Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
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 the lip of the cauldron that was Halifax, on the other side of the valley, and try to capture the smoke, soot and industry that was my home town. This photo, however, is only from a few years ago: the fields are green, the sky is blue and the cauldron…
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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 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…
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…
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