Bus Station Dynasties

 

History is sometimes measured in dynasties - the Tudors or Stuarts, the Tangs or the Yans - but for most folk a more prosaic way of marking the passage of time is called for. Having grown up in Halifax and having lived in these parts for large periods of my life, for me it’s bus stations. My youth was framed by the concrete aisles of Crossfields Bus Station: it’s there I dawdled with school bag over my shoulder, it was there I ran to catch the last bus in my late teenage years. Then there was the first version of Wade Street which somehow never felt complete, always seemed like an excuse for a bus station rather than the real thing. Today marks the official opening of the new Wade Street bus station - our solar panelled, cycle-parked, bee-friendly bus station. If you look at it from the right angle, Beacon Hill becomes its roof and that’s what a Halifax Bus Station should be like. So welcome to this new dynasty, may its buses run safely for many a year to come.

Not Seeing The Moores For The Trees

This family photograph from the 1930s perfectly captures a marriage of style and elegance. It also captures a marriage between two people, but I am a little uncertain as to who they are. The one person I can identify is the man seated second from the left, the man with a hairstyle of sculptured grandeur, and he is my Uncle Harry (Harry Moore 1903-1982). He did have a brother, Eddy, who married Minnie Noble in Bradford in August 1933, so there is a reasonable chance that is who the bride and groom are. In the hope of finding more information about this relatively remote branch of the family tree I turned to an on-line genealogy site. I quickly found the elusive Eddy Moore and his bride and for further information I was directed to a public family tree of the Moore family. To my surprise this identified generations of potential relatives I never knew I had: the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of my Uncle Harry and his wife, Annie.

This, however, was where the potential problems started. Aunty Annie and Uncle Harry never had any children, especially not in London when they were just teenagers and long before they had met. In constructing this elaborate family tree - which contained a host of photographs of real members of my family - a simple mix-up with a fairly common set of names had falsely grafted our two families together. What I should really do is to write to the person concerned and point out the error of their ways. I won't, however. Let them share our branch of the family - there are enough eccentric characters in there to go around. And let Aunty Annie and Uncle Harry have their descendants erect trees in their memory. They deserve it.

Sandstone Palaces

 

Sometimes the lines are better blurred. Usually the signs are better blurred. We can forget the message, be it about fake tans or coffee cups, and concentrate on this stone monument to the gods of commerce, a sandstone palace fit for a Coffee King.

After The Rain

 

I recently acquired a lovely old 1904 album of photographs taken in and around the Scottish village of Brig o' Turk. Despite the age of the photos, you are not drawn into the usual "then and now" comparisons: as far as I can tell, little has changed. It is the captions that provide the time stamp - crafted in a font no digital download ever provided.

Daffodil On The Water

When I was young, back in the early 1950s, our family’s annual seaside holiday would alternate between Bridlington on the east coast and New Brighton on the west. On those years we headed west, our journey would involve a train to Liverpool and then a ferry across the Mersey to our seaside destination. Sorting through some old family papers I found this postcard of one of the Mersey ferries from that era, a postcard I probably bought on one of those journeys.

The ferry being “on the water”, it becomes a suitable contribution to this month’s Sepia Saturday theme – “On The Water”. Other Sepia Saturday posts can be found by following the link on the Sepia Saturday blog.

SEPIA SATURDAY

EAST : Hunmanby - Filey - Hornsea

 

Special Delivery

 

For anyone devoted to wandering down the side streets of inconsequence, old picture postcards are an ideal mode of transport. You can spend many a happy hour trying to work out where the old photographs were taken from – where, for example, in Elland was this view taken from 110 years ago – and you can drop in on a century-old WhatsApp conversation. And, if you want even more, you can marvel at a time when postcards appear to have been delivered the day before they were written!

The Stealthy Hebble

The Hebble Brook stealths its way through Halifax, hidden where possible, breaking to the surface only occasionally to spit-wash the shadows of industry gone by.

Soul Ownership

I’ve never been convinced by the accusation that when you take someone’s photograph, you are stealing their soul; just because you possess a photo of someone doesn’t mean you can lay claim to their soul. Possessing the negative is a different thing entirely. Thanks to a recent purchase of an original 1940s negative on eBay, I can now announce that I possess the souls of not only President Roosevelt, but the actress Katherine Hepburn as well!

Listed Time

A photograph from 1990 of the rather grand ornamental cast-iron clock tower at Greenock Customs House Quay at the mouth of the River Clyde. It's seen better days, but it's listed and about to be restored. And that's half the year gone: time seems to go so fast, and I've seen better days. I'm not listed.

