Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
The Sea, The Sea
My mother loved the sea. Go within salt-spray distance of the coast, and you would find her paddling along the shoreline, watching the waves come in. My brother sent me this photograph of her the other day from his island home, way across the ocean. It’s been a good few years since I’ve seen him. Perhaps I should head for the coast, look out, and see if I can see him.
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The Cauldron
On countless occasions in my youth, I would walk through Northowram village, along Howes Lane to the point where the earth ends and Shibden Valley begins. I would focus my camera on…
Hebridean Dreaming
We were whisky distillery-hopping on Islay (can they be a finer way to spend time?) As someone once said (or sung), we stopped into a church, we passed along the way. I…
… And They Sailed Away
My trawl through my collection of old photographs to find a suitable illustration for St. Valentine’s Day came up with this one. As so often is the case, I have no idea…
A Beacon Hill Timeline
I sometimes think that one of my most useful contributions to history would be to produce a Beacon Hill timeline. So many old photographs of Halifax feature Beacon Hill as…
Photographic History
This photograph came to me from my Great Uncle, Fowler Beanland, who, during the First World War, was a foreman at a munitions factory in Keighley. The photo shows fifteen…
Scale And Emptiness In Downtown Stoke
When I look back at these old photographs of mine – I took this picture of a street in Stoke-on-Trent some fifty-five years ago – it is the scale that…
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