Picture History

My photo dates back to the 1960s and shows the junction of Cripplegate and Mulcture Hall Road in Halifax. There's a textbook-full of history in the buildings and a library's worth in the names of these two historic streets that run next to Halifax Minster. From healing wells to tolls for grinding corn, there's history … Continue reading Picture History

Stoned

I took this photo a few years ago in Bradford, and what appealed to me was all the different types of stone on view in an anonymous back street. There's faced stone, rough stone, cobbled stone, and carved stone, and half a dozen other types you can spend a happy evening inventing names for. You … Continue reading Stoned

Windows 80

I call this photograph Windows 80, not as a tribute to some upcoming Microsoft operating system, but because it was taken in 1980 looking out of the window of my parents-in-law's house in Bedford Street, Elland. Images can truly transport us, and the sight of those curtains, the bowl of fruit, and those plastic flowers … Continue reading Windows 80

The Sea, The Sea

My mother loved the sea. Go within salt-spray distance of the coast, and you would find her paddling along the shoreline, watching the waves come in. My brother sent me this photograph of her the other day from his island home, way across the ocean. It's been a good few years since I've seen him. … Continue reading The Sea, The Sea

The Cauldron

On countless occasions in my youth, I would walk through Northowram village, along Howes Lane to the point where the earth ends and Shibden Valley begins. I would focus my camera on the lip of the cauldron that was Halifax, on the other side of the valley, and try to capture the smoke, soot and … Continue reading The Cauldron

Hebridean Dreaming

We were whisky distillery-hopping on Islay (can they be a finer way to spend time?) As someone once said (or sung), we stopped into a church, we passed along the way. I took this photograph, and then we moved on. Hebridean dreaming, on such a winter's day.

… And They Sailed Away

My trawl through my collection of old photographs to find a suitable illustration for St. Valentine's Day came up with this one. As so often is the case, I have no idea who these two are or where and when the photo was taken. That doesn't matter: it perfectly illustrates what Valentine's Day is all … Continue reading … And They Sailed Away

A Beacon Hill Timeline

I sometimes think that one of my most useful contributions to history would be to produce a Beacon Hill timeline. So many old photographs of Halifax feature Beacon Hill as an ever-present dramatic backdrop, and the changing degree of vegetation on the hill could provide a useful timestamp in dating such photos. After consulting the … Continue reading A Beacon Hill Timeline

Photographic History

This photograph came to me from my Great Uncle, Fowler Beanland, who, during the First World War, was a foreman at a munitions factory in Keighley. The photo shows fifteen female munitions workers - just a small proportion of the many hundreds who worked for Longbottom and Farrar's, which was, at the time, part of … Continue reading Photographic History