally the Elland branch of the Huddersfield and Halifax Bank, These rather superior looking bank premises were erected in 1895 and are flanked by two older, but less glamorous, pubs : the Malt Shovel and the Bridge Inn. But at roof level all the bits get nicely mixed up.

Rats With Ostentatious Tails

2011-01-02T10:02:00.000Z

I don't normally do wildlife photos : I have neither the skill, the patience nor the equipment, and so many of my on-line friends (and a Happy New Year to you Abe) are so good at it that my efforts pale into insignificance besides theirs. However this little chap (or perhaps, chappess) captured my camera's heart. I know they are nothing more than rats with ostentatious tails, I know that they ate all the native British varieties and then danced on their graves, I know they are garden pests ....but. But this fellow (or fellowess) is welcome on my balcony any time.

With Alfred Hitchcock in Brighouse Market

2011-01-01T12:36:00.000Z

Brighouse Market, 1960s

Let's start the new year with a bit of a mystery. This photograph is taken from a negative strip I scanned this morning and is from a series of photographs I took of Brighouse and its open air market back in the early 1960s. But looking carefully at the young chap towards the right of the group of market shoppers, I have the distinct impression that it might be me. But if it is, who took the photograph? I am sure that I was responsible for the rest of the shots on this particular strip of film, but did I have a sturdy tripod and time delay or an accommodating assistant? However it was done it appears that like Alfred Hitchcock, I have made a guest appearance in one of my own films.

Trees In The Snow By The Infant Don

2010-12-29T19:32:00.000Z

Another picture from our Boxing Day walk. This time the camera was pointing south looking across the valley of the infant River Don towards Stocksbridge.

Varicose Veins Against A Winter Smoke Screen

2010-12-28T14:04:00.000Z

Foggy Day in Fixby : 28 December 2010

Temperatures have risen and the snow and ice have been replaced by a winter fog that provides a smoke screen against which the winter trees stand out like an old man's varicose veins.