That's it! I've had enough of the grey skies and drizzle-caked streets of West Yorkshire for a while. It's time for a break: time for the sun, time for the sea, time for something different. So if nothing emerges from my various blogs and social media streams over the next couple of weeks, worry not. … Continue reading Gone To Mablethorpe, Back Soon?
Month: January 2019
A Trip Through The Stratosphere To Southend (Sepia Saturday 452)
The Sepia Saturday theme this week focuses on means of transport and has a photograph from the 1950s that seems to look back to an earlier age. My submission is a photograph from the 1930s that looks to the future.
What Is Picturesque About Halifax?
Here's a challenge for you! If you had to put together a postcard featuring five views of Halifax and entitled "Picturesque Halifax", which views would you choose? Probably not the ones featured on this vintage postcard from 100 years ago.
A Telephone Call Interrupts A Night At Huddersfield’s Microscopical Soiree
My random-driven time machine sends me off to a meeting of the Huddersfield Literary And Scientific Society in 1879, but whilst I am looking at a wood spider through a microscope, a telephone call teaches me a lesson about history.
A Marine, A Car, And Half A Dog
A caption on the reverse of this photograph claims it was taken at the Marine Hotel in Barmouth in 1928. Other than that, I know nothing about it. We have, however, a marine, a car, two fashionable ladies and half a dog. What more could you possibly require in order to write a cracking who-done-it?
Postcards From Home : Southgate Setts
Picture postcards from the first decade of the twentieth century are relatively common: that was when postcards were the text messages of their day, and picture postcard collecting was the hobby of choice. By the 1920s new picture postcards were becoming harder to find. This wonderful colour photograph of Southgate in Halifax dates from that … Continue reading Postcards From Home : Southgate Setts
Transcending Silver Salts In Hebden Bridge
A good vintage photograph is one in which the personality of the subject being photographed somehow transcends the chemical process of silver salts and hypo fixer, and flows straight off the pasteboard card. This photograph of an unknown woman from the Hebden Bridge studio of Crossley Westerman is one such photograph. Westerman established his "Electric … Continue reading Transcending Silver Salts In Hebden Bridge
Postcards From Home : Halifax’s Hospital On The Hill
No doubt the transport engineers who have spent a lot of time and money widening the road outside what is now Calderdale Royal Hospital would be jealous of the wide open spaces on this real photographic postcard from the early twentieth century. The hospital was opened in 1901 and went under a variety of names … Continue reading Postcards From Home : Halifax’s Hospital On The Hill
Random History : The Highly Gratified Poor
Today, our random time machine takes us back to 1873 and up the valley to Heptonstall. Ah, the good old days when Victorian values were paramount and if you gave someone from the poorhouse an orange they would be "highly gratified". "TREAT TO THE POOR - On New Year's Day (through the kindness and liberality … Continue reading Random History : The Highly Gratified Poor
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