Still Collecting

 

My passion for collecting old photographs recognises few bounds, and a few years ago I managed to acquire a small collection of the original negatives of "stills" from British films from the 1940s and 50s. Such photographs were taken during filming in order to prepare the publicity photos that would be displayed outside cinemas. You might think it is an odd thing to collect, but there again, I'm an odd person.

Times Certainly Change

 

Getting somewhat annoyed the other day by some toxic pronouncement by a global potentate, I banged my fist down on my desk, and my smartwatch informed me that it looked as if I had taken a fall and that it would send for an emergency ambulance. Just think, sixty years ago I would have had to catch a bus to Halifax and find some cast-iron street hydrant in order to achieve the same ends. Times certainly change.

Sheffield Shapes

 

I took the photograph back in the early 1980s, and I messed around with it early yesterday. It snowed a lot back in the early '80s, and I wandered up and down the back streets of Sheffield taking photographs. It was the shapes that attracted me then, and they still attract me now. Sheffield shapes.

Any Lane

 

My photograph dates back to the early 1970s and shows one of those streets near the bottom of Lister Lane and Hopwood Lane in Halifax. The precise location doesn't matter - it could be any lane in almost any northern town: with cobbled streets and an obelisk of a mill chimney.

Street Photography

 

These days, this photograph would come under the heading of "Street Photography". When I took it over half a century ago, it came under the heading of "Using The Last Few Shots On A Film Up Before It Was Developed." These inconsequential shots of random scenes are always the most interesting when viewed from the perspective of "the future": their dearth of subject and richness of background provide a unique view of the past.

Treasured Map

 

My brother contacted me from the other side of the world yesterday to suggest that my "monumental sculpture" photo was not taken in Sowerby Bridge. I have since been able to persuade him that it was. His memory of Sowerby Bridge and the Calder Valley is not what it used to be, so here is a map to remind him: a map drawn and published by him 59 years ago!

Monumental Sculpture

 

One should be able to nominate buildings as items of monumental sculpture, thus ensuring their preservation not for what they contain, but simply for the way they look, the shape they make, and the emotions they engender. I would like to nominate this group of buildings in Sowerby Bridge. Let's pickle them in aspic and sell little plastic models of them in souvenir shops throughout the land.

On The Slopes

Photography was made for groups. Get a group together - be it a group of friends, family, fellow workers, or ten-pin bowlers - and one of the first reactions is to get out a camera and record the moment for posterity. Group Photographs is one of the themes for this week's Sepia Saturday, and my contribution is this group of skiers in Switzerland in 1926. 

Picture History

My photo dates back to the 1960s and shows the junction of Cripplegate and Mulcture Hall Road in Halifax. There's a textbook-full of history in the buildings and a library's worth in the names of these two historic streets that run next to Halifax Minster. From healing wells to tolls for grinding corn, there's history in abundance here, but it's late and I'm tired so you will have to make do with just the picture.

Stoned

 

I took this photo a few years ago in Bradford, and what appealed to me was all the different types of stone on view in an anonymous back street. There's faced stone, rough stone, cobbled stone, and carved stone, and half a dozen other types you can spend a happy evening inventing names for. You can become almost intoxicated on stone - stoned on stone.

Windows 80

I call this photograph Windows 80, not as a tribute to some upcoming Microsoft operating system, but because it was taken in 1980 looking out of the window of my parents-in-law's house in Bedford Street, Elland. Images can truly transport us, and the sight of those curtains, the bowl of fruit, and those plastic flowers sends me cascading back through the decades with a potency no computer operating system can ever match.

The Sea, The Sea

My mother loved the sea. Go within salt-spray distance of the coast, and you would find her paddling along the shoreline, watching the waves come in. My brother sent me this photograph of her the other day from his island home, way across the ocean. It's been a good few years since I've seen him. Perhaps I should head for the coast, look out, and see if I can see him.

