The Picture Within - The Picture Within

Over on my Picture Post Blog I am currently featuring some scans of medium format negatives I took about thirty or forty years ago. I tend to scan an envelope of negatives per day (12 negatives in total) and it is always a thrill discovering what will emerge when the scanner has made its pass and displayed the resulting digital image - an image which has been unseen by me for decades. In some ways it is the closest thing to seeing an image slowing develop onto a sheet of bromide paper whilst sloshing around in a developer bath back in the days of the darkroom. Sometimes there will be photographs of friends and relations, sometimes places. All bring back memories, and often the process is multi-layered because there are hidden images, pictures within pictures, and even pictures within pictures within pictures. The photograph above was taken on the sands at Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire back in the early 1980s And there is a picture within.

And the picture within is a tribute to the hardiness of the British holidaymaker, the seaside visitor determined to head for the seashore even if thick coats are the order of the day.

And even when the wind blows in from the east, straight from the Ural Mountains via the Baltic, and the sun is dimmed by clouds like a 40 watt bulb inside a grease-proof bag, even then the hardy holidaymakers still buy their ice cream cornets.

Sepia Saturday 139 : Auntie Miriam And The Paragon Of Annotation

Our Sepia Saturday prompt this week features a dog presenting a bone for the salvage effort during World War 2. My picture this week can match the decade (it was taken in 1949), it can match the dog; but it falls short in the bones and the rag and bone man. In their place you get Auntie Miriam and a boat on the Norfolk Broads. And as a bonus, I can tell you the name of the dog - Trudy.

I can be reasonably certain about all these details because the photograph was taken by my Uncle Frank and he was a paragon of annotation, an archivist disguised as a factory worker, a chronically of the mundane. It comes from an album which is entitled "Yarmouth Holiday July and August 1949". Great Yarmouth is a seaside resort on the east coast of England in the county of Norfolk. The area of countryside inland from Yarmouth is characterised by a network of navigable rivers and lakes which is known as the Norfolk Broads. Frank even gives us a short rhyme, which could almost become the official mission statement for Sepia Saturday.

"We went to "Broadland" - here and there

These snaps remind us where"

The particular photograph has a title added beneath it in the album : "Trudy likes Mimi" (Uncle Frank would always refer to his wife as Mimi). 

One or two people have suggested that the prompt image bears a similarity to me and my faithful companion Amy. Marilyn even asked whether we could try to recreate the pose, a suggestion I decided to go along with. Whilst I managed to acquire a suitable costume and box full of bones, Amy flatly refused to adopt a "begging" pose (she suggested it would be demeaning and inconsistent with her status as a freeborn dog). The best I could come up with is the picture reproduced here - which features Amy with her "what kind of family did I end of living with?" look on her face.

If, like Uncle Frank, you want to be reminded of places by looking at some old snaps, you could do far worse than go to the Sepia Saturday Blog and follow the various links.

Postcard From Hull

IN BOTH CASES, CLICK TO ENLARGE

Picture Show

It was the 66th Halifax Agricultural Show on Saturday and we went along to take a look at the animals and the various stalls. So I will share a few of the photographs I took, and keep the words to a minimum. 

Bulls in the Parade Ring

A stunningly beautiful work horse.

Equally beautiful and he/she knows it.

Judging in the headless fancy chicken category.

Is there anything as cute as baby pigs?

Sepia Saturday 138 : Recycling The Past

Sepia Saturday this week features an old archive image of cyclists in Copenhagen. Following our success in the Olympic Games, it would appear that Britain has now become a nation of cyclists which, for a country defined by its hills as much as its meat pies, verges on the masochistic. But for a brief period in my life - wedged between the years when my mother wouldn't allow me a bike because I might fall off and injure myself and the years when my wife won't allow me a bike because I might fall off and injure myself - I was a carefree, smiling cyclist. My first photograph features such a jolly soul and must have been taken in the mid 1960s.

That first photograph must have been taken by my brother Roger (the composition is poor and he has managed to get some foreign object intruding into the bottom right of the shot). My second photograph was taken by myself, but features my brother, along with his wife and daughter.

Turning the photograph over, I notice that it had been converted into a postcard and the message clearly illustrates two things : firstly my brother has never been able to accept my superior talents as a photographer, and secondly, he can deftly mix cheek with requests for favours in a single paragraph. The message reads as follows :

"Thanks for posting letters on - we must be owing you some stamp money. Ali : why did you plant this tree in Norma's hair?  .... Can I borrow your electronic flash when you go back to Birmingham? Wonder where we'll be this time next year? All the best for '69. Roger, Norma and Di.

The card was postmarked  3 January 1969. A year on from that I was away at University at Keele in Staffordshire. No doubt my dear brother will write in and tell us where he was!

