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.

 

Cut And Paste

 

I created this image of Halifax back in 2018, so it is definitely pre-artificial intelligence. Perhaps it's artificial pseudo-intelligence, as it was created by repeatedly pressing Photoshop buttons without any plan in mind. Nevertheless, the result - a collection of buildings, old and new, grand and gruesome - seems almost as if they have been cut and pasted onto a night view of Halifax.

The Essence Of The Image

I have suitcases full of old photographs - my lost images collection - and sometimes, when I'm sorting through them, one will shout out at me. It's not who the people are (I don't know them) or what they're doing; it's the very essence of the image itself. The lines and shapes ask questions; the light and shadows hint at answers.

View From St Thomas's

Those of us who spend our lives looking at pictures of old Halifax have a range of potential dating pointers: Is Square Church still a church, or just a spire? Is the Queensbury railway line still in place? are there trees on Beacon Hill? I think this photograph of mine was taken in the 1960s, but I can't be sure. One possible clue - whether St Thomas's, Claremount still has a tower - is of little use, as I took the photograph from the churchyard.

Frightening

 

Artificial intelligence took one of my photographs of North Bridge and Burdock Way in Halifax and did this with it. It's frightening. The problem is, it's frighteningly good.

Green Change

 

Whenever I revisit one of my old photographs, I can never resist the temptation to seek out a modern view of the same scene to see what has changed. With this view of the junction between Northowram Green and Land's Head Lane, I assumed it would be much the same, but I was surprised by the number of changes that had taken place. You can check it out yourself by taking a walk through this lovely village or, failing that, by taking a look on Google Street View!

THIS IS BRADFORD

 

Green Clough

 

I took this photograph of Dean Clough in Halifax back in 2017. The profusion of green vegetation provides a date stamp: fifty years earlier, the buildings would have been the same, but the occasional sooty dandelion would have been the only plant life to survive. To be honest, nine years later and the scene will be far less green as the effects of the current heatwave and drought take effect. For a time, however, it was Green Clough rather than Dean Clough.

Happy Birthday Roger

A photograph taken in a Bradford back yard more than three-quarters of a century ago. It features me sitting on my mother's knee, watched over by my brother, Roger. Next Monday would have been my mother Gladys's birthday. Today is my brother's birthday. Happy birthday, Rog - see you in December.

Bronzed

 

We got a new Prime Minister yesterday. We've had quite a lot of them lately. Back in the old days, once you had finished with a Prime Minister, you erected a bronze statue to him or her. These days, that might be a somewhat extravagant use of bronze. Here's wishing Andy Burnham luck in his endeavours. My photo for today is of the statue to the redoubtable David Lloyd George. 

The Sprinting Photographer

 

This is another of my Sheffield photos from when I was living in the city forty years ago. I was obviously much younger then because I was able to sprint out into the middle of a dual carriageway to get the shot - and live to tell the tale many decades later.

You Decide

Is this real, or is it fake? As someone who has spent much of his life taking black-and-white photographs, I don't think I'm a good judge of what's real. Is it art, or is it computer-generated slush? Who knows? Who cares? Is it pleasant to look at? You decide.