The Cauldron

 

On countless occasions in my youth, I would walk through Northowram village, along Howes Lane to the point where the earth ends and Shibden Valley begins. I would focus my camera on the lip of the cauldron that was Halifax, on the other side of the valley, and try to capture the smoke, soot and industry that was my home town. This photo, however, is only from a few years ago: the fields are green, the sky is blue and the cauldron is still.

Hebridean Dreaming

 

We were whisky distillery-hopping on Islay (can they be a finer way to spend time?) As someone once said (or sung), we stopped into a church, we passed along the way. I took this photograph, and then we moved on. Hebridean dreaming, on such a winter's day.

... And They Sailed Away

 

My trawl through my collection of old photographs to find a suitable illustration for St. Valentine's Day came up with this one. As so often is the case, I have no idea who these two are or where and when the photo was taken. That doesn't matter: it perfectly illustrates what Valentine's Day is all about. Whoever they were, I hope they sailed away to a long and happy life together.

Beacon Hill Timeline

 

I sometimes think that one of my most useful contributions to history would be to produce a Beacon Hill timeline. So many old photographs of Halifax feature Beacon Hill as an ever-present dramatic backdrop, and the changing degree of vegetation on the hill could provide a useful timestamp in dating such photos. After consulting the beta version of my timeline, I suspect I must have taken this photograph in the late 1980s.

Photographic History At Its Best

 

This photograph came to me from my Great Uncle, Fowler Beanland, who, during the First World War, was a foreman at a munitions factory in Keighley. The photo shows fifteen female munitions workers - just a small proportion of the many hundreds who worked for Longbottom and Farrar's, which was, at the time, part of the British Shell Factory. Photographic history at its best.

Scale And Emptiness

When I look back at these old photographs of mine - I took this picture of a street in Stoke-on-Trent some fifty-five years ago - it is the scale that seems to stand out. Were the streets really this wide or were the cars small? Were the telegraph poles so tall or were the people short? There's a feeling of almost emptiness about the scene you just wouldn't get today.

Yorkshire Imperialism

 

I don't know which hillside it was. I remember taking the photograph whilst on the Settle to Carlisle line, so there is just a chance that it might even by a Lancashire hillside. It feels like Yorkshire however, in fact, I hereby claim it as part of Yorkshire (I learnt that trick from a chap in America!).

Film Sets

 

Shaw Lane in Halifax back in the 70s and 80s was a bit like a vacant film set: spectacular backgrounds waiting for a drama to unfold. You could have made any number of films or gritty TV series with those granite sets in the foreground, those sooty walls in the background, and the occasional mill tower to add spice to the scene.

Dam Art

 

Another one of those exercises in black and white and straight lines. There should be a name for this kind of art. Dam art, perhaps?

Five Girls And A Kodak

 

The Sepia Saturday theme this week is old photos of even older photographers, and searching through my extensive (if my wife reads this, I mean very small) collection, I found this 1920s photograph. At first I thought the object in question might be a small handbag, but further research suggests it's a Kodak No 1 Folding Pocket Camera. My research involved me finding one that is for sale on eBay, so I bought it! (if my wife is reading this, I didn't).

Paris Pub

 

I've always been attracted to this part of Halifax: the steep hills, cobbled streets, brooding mills ..... and, of course, the delights of the Shears Inn, whose stone-tiled roof features in this photo of mine from 40 or 50 years ago. There's a story which says the area's name - Paris Gates - came about when the final letter "h" fell off the original "Parish Gates" sign. I prefer the idea that it was the entrance to an early attempt at a Channel Tunnel.

From The Archives

 

I've always had a fondness for old newspapers: give me a half-comfy chair and a pile of old newspapers, and I'm a happy man. If I can't get my hands on the paper originals, then the online British Newspaper Archives is an excellent alternative, and it has the advantage of a very effective search engine. That is how I discovered this newspaper cutting from the Lynn News of the 6th of June 1972 and this rather pleasing drawing by my brother, Roger.