In Praise Of Chimneys

 

In these parts, we erect tall monuments to civic pride, elaborate steeples as testaments to divine redemption, and monolithic chimneys in praise of the God of Industry. Egypt may have the pyramids and Athens the Acropolis, but Halifax has the Corona Chimney at Dean Clough.

Job Done

 

As I continue to work my way through hundreds of old negatives - the legacy of a lifetime of photography - I valiantly try to categorise and organise the shots by attaching precise descriptions and accurate keywords. For this 1985 shot, the description is "Somewhere in East Anglia" and the keyword is "water". Job done.

Road As Art

 

I am of the opinion that you should never let a month go by without including at least one photograph of Burdock Way in Halifax. This majestic concrete structure, soaring over the Hebble Valley, provides an urban backdrop of endless dramatic lines and sultry curves. It is road as art.

Christmas Club

 

It’s the 1st of September, and all the shops will be getting ready for Christmas. Before we condemn this as another twenty-first-century excursion into the realms of cheap commercialism, take a look at this advertisement from the Halifax Evening Courier from exactly 100 years ago. Just imagine: for 2/6 per week, you could get, among other things, 1 lb of the best sultana raisins, a pint of table jelly, and a 26-piece dinner service. That’s what Christmas is all about.

Committee Choice

 

Realising that I hadn't chosen an image for today’s calendar by 10 p.m. last night, I turned to a committee of friends I was sharing a drink or three with and asked them to choose a photo from my archives. They came up with this picture of Skegness Boating Lake, taken back in the early 1980s. If you don't like it, take it up with Denis, Sue and Isobel.

Fair Question

Where do seaside fairground rides go during the winter? They sit in storage facilities, waiting for the sun to shine, waiting for the music to start again.

The Family's Past

 

Albert was the only member of the family to leave Bradford behind - the factories, the mills, and the smell of lanolin. Rose Ellen was wedded to the future but drawn to the past: Victorian in a post-Victorian world. Ivy would see so much, yet miss out on even more. Pictures from the family’s past.

Up, Down, Bump

 

I've always believed in looking up as we walk through a town or city to admire the architectural wonders that so often surround us. Equally, however, it is worth looking down - especially if, like me, you are a fan of drain covers. I have quite a collection of photographs of them; I took this one in St. John's, on the island of Antigua. Since I spend so much time either looking up or looking down, don't be surprised if I bump into you one day.

Seaside Shadows

 

A seaside holiday: flat caps, thick overcoats, and a bench overlooking the sun-stroked sands. Watching the worm diggers and perhaps sharing a potted-meat sandwich. The sun casts shadows across the stone jetty, while the sea leaves ripples in the sand.

Earl Of Buffs

 

I've always worked on the principle that, if you're walking past a pub, you should take a picture of it and then pop in for a pint - in case it isn't there the next time you pass. I clearly adhered to this principle in the early 1980s when I passed the Earl of Arundel pub in Sheffield. Sadly, I didn't attend a meeting of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (RAOB). I've always rather fancied being a Buff, but I've never been invited to join.

Happy Anniversary

 

When this photograph was taken, Issy and I had already been together for three years. Three years later, we were married. That was 53 years ago today. That's an awful lot of days. And I wouldn’t change a single one of them.

Set In Stone

You could walk to the top of Shaw Lane in Halifax today and take a photograph similar to this one. I took mine almost half a century ago, but the mills are still standing and the cobbles are still set in the road. The stonework is cleaner these days, and that sense of post-industrial abandonment has lifted.

Peter Howell

 

We lost a dear friend of over fifty years last week. Peter Howell was a noted classicist, a distinguished architectural historian, and a former chair of the Victorian Society. Perhaps most of all, he was a wise, witty, and loyal friend. This has always been one of my favourite photographs of him. I took it at Tunnel End in Marsden in the early 1970s. That kind smile will remain with Isobel and I forever.

Home

 

Home - 'nuff said.

Rough Sleeper

 

While walking around Greyfriars Kirkyard, I came across the tomb of William Littil (1525–1601), who was Provost of Edinburgh and one of the founders of the University of Edinburgh. The tomb’s elaborate carving was not completed until some eighty years after his death, and it has clearly seen better days. The additional head appears to represent either Justice or Prudence, who flanked the tomb in the seventeenth century.

Cheers

 

Whenever I visit Edinburgh, I try to make time to visit the Queen Street rooms of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. I've been a member for more than thirty years, and tonight I'll have the pleasure of taking my son and daughter-in-law there for a meal. With any luck, we'll also have time for a little sampling.

Auld Reekie

I've gone to Edinburgh for a few days. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to take some photographs. Here's one I took earlier.

Gone Shopping For History

I know this photo was taken before my time - though, I have to admit, not that much before my time - but I can still identify with the shopfronts on Crown Street, Halifax. H. Samuel was selling lucky wedding rings, Dolcis was helping to give Crown Street its name - “shoe shop street” - and Boots was dispensing prescriptions on the Market corner. You can take an afternoon historical walk without putting the photograph down!

Facing Up To Halifax

Someone told me the other evening that I was responsible for them looking up whenever they walked around Halifax. As long as one keeps half an eye out for dangerous lampposts, this is a habit to be encouraged. Here’s a little test for all potential building spotters: where would you find this particular version of the famous “holy face”? I’ve provided the answer as a what3words location.

