Few history books compare with a Yorkshire stone wall. There is everything there, from the sandstone of ancient rivers and streams to the carved geometry of hillside stone quarries. There's sculptured trimmings of fine country houses and there's ingrained soot of mills and factories. All children should spend at least one day of their school … Continue reading Stone History
Category: Calendar
Keep Still
This photograph comes from the collection put together by my fathers' cousin, Ivy Burnett. She was born in 1906 so she may have been part of this gathering which looks as though it dates from the early 1920s. The faces are fascinating: the studied expressions were a necessity of slow shutter speeds. In every crowd, … Continue reading Keep Still
Some Classroom
Almost forty years ago I was doing some teaching for what was then Sheffield Polytechnic. The course was based at Wentworth Woodhouse, one of the largest and most spectacular country houses in Europe. At the time, only six or seven rooms were being used for teaching; the other two hundred and ninety-odd were unoccupied. I'll … Continue reading Some Classroom
Telephone Line
Blue days, black nights, doo-wah, doo-lang;I look into the sky (the love you need ain't gonna see you through);And I wonder why (the little things you planned ain't coming true) ....
Gladys At The Seaside
This photograph of my mother at the seaside was taken eleven years before I was born. A scribbled caption on the reverse of the small print says "Shanklin, Isle of Wight, 1937". Looking at the photograph now, 86 years after it was taken, it is almost like reaching back through time and watching the prequel … Continue reading Gladys At The Seaside
Found On The Sands
This image comes from my stock of found photos, or photos of unknown origin. They are prints - and in this case a negative - that I have acquired in one way or another of the last half century. I don't know the subjects, nor where the photograph was taken (but I suspect someone will … Continue reading Found On The Sands
Rhodes Street, Halifax
I think this is Rhodes Street in Halifax, but it was 50 years ago and, like the emulsion on a sepia photograph, my memory fades. It's another era: a time once removed from the modern digital age of today.
Rum Rails
The rum distillery prided itself on being authentic, traditional, hand-crafted and all the rest. The sugar cane was cut in the fields by hand, trundled along a precarious railway line and then crushed by a waterwheel press. The boiling vats were stirred by hand and the finished rum was bottled by a machine brought to … Continue reading Rum Rails
Fed Up
You know the feeling: you've been sat there at least an hour while he has been messing about with that camera of his, poking bellows, fiddling with plates, head hidden under a black cloth. And it's not as though you have nothing better to do - that oak table won't polish itself and there is … Continue reading Fed Up
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