Timeless Style

 

The Victorian photographer, John Bell, promised "photography in the latest styles" on the reverse of his classic carte de visites. There is, however, something timeless about the face featured on the front of the card. I feel as if I know this lady, we met in the supermarket the other day.

IN A FLAP

 

Our Sepia Saturday theme this week is all about strange shapes, and the closest I seem to be able to get to it is this photograph from almost 100 years ago. I can only be sure about one of the six heads - and that is the third one down, which is my father, Albert. The photograph will have been taken somewhere close to Bradford, where he was brought up, and the occasion, I suspect, will have been a Boys Brigade camp.

NOSTALGIC THOUGHTS

 

When Greenwoods was on't corner, and Marks at top of town; 

when one day you could wait up, and next day you'd wait down. 

When sun was always shining, and it'd never, never rain 

...... why did folk wear thick coats and rain hats, perhaps you'd care to explain.

SHEFFIELD DAYS

 

There are no cars in this scene which always makes dating it a little more difficult. The clothes don't give many clues either: fashion takes a back seat to insulation when it comes to northern winters. Haymarket in Sheffield looks very different these days, and British Homes Stores is long gone. It must have been about 1980 when I took it - back in my Sheffield days.

A POSTCARD FROM KEIGHLEY

 

A POSTCARD FROM KEIGHLEY

Few things can provide a mirror to social history better than the humble picture postcard. On the one side you have the view, and although, as the 20th century progressed, these became more romanticised and stereotypical, in the early years they were often raw and real: horse muck and gaslights. On the other side you have a message which is worth a PhD thesis. This card was sent by my Great Aunt Eliza to my Great Uncle Fowler in 1905.

IT WAS SNOWING EARLIER

 

CROOKES VALLEY, SHEFFIELD 1980 : It was due to snow today, but it is looking like heavy rain instead, so there will be no snowy scene to share. Never mind, here's one I took earlier. Forty-six years earlier to be exact.

PINBALL WIZARD

 

The colours aren't particularly real, and you can't make out much of the scene (it was taken in Akroyd Place, Halifax). It is the lines, however, that are fascinating: the way they bounce your eye around the scene like a ball bearing in a pinball machine.

Rainy Days And Sundays

 

The photograph of Crown Street in Halifax is from a few years ago, and some of the shops have changed since it was taken. It is still raining however. Rainy days and Sundays - not to mention Mondays - always get me down. 

STYLE

 

Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week features a stylish 1920s car, so I thought I would give you both a stylish 1920s car and two stylish ladies from the same era. Both look very proud of their car and their lives, and so they should do. No doubt previous generations had style, but it wasn't until the 20s that style came into its own.

WE'VE HOME

 

So, what have we got? We've a bare-faced hillside and a quarried landscape. We've a mill or two, a couple of chimneys, and some terraced houses stacked like dominoes. We've Halifax sixty years ago. We've home.

FONT OF ALL KNOWLEDGE

 

I've always loved letters. Some folks like the melodic strokes of a good landscape; with others, it's the sensuous lines of the naked form. With me, it is a cursive "s" or a serif "a" that gets my blood pulsing through my elderly veins that little bit faster. Give me an unusual font or an adventurous typeface, and I'm a happy chap.

BACK STREET IN STOKE

 

This particular photo seems to have acquired the title "Back Street In Stoke" at some stage over the last fifty years. My apologies to my friends in the Potteries for this somewhat underwhelming and unspecific title: the truth is I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in the area in the early 1970s. I became convinced that North Staffordshire was a first cousin of West Yorkshire.

THE OTHER SIDE

This is the photograph in the other side of the small brooch that must have been handed down from someone within the family. No young Edwardian beauty this one, but she is a woman of character, millstone-grit strong with an unwillingness to countenance nonsense of any variety. 

IT'S SWINGING HALIFAX

It seems like a different era: an era of broken walls and spaces laid bare by slum-clearance programmes or enemy bombs. The church is the same; then it was plain Halifax Parish Church, and now it's a Minster. Perhaps it's the swings that date it - can this really be what was meant by the swinging sixties? It's a memory; it's history, it's Halifax.

ACCUMULATAE

 

I found this old brooch whilst sorting through a box of "accumulatae" (not sure if that is a word, but if not, it should be). I assume that it has come from within the family, and therefore the rather charming lady in the large hat is a relative of mine. Precisely who she is, I have no idea, but I have pleasure in presenting her to the world. On the reverse of the brooch is another portrait. I will return to that, later.

BALANCE BY POST

 

Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week featured a postman delivering parcels in the snow, and my interpretation of the theme retains the snow but features a different kind of post. As agile as that interpretation of the theme may be, it has nothing on the agility of the chap in this 1924 photograph from my collection, who would appear to have the balance of a yoga master.

THAT'S ART

....... You can mess around with Photoshop filters and AI edits until you are blue in the face (or green, or orange or polka dot striped) but you will never equal the originality and brilliance of a real artist. To illustrate my point I give you a picture of Halifax painted by my brother when he was living over here in the 1990s. Now, that's art!

ART OR A PINT?

Is art in danger of being undermined by Artificial Intelligence? Why slave over a canvas for endless hours attempting to achieve a dramatic interpretation of a pub at the bottom of an old cobbled street in Halifax when you can press a button, produce a picture, and then go and enjoy a pint in peace? Well ...... (to be continued)

A REAL CANAL?

I took this photograph of the canal in Huddersfield thirteen or fourteen years ago. I'm sure it didn't actually look like this; I'm sure there were more half-tones flying about. It's an impression, however, and it has some nice shapes and a few pleasing patterns. It's not real - but what is?

IT'S A GAS

I don't normally go in for this clickbait thing or having adverts associated with my various online activities, but times are hard and we all have to make a living. Therefore, I would like to draw your attention to the exhibition and series of lectures and demonstrations that have been organised by the Halifax Corporation Gas Committee at the Drill Hall next week. Don't be late!

A HUNGRY HILL

I took this picture of Hunger Hill in Halifax forty years ago. There are a few more trees about these days and some of the buildings have changed, but the snow is still here. I asked AI to explain the origin of the name, and it came up with a somewhat silly theory that the road was so steep, early travellers were reduced to hunger by climbing it! AI has obviously never visited Halifax if it thinks it's a steep hill. Now, climbing Beacon Hill, that might make you hungry.

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Thank You, Lucy

 

Bright sun and black ice, monochrome trees and wood-blocked paths: our dog took us for a walk down Shepherds Thorn Lane the other day. Thank you, Lucy.

Body Building

Our Sepia Saturday theme this week is "Work In Days Gone By". Most of my family worked in the mills and factories of Yorkshire, but my Great Uncle Albert branched out and became a partner in a firm of motor body builders in Manchester. He left a photographic record of many of his creations, this being one of them. I like to think of it as a piece of mechanical sculpture.