Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
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 took this photograph, and then we moved on. Hebridean dreaming, on such a winter’s day.
Keep reading… 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 an ever-present…
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 female munitions…
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…
Yorkshire Imperialism
I don’t know which hillside it was. I remember taking the photograph whilst on the Settle to Carlisle line, so there is just a chance that it might even by…





