Copley Conversation

Extracts From A Conversation 60 Years Ago: Someone Else : "Why are you taking a photograph of Copley Bridge?" Me: "I don't know, perhaps it wont be there one day and it will be interesting to look back and see a picture of what it used to look like". SE: "Don't be silly!"

And Then They Left

It was 1982, a couple of years before the miners' strike. It was the annual Yorkshire Miners' Gala which, that year, was taking place in Doncaster. The pit banners had already been paraded through the town to the tune of a dozen brass bands. And then they left.

Fire, Fire!

Yet another photo from that "Fire In Halifax" sequence of mine from 59 years ago. Do firemen still have helmets like this? Do kids still gather around to watch the excitement? These days they would be filming it for a TikTok video - but wan't I doing just that all those years ago?

Snakes And Branches

This view of Elland is taken from an old picture postcard, published more than 120 years ago. Of course, Elland has changed; most of those mill chimneys have gone, and blocks of flats stand where back-to-back houses once clung to the hillside. The river remains, and those roads that either snake along the valley bottom or branch daringly up the Edges.

Enjoy The Music

A family sat outside a cottage relaxing and listening to music streaming from a wind-up gramophone. It's a classic "found photo" - dripping with detail and asking more questions than any government census form. We'll never get answers, but that doesn't matter: sit back and enjoy the music.

Messing About

I've been messing about again, starting the new year as I mean to go on. Those who are familiar with these parts might recognise Halifax Minster somewhere in there and the mighty spire of Square Church. The rest isn't really a photograph and it certainly isn't art - it's just messing about.

Digging For Memories

This is my father digging the back garden at our house in Northowram back in the late 1950s. He might as well have been digging for memories because there are so many of them in this picture: that lethal asbestos hut, those granite sets liberated from the nearby quarry, and that youth perched on the wall.

Keeping Watch

I've been taking this picture for 60 years. I've watched the names change, and I've seen the stone soot-black and bleached pale. I've seen the Hebble flow fast and slow. I've seen carpets and spreadsheets, dyers and diners. Here's hoping for another year to keep watch over this glorious Halifax.

Musical Conflagration

It must have been the same day as the "Fire In Halifax" photos I featured earlier this week as this image is on the same strip of negatives. This, however, is a musical conflagration courtesy of a brass band in People's Park, Halifax. By the look of things, the band outnumbered the audience.

Brutalist Geometry

 

I think I took this photograph in Kelvin Flats in Sheffield, but it was a very long time ago, and I never kept proper notes. So here I sit, 45 years later, trying to retrace my footsteps, which is a bit like trying to solve a problem in brutalist geometry.

Having Fun At Hall End