It is my birthday today, so it is a perfect excuse for a birthday selfie. This photograph - and no, it is not a selfie - must have been taken almost sixty years ago, and I am pictured on the brow of the appropriately named Lunevale, which was the ferry that ran from Fleetwood to Knott … Continue reading Lunevale
Year: 2019
Fowler’s Album
My interest in vintage postcards started sixty or more years ago when, as a child, I would be taken to visit my mother's Uncle Fowler. Whilst the grown-ups talked, I would look through the album of old picture postcards he had. When he died, the album came to my mother, who - knowing my interest … Continue reading Fowler’s Album
Heath Grammar School
This postcard dates from the first decade of the twentieth century and shows the familiar frontage of, what was, Heath Grammar School, on Free Schools Lane, Halifax. Although the school dates back to the 16th century, the building as depicted on this postcard will only have been thirty or so years old when the photograph … Continue reading Heath Grammar School
Dark Forgotten Mills
A strip of medium format negatives dating from the 1980s is the next to go on my scanning machine. I took these photographs whilst on a walk down Shaw Lane in Halifax, at a time of transition for the town. The last of the mills that had been at the heart of the economic and … Continue reading Dark Forgotten Mills
Walking Man With Blue Spots
Back in the days when picture postcards were all the rage and the demand for colour photographs outstripped the technological ability to be able to deliver them, monochrome photographs were hand coloured. Most were done with skill and care, but occasionally short cuts were taken. It was nearly going-home time and the weekend was just … Continue reading Walking Man With Blue Spots
Coincidence At Clark Bridge Mills
A strange set of coincidences took me on a virtual trip to Clark Bridge Mills in Halifax yesterday. It started with my never-ending quest to prune my bookshelves - the Good lady Wife keeps threatening to bring in a structural engineer as she believes that the beams and floorboards can no longer support the weight … Continue reading Coincidence At Clark Bridge Mills
A Halifax Alms Race
Although this postcard was not postally used - and therefore has no convenient postmark on the back to help date it - we can be reasonably sure it dates from that first decade of the twentieth century, when picture postcards were the Twitter of their day. The card shows Sir Francis Crossley's Almshouses which are … Continue reading A Halifax Alms Race
Fancy Goods And Photographs
In Search Of Edward Gregson Part 2 My research into the life and times of Edward Gregson, photographer, of Halifax and Blackpool is both illogical and unstructured: flitting between odd facts and unrelated times, and punctuated by portraits of anonymous Victorian worthies. It is a journey of discovery in which gazing out of the window … Continue reading Fancy Goods And Photographs
Beauty And The Pint
Sunset Over The Calder Valley. Looking West From Upper Edge, Elland The perfect combination: my senses drink in the beauty of the Calder Valley at sunset as I enter the majestic Rock Tavern, Elland, to drink in a fine pint of Weaver's Bitter.
alanburnett.com 