Scan Though Your Heart Is Aching

An old photograph sees the light of a new day. It is a family Christmas many years ago. You can tell it is Christmas because of the fake tree, the After Eight mints, the bottle of QC Sherry and the smile on the Good Lady Wife's face. But this was a good few years before she became the GLW and she was probably having to experience a Burnett Christmas for the first time. The weather is miserable today so I have been scanning old negatives. All together now : 

"Scan though your heart is aching 

Scan even though it's breaking 

When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by 

If you scan through your fear and sorrow 

Scan and maybe tomorrow 

You'll see the sun come shining through for you"

Punches, Pliers And Calipers

I would like to say that this is a picture of my workshop, but it isn't. It could have been a picture of the bench my father had at the back of his garage, or a picture of my brothers' eclectic studio and workshop in Dominica : but it isn't. It is a picture I took last week at the Shibden Hall Museum in Halifax. Behind the main Elizabethan house there is a collection of small craft cottages. This one was full of a diverse collection of punches, pliers and calipers : a delight to behold but, as far as their use is concerned, beyond my comprehension.

Sepia Saturday 100 : 190 KB Of Pleasure

So here we are at last - my Sepia Saturday 100 post. It wasn't a particularly difficult task to decide which photograph to use for this post : the above photograph of my mother and father - Gladys and Albert - seemed to tick almost all of the boxes. It is an image I have featured before and it is one of my favourite old photographs. Both Albert and Gladys were born in 1911 : 100 years ago. And you can almost see the figure of 100 spelled out in the tandem wheels and struts. But, more than anything, it illustrates the wealth of the photographic image as an art form, as a record of social history, and as a stimulant to the memory.

The size of the above image file is about 190KB : not particularly large by modern standards, but still the equivalent of twenty or thirty pages of formatted text. The relationship between the sizes of text and image files is a modern proof of the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. But those words, those bits, those bytes are not wasted : for within the humble image can be found a treasure-trove of information. Look at those socks on my father and the way the pattern is woven into the thick wool. Look at the face in the window on the left : observing the scene whilst drinking her morning cup of tea. Look at the sign for Castrol Oil attached to the bay-window of a terraced house like a fish out of a watery soup. Look at the bicycle pump, the hats, the cast iron fences : set your eye and your imagination free to graze the rich pastures of those 190KB

That's the magic of images, And the particular magic of old images is that you are allowed to wander through a foreign land : the past. It is the best entertainment you can get without picking up a pint glass. It is Sepia Saturday.

To see all of the other posts celebrating Sepia Saturday 100 go to the SEPIA SATURDAY BLOG and follow the centenary links.

Inheriting The Genetic Material

The stuff of Sepia Saturday is not just old family photographs : it is old photographs of all kinds. Over the last 99 weeks many people have used old postcards as the starting point for their Sepia Saturday musings - and they have always proved to be particularly effective prompts. As I have said many times before, there is a particular affinity between postcards and blogging : the people who sent those pictorial messages one hundred years ago were undoubtedly made of the same genetic material as todays' bloggers. That need to send a message out into the world, to contact people from far away, to share thoughts, ideas and sights - all these are the common currency of the Edwardian postcard sender and the twenty-first century blogger. 

All we can hope is that the blog posts of today are as sturdy and capable of withstanding the test of time as those old pastecard offerings. All we can hope is that in 100 years time there is a new generation of bloggers (or whatever medium has inherited the genetic material) gathering together every Saturday to share the thoughts and the images of the blogging pioneers.

DON'T FORGET IT IS SEPIA SATURDAY 100 THIS SATURDAY. PLEASE VISIT THE SEPIA SATURDAY BLOG TO JOIN IN THE CELEBRATIONS

Fixing Them For Eternity

This coming Saturday will mark the 100th Sepia Saturday : quite a milestone for something which started as a bit of a joke between Kat Mortensen and myself. Even though its' origin can be found in a convenient alliteration, its' mission was always serious : to preserve and share old images via the internet. Within a few weeks, Sepia Saturday had attracted a number of loyal weekly contributors and followers, and over the last two years it has gone from strength to strength. For Sepia Saturday 100 we are asking contributors old and new to join in with a post that is linked to the list on the Sepia Saturday Blog. As a lead-up to Sepia Saturday itself I am going to spend the week looking at all types of old image and I am starting with one of the most popular types of all - the old family photograph.

This is a scan of a tiny two inch square print which must have been taken at a family celebration. The young child being held at the front of the picture is, I suspect, my brother Roger which means that the photograph must have been taken in the mid 1940s.

