On This Day - 4 Jan 1922 : Keep Fit And Avoid Infection

 

From The Halifax Daily Courier And Guardian : 4 January 1922

A watchful eye is being kept by the Ministry of Health on the progress of influenza, which prevails to a serious extent in many parts of the country. We hear of the visitation of the old enemy, "Flu" to many Halifax families, but so far, no serious epidemic threatens us. All necessary precautions, however, should be taken. Influenza is dangerous mostly because of what may follow it. At the first feeling of illness victims should leave work, go home, and go to bed; keep warm and send for the doctor. Every person suffering from the disease is a danger to others. The golden rule is to keep fit and avoid infection as much as possible"

The Man With The Hat

 

Someone once said that an image is a collection of lines and shapes that evokes memories and emotions (*), and if this is the case, I am addicted to images. Like any serious collector - be it of beermats, vintage tractors, or artificial limbs - I am always in search of new and pleasing images to add to my collection. Unlike most serious collectors, I am surrounded by possibilities and unchallenged by competitors: which brings me to the man with the hat.

I found him at the edge of a picture of my late Auntie Miriam, who was posing on a boat on Lake Windermere eighty years ago. Far be it from me to suggest that Auntie M should be ignored (just ask my brother what happened to him when he once tried to sneak past her cottage window!), but I have cropped her out, and set my focus directly on her chance fellow-passenger, the man with the hat. There is something enormously pleasing about the pose, something casual but relaxed about the stance, something slightly mysterious about the subject of his concentrated stare, and something enigmatic about his smile. Thus, the man with the hat is welcomed into my collection and takes his place in my virtual gallery.

(*) Having done a Google search for this quotation and found no results, I am inclined to think I invented it!

Monday 3 January 2022

Rhoda & Andy : Canada Days  

1 January 2022

 The Sun Shines On The Ossett Caryatids

Brighouse Lives On

 

What better way to start the new year than with a puzzle? I acquired this old picture postcard of Brighouse recently, and set about trying to identify where the original photograph must have been taken from. Some prominent landmarks such as the river and canal are hidden from the view, whilst others - such as Sugden's Flour Mill - had yet to be built. I often find that the best way to identify such viewpoints is to use Google Earth and then play around with the angles and perspectives until you get the beginnings of a match. So if you line up the houses in the foreground (Gooder Lane), the glimpse of the railway line, the somewhat prominent building, centre-left in the photograph (the current Cliffe Hall Club on Cliffe Road) and the views of the Central Methodist Church, Brighouse Sixth Form College, and St Martins, in the distance; you finish up in Victoria Street. Here is the approximate current Google Earth view of the same scene.

Comparing the two images; mills have gone and trees have come, and what were once main roads are now just byways. The same railway line, however, skirts many of the same houses today, and as we enter a new year - Brighouse lives on.

More December Days

 

This negative dates back forty years to the early eighties. By then we had moved north and were living in Sheffield, but I still returned to London with students or to attend courses and conferences. St Anne's Court was one of the narrow streets by Leicester Square populated by specialist shops dealing in action comics.

This image is based on a photograph I took ten years ago from the bridge over the River Calder in Sowerby Bridge. The Photoshop filters were applied last night.

A photograph taken earlier this week in Halifax of Princess Street and Halifax Town Hall.

19 December 2021 : Outside The Boarding House

 

Each year we would go to the seaside for a week. One year we would go to Bridlington on the East coast, the next we would go to New Brighton on the West coast. This must have been a New Brighton year - probably around 1951 - for that is the boarding house we stayed at in Windsor Street. My brother, Roger, and myself feature along with our mother. The three older people in the photograph are unknown: the lady on the left is possibly the lady who kept the boarding house and the other two may have been staying there the same time we were.

18 December 2021 : Saloon Bar

 

My desktop calendar today features two versions of a photograph I took fifty years ago of one of the wonderful art nouveaux signs outside the magnificent Blackfriars pub in London. The quotation is courtesy of the similarly magnificent Dr Johnson.

London's Changing

 

Stop Messing About

 

"Stop messing about" is a cry that has accompanied my entire life. "Stop messing about and get on with your homework, stop messing about and get down to some real work ....": you can change the latter part of the sentence, but the first few words remain the same. Some time the cry comes from others, more often it comes from me: the meaning is the same - curtail your flights of fancy, beware of tempting tangents, stick to the matter in hand. 

But now I answer to nobody, my life is gloriously aimless, and I can mess about 'till the cows meander home. When my time eventually comes, the last post on my blog will be "Alan Burnett - Stopped Messing About"

Market Forces

 

MARKET FORCES : The hidden hand of competition that brings together buyers and sellers of bacon, beef and free range eggs under the cast-iron canopy of Victorian elegance. That was Halifax Borough Market fifty years ago.