Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
Here For The Day
This week, our weekly picture-postcard puzzle takes us to the United States. It is April 1906, and the writer simply tells us that his hand is still improving and that he is “here for the day.” The place in question appears to be the Pensions Building in Washington DC, where Civil War pensions were calculated and administered. The card was addressed to J. Hemmings, Esq., at the corporate headquarters of the Nobel Explosives Company. Make of all that what you will!
Keep reading
Shapes, Shades, And Stories
Sometimes you simply go somewhere and take photographs – no theme, no agenda, no expectations. As a record of a day out, it works better than any 5,000-word essay: shapes, shades, and…
Enjoy The View
I wish I could remember taking this photograph, but I can’t; after all, it was a long time ago. I must have been up Clifton way, looking down over the lower Calder…
Leaving The Shed
This 1947 photograph came into my care through family hand-me-downs and shows a retirement party at a Bingley mill in January 1947. It is not clear whether the person retiring is the…
Electric Houses And Botany Worsted Suits
Two adverts from Halifax newspapers 100 years ago today paint an interesting picture of society in the 1920s. One advert is for new suits, available from Sam Stocks for £5.50.…
Gone And Going
It’s probably been sixty years since I took this photograph of the old railway sheds beside North Bridge in Halifax, and a lot has happened since then. The sheds have…
