Windows 80

I call this photograph Windows 80, not as a tribute to some upcoming Microsoft operating system, but because it was taken in 1980 looking out of the window of my parents-in-law's house in Bedford Street, Elland. Images can truly transport us, and the sight of those curtains, the bowl of fruit, and those plastic flowers sends me cascading back through the decades with a potency no computer operating system can ever match.

The Sea, The Sea

My mother loved the sea. Go within salt-spray distance of the coast, and you would find her paddling along the shoreline, watching the waves come in. My brother sent me this photograph of her the other day from his island home, way across the ocean. It's been a good few years since I've seen him. Perhaps I should head for the coast, look out, and see if I can see him.

The Cauldron

 

On countless occasions in my youth, I would walk through Northowram village, along Howes Lane to the point where the earth ends and Shibden Valley begins. I would focus my camera on the lip of the cauldron that was Halifax, on the other side of the valley, and try to capture the smoke, soot and industry that was my home town. This photo, however, is only from a few years ago: the fields are green, the sky is blue and the cauldron is still.

Hebridean Dreaming

 

We were whisky distillery-hopping on Islay (can they be a finer way to spend time?) As someone once said (or sung), we stopped into a church, we passed along the way. I took this photograph, and then we moved on. Hebridean dreaming, on such a winter's day.

... And They Sailed Away

 

My trawl through my collection of old photographs to find a suitable illustration for St. Valentine's Day came up with this one. As so often is the case, I have no idea who these two are or where and when the photo was taken. That doesn't matter: it perfectly illustrates what Valentine's Day is all about. Whoever they were, I hope they sailed away to a long and happy life together.

Beacon Hill Timeline

 

I sometimes think that one of my most useful contributions to history would be to produce a Beacon Hill timeline. So many old photographs of Halifax feature Beacon Hill as an ever-present dramatic backdrop, and the changing degree of vegetation on the hill could provide a useful timestamp in dating such photos. After consulting the beta version of my timeline, I suspect I must have taken this photograph in the late 1980s.

Photographic History At Its Best

 

This photograph came to me from my Great Uncle, Fowler Beanland, who, during the First World War, was a foreman at a munitions factory in Keighley. The photo shows fifteen female munitions workers - just a small proportion of the many hundreds who worked for Longbottom and Farrar's, which was, at the time, part of the British Shell Factory. Photographic history at its best.

Scale And Emptiness

When I look back at these old photographs of mine - I took this picture of a street in Stoke-on-Trent some fifty-five years ago - it is the scale that seems to stand out. Were the streets really this wide or were the cars small? Were the telegraph poles so tall or were the people short? There's a feeling of almost emptiness about the scene you just wouldn't get today.

Yorkshire Imperialism

 

I don't know which hillside it was. I remember taking the photograph whilst on the Settle to Carlisle line, so there is just a chance that it might even by a Lancashire hillside. It feels like Yorkshire however, in fact, I hereby claim it as part of Yorkshire (I learnt that trick from a chap in America!).

Film Sets

 

Shaw Lane in Halifax back in the 70s and 80s was a bit like a vacant film set: spectacular backgrounds waiting for a drama to unfold. You could have made any number of films or gritty TV series with those granite sets in the foreground, those sooty walls in the background, and the occasional mill tower to add spice to the scene.

Dam Art

 

Another one of those exercises in black and white and straight lines. There should be a name for this kind of art. Dam art, perhaps?