We can be a little more certain about the others in the group because someone has attached a convenient yellow sticker to the back (and it looks as though it is my writing). Thus, I can tell you that on the back row (from the left) is my paternal grandfather, Enoch Burnett, my uncles Wilf and Harry (the musical workhorse), and my maternal grandfather Albert Beanland. The centre row has my grandmothers Harriet-Ellen Burnett and Kate Beanland, whilst the front row features my Auntie Amy, my mother, my Auntie Annie ... and the mysterious child. My father is missing from the picture (but he would have been taking it) and so am I : I had yet to make an appearance. When I took the photograph out of the box that contains all my old family photographs the yellow sticker had all but fallen off : that precious key to the identification of three generations of my family was almost lost. This post has given me the opportunity to fix the identifications for all time, to attach a digital sticker to the image which will stay there for all time and which will be available to anyone who cares to do a Google search.

And that, of course, was partly what Sepia Saturday was all about. We are the first generation that has had access to such powerful archiving tools. Many of us are the keepers of old images of one type or another. It is our task to fix them for eternity.

Sepia Saturday 99 : Harry The Musical Workhorse

The theme photograph over at Sepia Saturday this week features a band and therefore I am trying to think musically. This is not easy, for the love affair between me and music is entirely one way : I love music and music detests any attempt by me to interpret its' precious muse. The familial hills of the Burnett family were never fully alive with the sound of music : my father would occasionally assault the concertina and grandfather Enoch, I am given to understand, played a not-particularly-mean euphonium. To arrive at proper musical talent we need to leave blood behind and say hello to Uncle Harry.

Harry Moore married my fathers' sister, Annie Elizabeth Burnett in 1933. Just before the marriage he was working as a professional entertainer, touring the country as part of a pierrot show called "The Silhouettes" (See Sepia Saturday 56 for more information). The above photograph probably dates from the early 1930s and shows Uncle Harry (right) taking part in a revue : for some reason Sigmund Romberg's Student Prince springs to mind. Following his marriage, Harry retired from full-time entertaining and combined a day-job as a coal merchant's clerk with evening and weekend work as a pianist in a series of West Yorkshire working men's clubs. His task would be to provide backing for any featured vocalists in addition to providing musical interludes between the comics and the conjurers.

It was the kind of job that made him a musical workhorse - someone who could turn his piano-playing hand to any occasion, be it a family funeral or a joyous wedding. So, if we were in need of some entertainment for the forthcoming 100th birthday party of Sepia Saturday (don't forget, it's next week), he would be just the chap to send for.

GO OVER TO THE SEPIA SATURDAY BLOG TO SEE THE OTHER PARTICIPANTS IN SEPIA SATURDAY 99. AND DON'T FORGET SEPIA SATURDAY 100 IS NEXT WEEK - WHY NOT JOIN US FOR THIS SPECIAL OCCASION.

British Pub Week : The One And Seven-penny Pint

Staying with British Pub week, my picture today features a part of a pub sign I noticed as I was out walking through Halifax on Monday. The pub is the Beehive and Cross Keys which was built in 1932 following the demolition of two earlier pubs : yes, you guessed, the Beehive and the Cross Keys. Both these earlier pubs had been owned by the Swift family and in the 1880s, Henry Swift, established a brewery behind the Cross Keys in the splendidly named Spice Cake Lane. Road widening in the 1930s swept away the earlier pubs, the brewery and - perhaps most tragically of all - Spice Cake Lane.

The new pub was a functional 1930s affair designed by local architects Walsh and Maddocks. Functional it may have been, but in addition to the more traditional inn sign at the front of the premises, the builders set two fine mosaics into the side wall. I seem to recall that the Beehive and Cross Keys was the first pub I ever bought a pint of beer in. I was a little under age and trying to cover my innocence with bravado. The landlord pulled the pint and I handed him one shilling and sixpence. "When did you last buy a pint of beer?" he asked somewhat severely. I looked at him in puzzlement trying to cover my embarrassment. "Nay Lad", he continued, "it's one and sevenpence now".

