Month: March 2021

Leather Settees And Decorative Bournemouth

I am not sure which seaside this "seaside snap" from the 1930s was taken at. If it was any other member of my family I would say Bridlington, Scarborough , Blackpool, or - if they were being adventurous - Skegness. This, however, is Auntie Annie (left) and Uncle Harry (second from left), and they led a … Continue reading Leather Settees And Decorative Bournemouth

Grass Is Green, Sky Is Blue

To prove a point I made yesterday, here is a hand-coloured postcard view the Lock-keepers cottage at Salterhebble from around 1905. The artificial intelligence behind this bit of colouring would have been a studio artist, but they would have worked on the same basis as their modern AI equivalent: grass is green, sky is blue, … Continue reading Grass Is Green, Sky Is Blue

50 Shades Of Reality

An old negative of mine from 50 years ago with a dusting of colour provided by some Artificial Intelligence App. The results of such experiments remind me of the artificial colouring of vintage postcards during the first decade of the twentieth century: the results are not exactly accurate, but are attractive to the eye and … Continue reading 50 Shades Of Reality

Ticket To Ride

Uncle Frank collected bus tickets. That's not all: he also collected tape recordings of tv adverts from the 1950s, cigarette cards, and the occasional stamp. It was a relatively harmless pastime, and nothing like as disruptive to the family as, say, Auntie Amy, who collected husbands. I still have some of his old bus tickets … Continue reading Ticket To Ride

Britannia Over Elland

For over a century, Britannia has sat on top of the old bank building and the end of Elland Bridge, flanked by columns of Aberdeen granite, two pubs, and a host of mill chimneys. Whether she was looking at the old gas works, watching the traffic of the new by-pass or scanning Elland Woods - … Continue reading Britannia Over Elland

Rediscovering The Fellow Travellers

This is a photograph of unknown origin, the type of thing some people call an orphan image, which I must have acquired at some point as part of a job lot of old photographs nobody wanted any more. There is, however, an almost painterly quality about it: someone has taken the time to pose the … Continue reading Rediscovering The Fellow Travellers