A couple of weeks ago I met up with my brother, Roger, for the first time in nine years. I had to travel halfway across the world to find him on the Caribbean island of Dominica, but once we were together our conversation soon turned to Halifax, the place we both call home. We also talked about the various project we were both involved with at the moment, and I happened to mention that I had been rescanning many of the photographs of Halifax I took some fifty years ago. By coincidence, Roger - who is a very successful artist and sculptor - had also been thinking about the Halifax of our youth, and was working on a book of his drawings, sketches and paintings from that period which he plans to call Townscapes. He has kindly allowed me to reproduce one of the sketches of Dean Clough and North Bridge that will feature in the book.
His sketch sent me searching through my negative archives and I discovered a photograph I must have taken forty or so years ago of the same bridges and the same buildings. Perhaps I should work on a companion volume to Townscapes!
You should definitely work on a companion volume. And while you're at it, do some research to find out if J & W Beanland, who supplied stone for the construction of Bradford's famous Swan Arcade - now sadly demolished, are related on our mother's side of the family.
ReplyDeleteThe Swan Arcade was designed in the Italianate style by the architects Milnes and France, and was built between 1877 and 1880 from Bolton Woods Stone by J and W Beanland, at a cost of £160,000.
Any relation?