Author: Alan Burnett

Ivy The Musician

There are the faces you can't put names to and then there are the names you don't have a face for. Yesterday, however, after a trip to meet a generous distant relative in Wales, I was finally able to put a face to my father's cousin Ivy Miriam Burnett. And not only did I get … Continue reading Ivy The Musician

Headscarves In Halifax

Sometimes it is the poor photos, the blurred photos, the crumpled and skew-whiff photos, that seem to capture the mood and feeling of a time better than the most pinprick sharp compositions. I took this in Halifax in 1965 - that's the Borough Market in the background - and it sings of its era. If … Continue reading Headscarves In Halifax

Eunice And Leslie

Any box of old family photographs contains pictures of people you recognise and a few that you don’t. Those are the challenges, the pieces of the jig-saw puzzle that don’t easily fit. Who were Eunice and Leslie, and why do I have two copies of this same photograph; one dedicated to Peggy and the other … Continue reading Eunice And Leslie

A Super-Charged Excursion To Northowram

I am not sure whether it was the headline about Halifax's super-charged bus, or the photograph of a collection of trilby wearing municipal leaders gathered around a Halifax Corporation double decker, which caught my attention - but whichever it was, my attention was caught. Having spent a fair amount of my youth waiting for such … Continue reading A Super-Charged Excursion To Northowram

The Soot-Black Horse

I'm still in Halifax, and it's still 1965 (or perhaps 1966). The White Horse is anything but white, nor is it sand-stone clean as it is today. It has Halifax's industrial past seared into its surface, and the man by the lamp post is weighed down by too much work and not enough life.

A Moveable School

I remember walking down Wade Street in Halifax as a young man (en rout to the Brewers’ Cellar pub which was famous for its liberal interpretation of the licensing laws). It was a dark and dismal street and I have no recollection of passing the fine 1846 Sunday School building that dominates the street today. … Continue reading A Moveable School

Auditors Report (Blossom)

AUDITORS REPORT (BLOSSOM) : Once again nature gets its production targets wrong resulting in a massive over production of Spring blossom with piles of it just littering the ground and going to waste. This is inefficiency at its worst. Glorious, unnecessary, uneconomical inefficiency.

A Walk Down Russel Street

As I scan my way through a strip of old negatives, I am constantly amending decisions I have made about when and where some of the photographs were taken. Many of these negatives are over fifty years old, and over the years they have gathered their own collection of scratches, dust spots and blemishes. I … Continue reading A Walk Down Russel Street

As Was

In those days, if you were going to have your photograph taken, you would get out your Sunday best, your chapel suits and parlour dresses. You’d wash your faces, comb your hair, and smile against a studio backdrop. Not this family, however. THIS WAS LIFE AS IT WAS.