We've been taking Lucy up to Stainland Recreation Ground for her walks these last few weeks. It makes a change from the usual circuit of the Crematorium ("the circle of gloom", as Lucy likes to call it). You can look down on a green world from up there. It is Yorkshire at its best: a … Continue reading No Stain On The Land
Author: Alan Burnett
Ten From The Seaside 7 : Donkeys On The Sands
Donkeys On The Sands, Skegness, c.1982 : It's as British as marmalade on toast and malt vinegar on chips: donkeys on the sands. How many times have foreign invaders been driven back from the coast by a cornet-carrying child mounted on a dapple donkey?
Trench Parting
This is an old Cabinet Card of an unknown soldier. How it came into my possession, I do not know. But look at the parting in his hair: as straight as a die, as pronounced as a Flanders trench.
A Chess Box Full Of Memories
Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week shows two railway workers in Finland playing chess during a break from work. That stance of studied concentration is matched perfectly by my picture which features a chess game between my father and myself. The photograph must have been taken by my brother, Roger, and it dates from … Continue reading A Chess Box Full Of Memories
10 From The Seaside : Paint Cleethorpes
Basic ingredients for a British seaside holiday : a pier, some sand, a bucket, and a palette full of grey paint. Any resort: paint the Humber estuary, paint Cleethorpes.
Northern Capitals 14 : The Look-Out
So here we are, sailing across the Skagerrak in 1925 on the SS City Of Nagpur and here is our look-out. I can't attest as to how good a watchman he was, but he made an excellent subject for a photograph. The look on his face is up there with the Mona Lisa in the … Continue reading Northern Capitals 14 : The Look-Out
10 From The Seaside 5 : Bingo, Fruit And Ice Cream
The seaside is more than sea and sand and lobster pots. The seaside is rock and ice cream and games of bingo in neon-lit halls - all to the accompaniment of coin-dropping fruit machines. This was Bridlington back in the 1970s. It still is, fifty years later.
The Language Of The Mill And The Stone Terraced House
I have always found old photographs to be the best stimulus for rekindling memories. This is a photograph of my grandfather, Albert Beanland (1875-1948) which must have been taken in the 1930s or 1940s when he was living along with his wife, Catherine, in Bradford. Albert died in the same year I was born, so … Continue reading The Language Of The Mill And The Stone Terraced House
Northern Capitals 13 : Flora, Matilda And Reg
We are a third of the way through the 1925 photo album of a voyage around the Northern Capitals and by now I feel as if I am getting to know some of the passengers quite well. I give them names - that's Flora on the right and Matilda on the left. The ship's officer … Continue reading Northern Capitals 13 : Flora, Matilda And Reg
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