As I embark on yet another campaign to sort through the endless boxes of "stuff" that occupy my room, I find an old picture postcard of the Shibden Valley, near Halifax. It is a view I know well, having spent my childhood in Northowram, a mile or so further up the valley side from here. … Continue reading Decluttering The Shibden Valley
Category: Calendar
ACORNS
"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn" Ralph Waldo Emerson
STOP IT
CLEETHORPES, 1983 (ALAN BURNETT) : I must stop messing about with old photographs: blurring them, changing them, artying them up. It has become a form of compulsive behaviour, and I have gone way beyond the line in the sand where I can judge whether they are of any value.
BLUE SKIES AND WARM STONE
Church Street, Honley A walk from Netherton to Honley and back again - down, up, down, up - and the day decides to practice at being Spring. The skies are blue and the stone is thinking about trying to absorb the coming heat.
TICKETS PLEASE
Vintage Bus Tickets (Alan Burnett) There is something rather beautiful about old bus tickets. Those stout cardboard ones from seventy or so years ago, or those brightly coloured paper ones of forty or fifty years ago - there is both a tactile and visual pleasure in both. Where they exist today, bus tickets are meaningless … Continue reading TICKETS PLEASE
ROMEO REMEMBERED
The Edwardian actor, Harcourt Williams, As Romeo (1905) The absence of Instagram and the like back in Edwardian times meant that celebrities had to turn to other methods of "getting themselves out there". Luckily they were able to climb onto the great postcard craze bandwagon. Ernest George Harcourt Williams (1880-1957) began his career playing Mr … Continue reading ROMEO REMEMBERED
Back Home
I've been back home a week from my pram-pushing excursion to the snowy Dolomites, and for one reason or another I don't seem able to settle into a routine. Even my desk-top calendar was left uncreated. Time for a hard reset, and what better way to celebrate being back home than with one of the … Continue reading Back Home
The Acme Of Perfection In Pierrotic Entertainment
I inherited this photograph from my Auntie Annie and Uncle Harry. During the late twenties and early thirties, Uncle Harry "trod the boards" as a member of a touring concert party - "The Silhouettes". Harry was the featured "pianist and tenor vocalist", and that is Harry, second from the right, with his wavy hair blowing … Continue reading The Acme Of Perfection In Pierrotic Entertainment
From Alpine Pram-Pushing To The Age Of Snaps
So here we are, a new month, and safely returned from a week in the Dolomites pushing a pram up a mountainside. Alpine pram-pushing is still a relatively new sport, and there was a possibility that we might have been chosen for the British team for the Winter Olympics, but a couple of unfortunate falls … Continue reading From Alpine Pram-Pushing To The Age Of Snaps
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