Sing, Sing, Sing

 

This is one of my photographs from my time helping out at Marsden Jazz Festival twenty years ago. Sometimes an image is enough - you don't need words. Add music to taste.

Sound Or Silence

Back in the 1980s, as I was slowly losing what little natural hearing I had left, I would often go to Cleethorpes. I was drawn, in particular, to the latticework of timber and iron struts beneath the pier. I have dozens of such photographs in my archives. There was something about the almost digital arrangement of black and white - on or off, sound or silence - that suited my mood. Such times are always worth revisiting.

Given Views

 

There are few finer moments than when you’re sitting in a pub, enjoying a pint, and some kind person comes up to you, hands you a book, and says, “We were having a clear-out and came across this old book about Halifax, and immediately thought of you.”

Sheffield Arts

I took this photograph from the front door of the Sheffield house we were living in back in the early 1980s. The tall building is the splendid 20th-century University Arts Tower; the building next to it is the equally splendid 19th-century St George’s Hospital. The snow on the ground was pre-global warming, and the grey photographic grain was pre-digital photography.

Earlier

We have friends coming to visit this week - friends of over five decades - who have come to love our little bit of Yorkshire. We will see the sights, revisit familiar places and note the changes, and we will probably take photographs. Here's one I took earlier.

Nostalgia

 

Ah, those simple summer days of long ago - when Beacon Hill was bare of trees, when charity parades meant kids riding on the back of lorries, when King Street was cobbled, and when mill chimneys still split the sky. (Feel free to insert your own nostalgic meanderings as required.)

The Halifax Tram Strike

One rainy Sunday evening in July 1906, the Number 94 tram from Shelf to Halifax ran out of control while coming down New Bank, overturned, and slid over North Bridge. Two passengers were killed and 12 were injured. It is said that the driver, Theodore Chadwick, did all he could to try to slow the tram down, but he was still dismissed by the Tramways Committee. This led to the 1906 Halifax Tram Strike, which eventually ended in September that year.

Mainlining Memories

This photo is the result of a random dip into my archives. I took it forty years ago during a visit to Athens. I seem to recall that we stopped at the café you can see near the top of the street. That is the wonder of photographs: they mainline memories.

Deep History

For a long time, this was indexed under "unknown location" in my negative files, but a recent Google search allowed me to identify it as the former Hanley Deep Pit in Stoke-on-Trent. That means my photograph must date from the late 1960s or early 1970s, when I was at Keele University and the mine was already closed down and awaiting redevelopment.

Escaping The Mill

 

The telegraph poles provide the date stamp for this photograph of a mill fire escape in Halifax. At some point over the fifty-six years since I took it, I seem to have decided that it was somewhere near Akroyd Place, just outside the town centre. Time, however, has changed the landscape and eroded any meaningful memories I may have had.

Sheffield Days

 

This photograph dates back to my Sheffield days in the 1980s - days of grey and white and miners’ strikes. I’d probably just got off the bus, and as I skated down the ice-covered streets, I stopped to record the scene.

Ivy Rose

 

This is a photo of my father’s cousin, Ivy Burnett, probably taken in Birmingham around 1910. It bears the mark of the Hamnett Studio of Bristol Street, Birmingham, and records show the studio was active at that address between 1908 and 1912. Ivy was born in Birmingham in 1908, so 1910 seems like a good estimate - although the clothes she is wearing look more like late 19th-century styles.

Busy Elland

I can't be exact about the date, but I suspect it was around 1969 or 1970 when I took this photograph. It looks as though I was standing in the grounds of what later became the Barge and Barrel pub, but back then it would have still been the Station Hotel. My photograph captures a busy canal side with the town of Elland in the background.

Stone Doubles

 

Isn't AI wonderful? You can ask your favourite AI assistant to convert a selfie into a stone carving like the kind found on the walls of a medieval church. Alternatively, you can take a walk around Selby Abbey and discover that someone has already done it. Aren't medieval stone masons wonderful?

Skye Sky

 

A random dip into my archives brings up this photograph I took twenty years ago during a visit to the Isle of Skye. Despite the undoubted beauty of all those greens, browns and blues: the shot still seems to work better as a black and white picture. Your imagination can then paint it in whatever colours you choose.

Wedding Bells

I am attending a wedding this weekend, and I have dusted off my camera so that I can take photographs of what will be a splendid family occasion. It will continue a long tradition: I took the photographs at the wedding of the groom’s grandparents, and also at the wedding of his parents. Today's photograph goes back even further than that, but I should point out that I was not the photographer on that occasion.

 

History Preserved

 

My photograph dates back to the 1960s and shows the Mobil petrol station on Winding Road, Halifax. The garage was built on the site of the Old Crispin Inn, which dated back to the 1840s. That inn was itself built on the site of an even older Crispin Inn, a famed meeting place of local radicals and Luddites. When the Old Crispin Inn was demolished, parts of it were preserved at Shibden Hall Museum. When the petrol station was demolished, parts of it weren't.

Sowerby Bridge Station

I must confess that I don't remember the old Sowerby Bridge Station, although I'm sure I must have seen it before it burned down in the late 1970s. If this picture-postcard view is anything to go by, it was a rather grand affair - certainly in a different class from the functional, minimalist building that stands there now.