Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
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. The other advertises a competition to win a new house, fully fitted with electricity, or alternatively, a cheque for £2,000. If we apply the same ratio between the two prices and base it on what I paid for a new suit a couple of weeks ago, the new house would cost £56,000.
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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 gone, replaced…
Fishing For Postcards
This week’s postcard comes from the collection of my great-uncle, Fowler Beanland. It shows the Mechanics’ Institute in Keighley, a building with which he would have been very familiar. It was built…
Reflections Of Bradford
Artificial intelligence can manipulate images in wonderful ways, transforming corporate headquarters into Dalí-esque fantasies and Victorian piles into Gaudí-esque dreams. However, you don’t need AI when a plate-glass office block can provide…
Look At That
This is another of my “little flakes of history”: a negative from the 1920s depicting an unknown trio who have clearly found something of great significance in the bushes. “Look…
When I’m Cleaning Windows
Now I go cleaning windows to earn an honest bob For a nosy parker it’s an interestin’ job Now it’s a job that just suits me A window cleaner you…