If you enjoy recycling old photographs, why not journey over to the Sepia Saturday Blog and take a look at what the other participants are doing this week

Three Beers For Friday

BEER ONE:
I am still working my way through my volume of "1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die", which I see as a form of pilgrimage : the inebriates equivalent of a tour of religious shrines. My latest "station of the cross" was a delicious bottle of Samuel Adams Boston Lager which Tesco had kindly transported across the Atlantic for me. The tasting notes said something about a complex mix of "distinctly sweet malt and hop bitterness"; but I have never been particularly good at hunting out the supposed flavours to be found in a beer. All I can say is that when I had finished the bottle I wished I had bought two. You can't say more than that can you?

BEER TWO:

I spotted a book on brewery history on eBay the other day; one which was not already in my little library devoted to the history of breweries. I bid for and bought "An Uncommon Brewer - The Story of Whitbread 1742-1992" for a couple of pounds and I have enjoyed myself so far just flicking through and looking at the rich illustrations. This cartoon appears in the book and it illustrates the close relationship between agriculture (Sir John Barleycorn and Miss Hop) and brewing (and their only child, Master Porter). It has to be said that there are few finer ways of spending an evening than sipping a fine beer and flicking through an illustrated history of breweries.

BEER THREE:

But what is this, I hear you ask : buying even more books when you are supposed to be de-cluttering! Feeling guilty about my purchase, I reached into my cluttered back passage with the intention of consigning at least one book to Cousin Dave's car boot sale to compensate for my new purchase. Alas, the first volume I managed to drag out was a 1973 copy of Christopher Hutt's classic "The Death Of The English Pub". It would be sacrilege indeed to get rid of such a volume and therefore I have hidden it away in my room just in case Isobel decides to strictly impose the "one in, one out" rule.

In one of the chapters, Hutt speaks about the decline of the hand-pulled pint in the days of the modern electric beer pump. His book was written 40 years ago and I am glad to say that what might then have appeared to be a terminal decline in the old hand-pulled beer engine has been reversed. I cannot resist ending with one of the little quotes that appear at the beginning of each of the chapters in the book. This one graces the chapter on "The Quality Of Beer":

"Not turning taps, but pulling pumps,
Gives barmaids splendid busts and rumps"

9 August

For whatever reason, today I decided to dip into a few of the several volumes of published diaries that populate my bookshelves. Here is a sample from the last five centuries.

9 August 1668

Thence to White Hall, and thence to visit Lord Brouncker, and back to White Hall, where saw the Queen and ladies; and so, with Mr. Slingsby, to Mrs. Williams’s, thinking to dine with Lord Brouncker there, but did not, having promised my wife to come home, though here I met Knepp, to my great content. So home; and, after dinner, I took my wife and Deb. round by Hackney, and up and down to take the ayre.

The Diary Of Samuel Pepys

Pepys is one of my favourite diarists. His combination of name-dropping, scheming, womanising and living in fear of his wife always seems to give him a remarkably contemporary feel. If he had lived in these times you would have no doubt found him splashed across the celebrity magazines and probably guesting on Strictly Come Dancing. (Elizabeth) Knepp was an actress and singer Pepys was besotted with at the time.

9 August 1783

A dull warm day with frequent showers in afternoon especially. I and George and John Town share 14 hattocks in the forenoon. I spread mainer and other jobs in the afternoon.

The Diaries Of Cornelis Ashworth

Cornelius Ashworth was a small farmer who lived at Walt Royd near Halifax in the latter part of the eighteenth century. He is described as a typical small farmer and handloom weaver: the only thing that sets him aside from his contemporaries was that he kept a diary for over 30 years. It has to be said that his diaries are somewhat dull : his life being dominated by the weather, his crops and the goings on at the local chapel. I suspect that "mainer" was manure, but what on earth "hattocks" were I have no idea. Hopefully, Cornelius, George and John enjoyed them.

9 August 1823           

At 4.50, set off down the Old Bank to the library. Found Miss Pickford there, in spite of finding a note on my return home this morning to say she could not go there on account of walking with the children to Horley Green wood to botanize. Told her how untidy the children were ... they are a disagreeable, vulgar set. I told her she did not enough keep up her dignity. Spoilt everything about her.

The Secret Diaries Of Miss Anne Lister

Anne Lister was the Mistress of Shibden Hall which is just outside Halifax. She has found lasting fame due to her diaries which contained long sections written in a code which was not deciphered until a century after her death. Most of these sections (printed in italics in 1988 edition of her published diaries) related to her amorous escapades with a variety of lesbian lovers, but occasionally she would use her code to hide her rough tongue and haughty manner. No wonder poor Miss Pickford tried to avoid her.

