This photo of my mother sat on my fathers' Excelsior motorbike dates, I think, from the 1940s. It was taken at our house on Southmere Drive in Bradford, and I recognise that path and that fence, even though we moved away from Bradford in 1953 when I was just 5. The fence I remember well, … Continue reading Excelsior Forgotten
Category: Family Photographs
Digging For Memories
This is my father digging the back garden at our house in Northowram back in the late 1950s. He might as well have been digging for memories because there are so many of them in this picture: that lethal asbestos hut, those granite sets liberated from the nearby quarry, and that youth perched on the … Continue reading Digging For Memories
Return To The Mill
Today is the 750th Sepia Saturday, an internet meme I created back in the days when blogs were king and social media was in its infancy. For 750 weeks lovers of old photographs from all over the world have been sharing their finds and their treasures. This is my 750th contribution. My featured photograph this … Continue reading Return To The Mill
Trucks And Mills
Bowls And Bookends
Half Formed Memories
The true delight of old family photographs is that they can take you back in time, not just to the years of your youth, but to those impossibly distant times before you were born. Here is a photograph of a group of people posing in front of a large stone structure with a lighthouse in … Continue reading Half Formed Memories
Inconsequential Photographs
You can't beat inconsequential photographs: photos without any great meaning or purpose. You can wander around them at leisure, stopping off to look at half a car here or a faded billboard there. You can ask questions without the need of answers - what is that train doing in the middle of the road? Uncle … Continue reading Inconsequential Photographs
Auntie Annie
Annie Elizabeth was born in February 1903, the second daughter of my grandparents Enoch and Harriet Burnett. Like all young working class girls born in Bradford at the start of the twentieth century she was destined for the mill - Bradford was regarded as the world centre of the worsted industry - and she will … Continue reading Auntie Annie
Can’t See The Moores For The Trees
This family photograph from the 1930s perfectly captures a marriage of style and elegance. It also captures a marriage between two people, but I am a little uncertain as to who they are. The one person I can identify is the man seated second from the left, the man with a hairstyle of sculptured grandeur, … Continue reading Can’t See The Moores For The Trees
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