Year: 2019

Chip Shop In Halifax (1970)

Chip Shop In Halifax (1968) There was a time when every street corner had its own chip shop: a healthier age, when folk walked for their take-aways.

Straight Cut At Brookfoot

Everything seemed simpler 100 years ago, there was less clutter. The mills were proportionate, their chimneys vertical, the houses in neat rows and the canal cut straight through the landscape. This picture postcard of the area known as Brookfoot just to the west of Brighouse, is fairly typical of the first decade of the twentieth … Continue reading Straight Cut At Brookfoot

Trio With A Bow

Unknown Group : c1918 Sometimes you don't need to know who the people are. You don't need to know their story: their past, present or future. Sometimes the image itself is enough.

Devil’s Cauldron Or Cradle Of The Arts?

SCANNED NEGATIVES : HALIFAX FROM THE SHIBDEN VALLEY (c1968) This is one of my photos from 50 years ago and shows Halifax from  the Shibden Valley. The town seems to be spilling from the lip of some giant industrial cauldron, or nestling in a cradle of the arts. This particular photograph comes from a time … Continue reading Devil’s Cauldron Or Cradle Of The Arts?

Bull Green, Halifax

POSTCARDS FROM HOME : BULL GREEN, HALIFAX (1950s) Bull Green, Halifax in the 1950s. Little has changed as far as the built environment is concerned, but it is a different world revolving around the roundabout these days. I suspect that this postcard dates from the 1950s, but as it was never postally used I have … Continue reading Bull Green, Halifax

Cobbles And Clotheslines

SCANNED NEGATIVES : COBBLES AND CLOTHESLINES Another of my photographs from fifty years ago. This was one of the many streets that climbed the hill to Claremount, Halifax. Streets of cobbles and clotheslines. Many of the tightly packed streets that climbed up New Bank were swept away when Burdock Way carved its way through Halifax. … Continue reading Cobbles And Clotheslines

Oaks And Stone

PICTURES FROM NOWHERE : OAKS AND STONE, RUPERRA, 7th APRIL 1932 An old photograph of a young man walking near Ruperra Castle in Wales in 1932. The photo is entitled "Oaks and Stone", but that poetic title is the extent of my knowledge. This is a print from a tiny album of photographs taken in … Continue reading Oaks And Stone

Brass And Bibles

Postcards From Home : Commercial Street, Halifax (1908) When it came to buildings, the folk of West Yorkshire favoured banks and chapels; temples to the soul and to commerce; brass and bibles. This fine building was erected in 1898 for the Halifax and Huddersfield Union Banking Company. To make way for it, part of Somerset … Continue reading Brass And Bibles

Losing The Thread

I'm not sure of the name of this machine, but generations of mill workers in my family will have known it well. To them it signified toil inside a dark mill; to me it is a shape against the light.  I have lost the thread.