The Mist Of Time

Those who know the town of Brighouse can have fun with this picture - which I must have taken sixty or so years ago - trying to work out where I took it from and what the various buildings, fading into the post-industrial mist of time, are. Many have now gone, and most of those that remain have entirely different uses from those they had back in the 1960s.

Standing On The Edge

It seems so long ago - almost another age. The colours and styles may have changed, but then, as now, we stood on the edge and looked out.

Bare Beacon

 

When I look back at the pictures I took of Halifax in the 1960s and ’70s - the town I have always considered home - several things stand out. The town had a greyness then that went beyond an over-reliance on monochrome photography. There were still plenty of mill chimneys breaking up the skyline. Most striking of all, Beacon Hill was bare, devoid of any meaningful vegetation.

Good Taste

Sitting in a restaurant, whiling away the time while the others enjoyed their starters, I began playing with the reflections of the bottles behind the bar. Within a handful of seconds, my photograph had bounced from Thongsbridge to an AI mega-kitchen on the far side of the world, where it was cooked to perfection and served back to me. Good taste.

St Thomas And The Gasworks (Again)

 

This is another of those scenes I kept returning to in the 1960s, and I have several versions of it in my negative archive. Perhaps it was fortunate that I did my best to capture the scene in all its glory, because shortly afterwards, not only was the Gasworks frame demolished, but so too was the central feature: the tower of St Thomas’ Church in Claremount.

Here For The Day

This week, our weekly picture-postcard puzzle takes us to the United States. It is April 1906, and the writer simply tells us that his hand is still improving and that he is “here for the day.” The place in question appears to be the Pensions Building in Washington DC, where Civil War pensions were calculated and administered. The card was addressed to J. Hemmings, Esq., at the corporate headquarters of the Nobel Explosives Company. Make of all that what you will!

Shapes, Shades, And Stories

 

Sometimes you simply go somewhere and take photographs - no theme, no agenda, no expectations. As a record of a day out, it works better than any 5,000-word essay: shapes, shades, and stories.

Enjoy The View

 

I wish I could remember taking this photograph, but I can’t; after all, it was a long time ago. I must have been up Clifton way, looking down over the lower Calder Valley towards Brighouse. If you can’t get to sleep tonight, you could try the industrial West Yorkshire equivalent of counting sheep: counting mill chimneys. Then again, you could just relax and enjoy the view.

Leaving The Shed

 

This 1947 photograph came into my care through family hand-me-downs and shows a retirement party at a Bingley mill in January 1947. It is not clear whether the person retiring is the man or the woman at the centre of the photograph, but I suspect it is Abraham Moore, my uncle’s father, who worked as a weaving-shed manager. To be on the safe side, I have captioned the image “Leaving the Weaving Shed.”

Framed

When you’ve got a good subject - say, a fifteenth-century Grade I parish church - you need a good frame. What better frame for a church steeped in toil and industry than a nineteenth-century railway viaduct? My photo dates from a time when Halifax Parish Church was properly framed; now the subject remains, but the frame has long since been demolished.

Electric Houses And Botany Worsted Suits

 

Two adverts from Halifax newspapers 100 years ago today paint an interesting picture of society in the 1920s. One advert is for new suits, available from Sam Stocks for £5.50. The other advertises a competition to win a new house, fully fitted with electricity, or alternatively, a cheque for £2,000. If we apply the same ratio between the two prices and base it on what I paid for a new suit a couple of weeks ago, the new house would cost £56,000.