This wasn't a particularly good photograph in the first place: the focus could have been better, the composition would win no prizes. For the best part of 54 years it has been hidden away in my negative files, slowly collecting dust and fading into a relatively well-earned obscurity. There is, however, an inverse square law with old urban photos: the older and more obscure they are, the greater is their potential historical interest.
The photograph is of Halifax Parish Church (now the Halifax Minster) as seen from King Street. If you took a similar photograph today, your view of the church would be obscured by some neatly laid out grassland, the repositioned Halifax War Memorial, abundant trees and shrubs; not to mention a couple of asphalt car parks. Back in the mid 1960s, the only thing standing between you and the church would have been a pile of rubble and a set of swings. This was Halifax in the Swinging Sixties.
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