A photograph from when we were living in Sheffield, some 40 years ago. Photoshop filters can easily create this type of look these days, but back then it was down to some lazy exposure and some negligent developing.

I can't pretend that this is a good photo, but it is dripping with local nostalgia. It speaks of a time when policemen wore white raincoats and shoppers wore plastic rain hoods, when Marks was up town and the Boars Head was down below the market .... and the town hall was sooty!

I can't remember exactly where I was in Sheffield when I took this, but there are folk out there who will recognise the location. I can, however, remember that girl, carrying a newspaper almost as big as she was and having a quick read of the news in the middle of the road.

Ah! the days when thrills were characterised by a shilling ride on a waltzer, sheltering from the rain under bulb-spangled awnings, with the scent of freshly cooked chats drifting in the breeze.

As someone said recently, us amateur photographers do like to mess with our photographs. This is a photo I took back in 1982 in the beautiful British Virgin Islands and messed with forty years later. There's not a misaligned sleeve in sight!

Some aspects of the scene are unchanged today - most of the physical buildings remain. There has, however, been a change of mood, something almost imperceptible that says this is 40 years ago and not today. It could be the genesis of a new game - Spot The Era

The shop names and the shape of the cars may be different, and flat caps and plastic rain hoods abound; but the scene is still recognisable. In many places, the modern equivalent would be a pale shadow of commercial enterprise, but not Brighouse. Well done!

The Hebble Brook stealths its way through the bottom end of town - sometimes overground, sometimes underground, usually hidden. When it does break the surface it adds curves and fluidity to a perpendicular landscape.