The Law Of Decreasing Recognition

With a look pitched somewhere between haughty and flirtatious, this young woman posed before the camera of the Bingley photographer George Tillett more than a century ago. The resulting photograph will have been passed down family generations, subject to the sad laws of decreasing recognition, until it was sold off in a job lot of old photos at some jumble sale. Rescued and restored she becomes Miss Saturday the 29th June 2024.

Memory Lane

Yesterday I went in search of the day before. In some ways it was unchanged: the cobbles, the chimneys, the stone-thick mill walls. In other ways there have been changes: fine craft replacing hard graft, variety replacing dull monotony. The Shears Inn remains – historic and magnificent, and the beer is so much better than it was 40 years ago.

Shear Luck

 

I took this photograph looking down Boys Lane in Halifax towards the historic Shears Inn some forty years ago. It would be interesting to know how much has changed in this part of the town over those four decades. As luck would have it I will be revisiting the Inn later today, so I will be able to report back. The sacrifices I have to make in the interests of fair reporting!

Scanning Nature

 

I am always being told that I should get out more and that it is unhealthy staying in my little room scanning old images. So today I went out and as I walked the dog down the road I picked a few random wild flowers. I quickly returned to the safety of my little room and scanned them.

Black Friar

For a time, during the late 1970s, I had a job leading parties of foreign visitors on tours of historic London pubs. One of my favourite stopping off points was the magnificent Art Nouveau Black Friar pub on Queen Victoria Street, which, back then, had only recently been saved from the threat of demolition. As jobs go, leading educational pub crawls was about as good as it gets.

Stone

 

Halifax does stone well. The railway viaduct could be part of a Roman amphitheatre, and the mill could be the business end of a Gothic cathedral. The wall could be an early stone version of Tetris, and the chimney part of a Gormley sculpture. And there, in the background, is the source of it all - one of the great stone hills of Yorkshire.

Stirling Scan

What better way to spend Sunday than to walk down King Street in Stirling. On the left are the offices of the Stirling Journal and on the right is the Golden Lion Hotel, and in the distance, the imposing Athenaeum building. The walk started ninety-odd years ago when someone took a photo of the scene, and finished yesterday when I got to scan the faded old print.

Happy Birthday

 

Making the love of my life the subject of my daily calendar on her birthday fulfils two important objectives. It reminds me not to forget her birthday, which, after more than half a century together, I'm still capable of doing. It also provides me with a birthday card I can print off and hand to her - I'm from Yorkshire, after all. Happy birthday my love.

Bus Stops

Bus stops are the punctuation marks of life, the points at which you pause, draw breath, and see what comes around the corner. It might be the bus you want, it might be a new direction in life. The bus stop in this case was at the top of Oxford Street in Crookesmoor, Sheffield. The time was 1979.

Markets

I worked in Bradford for a time just after leaving school, and at lunchtime I would explore the wonderful old Kirkgate Market. It always seemed slightly more imposing than Halifax's Borough Market, as perhaps befits a city rather than a humble town. Bradford's market was torn down in the early 1970s and replaced with a concrete affair that seems likely to share the same fate before too long. Maybe I'm getting old and over-nostalgic, but I mourn the passing of the old, but not the new.

Memory

How many memories can you squeeze into a photograph? I crossed the road here each day on my way to junior school, and I caught the bus here each day on my way to secondary school. I bought bags of chips at the corner and comics across the road. I pumped petrol at the filling station for a Saturday job. A decade and a half of my life squeezed into a photograph, a decade and a half of my life squeezed into Northowram.

Multiverse

 

Some would suggest that we live in a multiverse in which parallel universes exist side by side. I have some sympathy with this theory because fifty years ago I moved from West Yorkshire to North Staffordshire. Here is a photograph I took at the time.

Albert And Rose

All praise those sainted mortals who

When given a photo know what to do

With pencilled words small and clear

Discreetly say on the photos rear

Whether it's Jack or Joe or God only knows

Or in this case, Great Uncle Albert and his wife, Rose.

Commercial Street

From the mid nineteenth century onwards, every northern town worth its weight in brass had a Commercial Street. To these streets the new generation of drapers, bakers and umbrella makers were drawn. I took this photograph of Brighouse's Commercial Street over half a century ago. It was busy then and, I'm glad to say, it's still busy now.

Tunnel End

Photographs don't have to be "good" photographs to be memorable. Sometimes all they need to do is to capture a moment in time, seize a memory, transport you back to your youth. In this case I think it was Tunnel End in Marsden, but I can't be sure. Wherever it was, we're all at the other end of the tunnel now!

Weather Forecast

 

Here is the weather forecast for today .... and tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that .....