9 August 1940

After dinner, Winston, the generals and Pound retired to the Hawtrey Room for a conference... At one moment a German raider came over the house and we all stumbled out into the garden to look. The First Sea Lord fell down first one flight of steps and then, having picked himself up disconsolately, he tumbled down another, ending in a heap on the ground where a sentry threatened him with a bayonet. He came back saying, “This is not the place for a First Sea Lord” Winston’s comment was, “Try and remember you are an Admiral of the Fleet and not a Midshipman”

The Fringes Of Power : Downing Street Diaries, John Colville

John "Jock" Colville was Assistant Private Secretary to Winston Churchill during the first part of World War II and his diaries provide a wonderful insight into the working life of Churchill during this critical period of history. The First Sea Lord referred to was Sir Dudley Pound who had a reputation for hard work and a lugubrious demeanor. It is said that his mere entry into a room made the occupants feel grave.

9 August 2012

Got up. Sunny and warm day today. Took Amy for a walk. Read a bit and wrote a blog-post. Had my lunch.

The Unpublished Diaries Of Alan Burnett

A Decent Old Pub And An Indecent Young Lady

I bought this postcard the other day, attracted, as usual, as much by the message on the reverse as the picture on the front. I seem to recall I have been to Coventry only once in my life, some forty years ago, but I have driven around it on various by-passes quite frequently. The picture shows St Mary's Guildhall which, if Google Street Cam is to be believed, looks relatively unchanged 100 years later (I wonder how it survived the horrendous bombing of the city during World War II?). It used to be the residence of the Lord Mayor of Coventry and it is from there that the famous Lady Godiva is said to have started her famous horse-ride. Looking more closely on Google maps, there seems to be a decent old inn just around the corner from here called the Golden Cross, so maybe it is time to visit Coventry again. It is a sad sign of age that the driving force behind such a return visit would be a decent old pub rather than an indecent young Lady!

The card was posted in August 1908 and sent to a Miss L Dorman in St Leonards-on-Sea. The message from Dora to L was full of those questions that will never be answered.

Dear L,

Hope you have not got off because of poor George. Hope you are enjoying yourself as I am. 

With love, Dora

Excuse such a muddle but I am in a hurry.

Where did L not get off to, because of poor George? What was wrong with poor George. My mind plays with pictures of Miss Dorman recreating Lady Godiva's ride but having to get off her horse because poor George has collapsed with apoplexy. It is time I went for a drink and forced such silly thoughts out of my mind.

Looking For The Picture Within

The new scanner, which can handle my old medium format negatives, allows me to go travelling through photographs I took thirty years or so ago. It also allows me to play one of my favourite games : looking for the picture within. The picture on the left was taken in Paris, thirty or so years ago. The selective enlargement - the picture within - has all the atmosphere of a busy Paris street scene and a little bit more. It is a one act play; a piece of two dimensional monochrome performance art. What photography does better than anything else is freeze a moment in time; preserve a collection of emotions, movements and interactions in photographic aspic. I can happily spend hours scanning and dissecting, looking for shapes and trails : looking for the picture within.

A Pint Of Gladys Please

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago we went on the trip from The Rock to the Milltown Brewery in Huddersfield. Following a thoroughly entertaining explanation of the brewing process (and before a thoroughly enjoyable sampling session) I got talking to the Head Brewer, Neil Moorhouse about the challenge of coming up with names for his frequently changing seasonal beer specials. He likes to maintain a link with mills and the textile industry - it is the Milltown Brewery after all - so I suggested "Bobbin Ligger". A bobbin ligger was a person who worked on the machines that filled empty bobbins with spun thread. Specifically their role was to carry (or "lig") the empty bobbins to the machine and carry away the full bobbins. My father started work as a bobbin ligger in a mill in Bradford in the 1920s and my mother also worked in the mill at the same time. Neil liked the name and said he would use it for his next seasonal special and I agreed to design a pump display card for it. 

For the display card I used an old family photo which shows a group of mill workers and which, I think, features my mother (she is the one on the left of the group). It will have been taken in Ickringill's Mill in Bradford, and whilst the women would not have been bobbin liggers (a job normally reserved for young men just starting in the mill), the atmosphere of the old sepia shot seemed to match the name perfectly. I was thus delighted to discover, on entering the pub on Friday evening, that Bobbin Ligger is now available and to celebrate I bought a pint or three. As the picture features my mother, Gladys, by the second or third pint I was walking up to the bar and proudly proclaiming "A pint of Gladys please".  I know that some of my "beery" followers will be wanting tasting notes but I have to admit that I was so caught up in the celebratory mood that all I can tell you is that it is a thoroughly refreshing hoppy fusion which at 4.1% ABV achieves a  perfect balance of strength and flavour. I am not sure that description does it justice so, in the interests of research, I have decided to go back to the Rock tonight for another "pint of Gladys".

Watching The World Go By

My apologies. For the moment I am watching the world go by. The Lad is home for a week before going back to University and therefore my life, and my blogs, are postponed until next week. The picture is a re-scan of a negative I took back in the 1970s.