British Pub Week : A Pint With Branwell

It is British Pub Week this week and I am doing my little bit to help by visiting as many pubs as possible. Yesterday it was the turn of the Old Cock Hotel in Halifax to receive a visit. The building has existed for some 420 years and I have been around for sixty-odd of those, but I have to confess that yesterday was the first time I have set foot in what is one of Halifax's most ancient inns (so many pubs, so little time!). It was originally built in the 1580s as a private house by William Saville of Copley but 100 years later it was already listed as an inn. Situated in the centre of the town it has always been a popular meeting point for local organisations and societies : the Halifax Harmonic Society met here and the Halifax Building Society came into being after a meeting in the first floor Oak Room. On a more dubious note, David Hartley - the leader of the eighteenth century Cragg Vale criminal gang of counterfeiters - was arrested whilst enjoying a pint in the Old Cock and soon afterwards put to death at Tyburn in York. Like any half-decent West Yorkshire pub, the Old Cock also has a Branwell Bronte story : in the 1840s he ran up such large bills at the Old Cock that the landlord was forced to write to his father in Haworth demanding payment.

I sat in the quiet lunchtime bar, enjoying a pint of Timothy Taylor and looking around at the gaudy Halloween decorations on display. The headless corpses and ghostly apparitions had been bought in bulk from the local  Fancy Dress shop. They need not have bothered - there was history and terror enough leeching out of the very fabric of the building. I had a chat with Branwell, drunk up and left, making sure that I had paid for my pint. I don't want any letters of complaint being sent, nor do I want to visit Tyburn Hill.

Sepia Saturday 98 : A Charabanc To The Centenary

Over on Sepia Saturday we are travelling towards the grand celebrations that will mark Sepia Saturday 100 (12 November 2011). The suggested method of transportation this week is by bus, but my mother, Gladys Burnett, seems to have missed the bus and therefore she has climbed on my fathers' motorbike (yes, it is the same one I featured in my last Sepia Saturday post). Whilst she was a frequent passenger, my mother never was a driver : even when my parents had a tandem she was more the rear motive power rather than the forward navigator. If you followed the comments on my post last week, you will know that the bike was a 1946 Excelsior 125cc Model O and not the Talisman Twin I suggested.

Whilst my mother appears to have missed the bus, her father looks as though he caught it (at least I think that is her father, Albert Beanland, but I have no idea who he is sat next to). He and his mystery companion (it looks nothing like his wife, Kate Kellam) appear to be having a grand day out in a charabanc - the precursor to the modern day motor coach. With their fine leather trim and row after row of seats, such things were grand affairs, and I an surprised that nobody has thought of re-introducing them into this twenty-first century world that we inhabit. In the 1920s and early 1930s, they would be used to transport groups to the English seaside resorts and they would frequently stop at wayside pubs for refreshments. That is the way to travel - whether it is to bracing Blackpool, or the Sepia Saturday Centenary Celebrations.

SEE ALL THE OTHER POSTS THAT ARE TAKING PART IN SEPIA SATURDAY 98 AND READ ALL ABOUT THE SS100 CELEBRATIONS AT THE SEPIA SATURDAY BLOG.

Thematic Photograph 168 - Metallica

I have been meaning to join in with Carmi's Thematic Photograph meme for ages : and at long last I have shaken myself into action. The shaking has been accompanied by miscellaneous bangs, clanks and screeches - the sound of metal against metal - as the theme for this week is "Metallica". The photograph I am using is one I took way back in the 1960s and it shows a scrap metal yard and railway line in Halifax, West Yorkshire. It is not exactly the swinging sixties : but the rusty-grey tone seems to sum up the north of England in those days far better than any psychedelic Carnaby Street scene. 

To see how others interpret the theme go over to the Written.Inc Blog

A Cracking Good Story

A few months ago, my good friend Jane Gordon-Cumming let me read the outline to a new book she was planning on the life of her grandfather and grandmother. Having read the opening chapter I was hooked and I was also convinced that she was on to a winner.

Well I was right, because last night Jane's draft for "The American Heiress and the Scottish Rake: The True Story of the Royal Baccarat Scandal" was announced as the winner of the 2011 Tony Lothian Prize of The Biographers' Club. Looking for a picture to illustrate this post I dipped back into my archives for a picture from our youth. This particular shot must have been taken over 40 years ago : but it is the same clever girl who won the prize last night. When the book is eventually published, perhaps she will use this picture on the fly-leaf. 

Reading the words of the judges on the Biographers' Club website, I can only agree with them :-

On behalf of the judges, Valerie Grove said: ‘A famous scandal at the card table, involving the Prince of Wales; an American heiress, one of three sisters who married into the Victorian aristocracy; an opening scene of thrilling drama, as a splendid yacht sinks in a storm. “A cracking good story here,” as Jane Gordon-Cumming confidently told us, and the judges agreed. The American heiress was her grandmother Florence; the Scottish rake her grandfather Sir William Gordon-Cumming – both “flawed, exasperating, eccentric but huge characters”. A sure winner.’

Congratulations Janie.