A photograph from 1990 of the rather grand ornamental cast-iron clock tower at Greenock Customs House Quay at the mouth of the River Clyde. It's seen better days, but it's listed and about to be restored. And that's half the year gone: time seems to go so fast, and I've seen better days. I'm not … Continue reading Listed Time

With a look pitched somewhere between haughty and flirtatious, this young woman posed before the camera of the Bingley photographer George Tillett more than a century ago. The resulting photograph will have been passed down family generations, subject to the sad laws of decreasing recognition, until it was sold off in a job lot of … Continue reading The Sad Laws Of Decreasing Recognition

Yesterday I went in search of the day before. In some ways it was unchanged: the cobbles, the chimneys, the stone-thick mill walls. In other ways there have been changes: fine craft replacing hard graft, variety replacing dull monotony. The Shears Inn remains - historic and magnificent, and the beer is so much better than … Continue reading Memory Lane

For the last twenty years I have been a member of a disreputable organisation that used to be known as the Old Gits, which holds monthly meetings in a variety of pubs, taverns and inns throughout West Yorkshire. Some years ago we decided, in the sprit of Mao-Tse-Tung's Theory of Continuous Revolution, to re-invent ourselves … Continue reading Shear Luck

I am always being told that I should get out more and that it is unhealthy to stay in my little room scanning old images. So today I went out, and as I walked the dog down the road, I picked a few random wild flowers. I quickly returned to the safety of my little … Continue reading Scanning Nature

For a time, during the late 1970s, I had a job leading parties of foreign visitors on tours of historic London pubs. One of my favourite stopping off points was the magnificent Art Nouveau Black Friar pub on Queen Victoria Street, which, back then, had only recently been saved from the threat of demolition. As … Continue reading Black Friar