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
10 From The Seaside 4 : Bridlington Breakwater
The sands of the Yorkshire beaches are punctuated with stout wooden breakwaters. Designed to break the backs of the raw North Sea waves, they also provide somewhere to sit down, and - occasionally - provide shade from the sun.
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