Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
Up Gog Hill
This is a photograph I took at the bottom of Gog Hill in Elland about fifty years ago. Because my in-laws were living near the top of Gog Hill at the time, I assume I was about to walk up the hill – which is a substantial climb at the best of times. Of course, the sun always shone in my youth, so we can assume it was warm. I considered retracing my steps yesterday but quickly abandoned the idea and stayed…
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A Nice Collection
This postcard was sent from Budapest to North Wales 126 years ago, during the height of the early twentieth-century postcard-collecting boom. It dates from the period before the postcard backs were divided…
Bank Holiday Monday
What better way to celebrate a Bank Holiday Monday than to stride across the green fields of Yorkshire, leaving the smoke-filled streets behind, and then scale the gorse-clad valley sides in search…
Shared Art
These days, if you buy shares in a company, the best you can expect is a pro-forma PDF digital certificate – with all the elegance of a breeze block. Back in the…
Waiting For The Cable To Drop
This is an old photograph, picked at random from the boxes and drawers of old photographs I live with. There is nothing special about it – I have no idea…
Temple To Steam
While we’re on the subject of ancient monuments (see yesterday’s post), what about this fine obelisk? Built as a temple to Steam, the god of industry, it was worshipped by…
Them And Us
Down south, if they find a load of standing stones, they declare it an ancient monument and charge people £30 to look at it. Up north, we simply assume they’re…
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