Whenever I look at my old photographs of Halifax from the sixties and seventies, I am reminded of just how much it was a period of change for the town. Roads were being built whilst others were being demolished, chimneys were coming down whilst tower blocks were going up. And the trees were coming back: after being ground down by the soot of the industrial revolution for two centuries, they were beginning to repopulate the hills.
This third photograph taken from the top of Beacon Hill seems to sum all that change up. The road up to Southowram seems to snake like a lazy s: the old is being swept away by the new.
alanburnett.com 
And at the top the S-bend lies a factory, Mitchell and Broadbent’s notorious Boneyard, happily now swept away by the new. On any nice summer’s day in Halifax, down in the dip, all nostrils were assailed by the sickly sweet stench of boiling bones and rotting carcases, a by-product of the factory’s activities. Alan will remember this well. Employed in the “Mit” cat food department, as her daytime occupation, was Lily Fogg, along with Big Daddy, one of the town’s most famous citizens. Lily is celebrated in a folk ballad which can be heard on Youtube, for anyone interested.
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