I took this photo 50+ years ago. I never printed it, it somehow didn’t seem worth the paper. From a technical point of view, it hasn’t improved with time, but it has become more resonant. It speaks of the past - of headscarves and unwashed spuds.
Desktop Calendar : 6 – 8 August 2023
It's quite rare for early photographs to feature people in their working clothes. Whilst working people had their photographs taken, visits to photographers' studios were occasions when you wore you "Sunday best". I don't know what the origin of this particular photograph was (other than it was taken in the Oxford Electric Studios in Cardiff) … Continue reading Desktop Calendar : 6 – 8 August 2023
Halfway To Paradise
You’ve got to have a certain sense of humour to name a street “Paradise Street”. You might just get away with it with a row of mansions overlooking a sun-drenched beach in the Caribbean: but not a back street in Halifax. But who knows, a house to live in and a cobbled street to park … Continue reading Halfway To Paradise
Halifax’s Plastic Skittle
Memory is a great trickster. Ask me for one of my most endearing visual memories of Halifax in the 1960s and 70s and I will tell you about the 14 foot high plastic bowling pin that used to grace the top of the Halifax Bowl at the junction of Broad Street and Orange Street. I … Continue reading Halifax’s Plastic Skittle
What A Difference An “E” Makes
A new batch of Victorian and Edwardian Carte de Visites dropped through my letterbox the other day and amongst them was this fabulous little photograph. Whilst most of such random purchases can only be captioned “unknown sitter”, this particular one had the addition of a pencilled name and date on the back. The date was … Continue reading What A Difference An “E” Makes
Desktop Calendar : 3 – 5 August 2023
You can never be sure with found photographs. The only thing we can be sure about with this old photograph is that it comes from the photographic studio of Alfred Joslin of Bank Street, Carlisle. Joslin was active around the time of the First World War, and the clothing of this young lady suggests that … Continue reading Desktop Calendar : 3 – 5 August 2023
The Wandering Lion Of Stoke
I must have taken this photograph fifty-odd years ago when I was living near Stoke-on-Trent. Even then I couldn’t resist passing a pub without taking a photograph, just in case it wasn't there the next time. In the case of the Red Lion, Stoke, it wasn’t. It had been demolished brick by brick, only to … Continue reading The Wandering Lion Of Stoke
A Smooth And Symphonic Final Journey
These two cuttings come from a crumbling old copy of the Halifax Courier and Guardian dated the 4th February 1922 which I found in the attic. The big news of the day was not the economic and political crisis that Britain was going through, nor was it the developing Irish Civil War: it was the … Continue reading A Smooth And Symphonic Final Journey
Is That You, Uncle Albert?
You’d think in this day and age, when we can transmit pictures of our breakfast to the entire world in nanoseconds and send a drone to look in your neighbours back garden, that it would be possible to determine whether this was a photograph of my great Uncle Albert. If artificial intelligence had more than … Continue reading Is That You, Uncle Albert?
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