Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
Looking Down
The photograph is one of dozens I’ve taken of Halifax from the top of Beacon Hill over the years. This particular one dates from the early 1970s. Sometimes, however, I’d been blessed with the ability to draw so I could have captured the view’s magical detail. Fear not: artificial intelligence enables dreams to come true (and a fair number of nightmares as well, but that’s another story).
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Rainy Days
You expect rain in Manchester. When I was there last week it rained from the moment I got off the train until the moment I stepped back on the train again, four…
Liverpool!
This is a wonderful photograph – so much more eloquent than the usual smiling-face mugshot. That’s my mother pointing, my brother Roger digging in the sand, and me looking attentively at what…
Fishy Shapes
Like a cross between Halloween-costumed children and monsters auditioning for Doctor Who, these smokestacks dominated the skyline at Grimsby Fish Docks 40 or 50 years ago. I visited the docks whenever I could…
Never, Never, So
.. And speaking of fakes! No doubt people will recall the time Vincent van Gogh spent in Halifax in the early 1870s, and his fondness of the view from Greetland…
It Was Never So
This image comes from a 120 year old picture postcard of Halifax, and it is about as fake as any modern AI generated concoction. The colours have been painted in…
Skipping The Puddles
I’ve called this “Skipping the Puddles” because there are lots of skips and lots of puddles. It must be over forty years ago that I took the photograph, which means…
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