Iron Mothers And 1905 Angles

 

There's enough scrap iron visible in this photo of mine from the late '60s or early '70s to keep a Scunthorpe blast furnace busy. It was taken looking down Blackledge, Halifax, towards Beacon Hill in the background. These days, the stone has been cleaned up, and there is half a forest lining the hillside. The cobbles, however, still make patterns in the street.

This lovely lady appears on the second of the ten Victorian photographs I bought whilst I was up in Whitley Bay. The only clue to her identity is a pencilled caption on the reverse of the photograph stating "Mother When Young". Try taking a photo like that on your smartphone!

This photograph dates back about 45 years to the time when we were living in Sheffield. In the Campo lane area of the city, there were some blocks of flats dating from the beginning of the twentieth century, and I would often wander the staircases and landings looking for angles and patterns.

This image of Doncaster's Corn Exchange is taken from a Vintage Postcard in my collection. The only thing written on the card is a single date - November 8th 1905. That was the day Alfred Buchi was granted a patent for his invention of a turbocharger, the day London was beset by a thick fog, and William R Hearst lost the race for Mayor of New York. And the day someone bought a postcard of Doncaster's Corn Exchange.