Hastings Hats

Some years ago I had a phase of buying old glass plate negatives on eBay. I had to abandon the practice as they would consistently arrive through the post in pieces. Here's one that made it without breaking - it shows a group of women (could it be a milliners outing) in Hastings. Just as your eye finds its way around those extraordinary hats, it inevitably come to rest on that most memorable notice!

Remembering Sheffield

 

Went to a reunion in Sheffield last night, full of folk sharing memories of forty-odd years ago. Here’s my memories - of coffee and cream buses, Kelvin Hall flats, and the sound and smell of industry filling the morning air.

Industrial Heights

 

New housing developments in these parts have wonderfully aspirational names like Victoria Heights and Westminster View. Back in the old days street names were more descriptive than aspirational. Here's one of my photos of Brighouse from the early 1970s showing Industrial Street, which was next to Anvil Street, and not far from Oddfellows Street!

Enoch & Betty

 

A date stamp on the reverse of this studio portrait of my grandfather, Enoch Burnett, gives me a precise date - the 18th November 1928. At the time, Enoch will have been 51 years old and working as a window cleaner in Great Horton, Bradford. He is joined in this portrait by his dog, Betty, who, according to family legend, "was a good ratter".

Uderpass Escape

They were a legacy of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, as redolent of the times as any pop anthem or cult movie. Underpasses were the pit shafts of their day - cold and heartless, an assault on common humanity, temples of a subterranean subculture.

36/1001 : This is - or rather was - Halifax, but I'm not 100% sure where exactly. It was over 50 years ago that I took the photo, but I have a feeling it might have been Akroyd Place. I still have a fear of the area based on being made to go to Akroyd Place Baths as a child.

Pigs Are Equal

I've always been fond of pigs, there is a certain contentedness about them which I have always admired. I think I have to agree with Churchill when he said: "I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals".

A Lot Of Gas And Some Empty Chairs

 

You can decide which jet of nostalgia is turned on by this advert which I found in my copy of the 1931 Souvenir Book of the Historical Pageant of Bradford. Perhaps it is the vision of the perfect mother in her perfect lounge surrounded by her perfect children. Or maybe it is the time when you could say that gas was economical too, and keeps a straight, warm, face. For me it is the vague memory of each local authority having their own gas and electricity departments with show-rooms in the town or city centre.

My quest to find 1001 half decent photographs before I "clicked my shutter" finds me in Sheffield in 1980, walking through the park and discovering a strange geometric pattern created by empty seats in search of an audience.

Print Runs And Mucky Masters

 

Copies of my latest collection of social media posts have just arrived from the printers. Following the outstanding success of the last edition I have doubled the print run to 10 copies. The distribution model remains the same, however, a copy on my bookshelf, a copy for the grandkids and most of the rest will be deposited on the "free books" shelves at local supermarkets and pubs.

34/1001 : I took this photo of Halifax Town Hall 50 years ago whilst the stonework was being cleaned. I can understand the viewpoint of those who think it's right to preserve the industrial legacy of layers of soot and grime, but, to me, that's just like leaving an old master mucky!

Who Needs People?

 

The distinctive shape of St John the Baptist's Church in Coley near Northowram. It's the isolation of the church that has always been its most distinguishing feature, it's almost as though it purposely shuns the company of houses and people. It's been a prominent local feature for over 500 years: who needs people?

The Parthenon Of Elland

 

It is the Parthenon of Elland. Every day, countless coaches deposit hordes of tourists eager to catch a glimpse of its classical lines. Souvenir shops crowd the surrounding narrow streets selling cheap plastic models of this iconic structure. it's a building dedicated to the gods of municipal pride and self-reliance. It is, of course, Elland Town Hall.

Kids And Drones

 

The photograph dates from 1948 and was taken outside our house in Great Horton, Bradford. My brother, Roger, is the one just below the letter box and I am not sure about the identity of the others. I was just about arriving in the world at the time the photo was taken. My question relates to the nature of change - what has changed in the intervening 75 years. Is it just the clothes and hairstyles that date it, or something more fundamental? Discuss.

33/1001 : These days you can get a drone to fly over towns and capture a photographic record. 50 years ago there were no drones, but in Halifax you didn’t need one because there was always Beacon Hill. This shot from the early 70s is like a memory map of the town of my youth.

Stone Faces And Stone Gods

 

This stone face looks out at people who enter St John the Baptist Church in Penistone. He, or could it be she, has seen so much: joy, sorrow, hopes, fears. Besieged by the Yorkshire wind and rain they remain watchful, perhaps waiting … but for what?

32/1001 : THE GREAT WALLS OF NORTHOWRAM (1968)

Some naïve folk believe these walls were built to hold quarry spoil and flatten fields. But no: they are the burial chambers of the ancient pharaohs of Queensbury and Shelf, deities still worshiped by many in these parts.