An old family photograph which must date back to the mid 1930s. The man in the photograph is Charlie Pitts, I am not sure about the woman next to him. It was taken in Blue Anchor, a village in Somerset, when my parents were on a motorbike holiday with Charlie and his lady friend.
Castle Hill in Huddersfield: There have been settlements here for more than 4,000 years and numerous hill forts and castle have stood on top of the hill. The current tower dates only from 1899, when it was erected to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
When the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the stone is glowing, and the power cables humming, can there be a finer place in the world than West Yorkshire? In this case, the fields and farms above Greetland, near Halifax.
These old parish division markers have been gathered together in a local park. They tell of days when localities were divided by poverty, and local Board of Guardians would endlessly seek to limit the boundaries of social responsibility.
As with so many of my old photographs, I have no idea who this person is, nor where the photograph was taken. The “when” question, however, is far more inviting, and the lady in question whispers “1920s’ to me.
Stepping back slightly from yesterday’s photograph, this gives a better idea of where the snicket was – and still is. Again, this was taken in the 1980s, a time of transition for this part of Halifax. Old Lane seems to justify its name, the various mills seem to be in search of a new future.
A wild flower, picked at random from the roadside and then subjected to a very high resolution scan. The individual flowers are less than half a centimetre wide. I have no idea what it is called – it matters not, it is the shape and the shade that is attractive.
Another typical Yorkshire scene: a freshly mown pasture, parallel hedgerows, fields receding to infinity. This, however, is West Yorkshire, and therefore between the second and third hedges runs the M62, one of the busiest roads in Britain.
A backlit bush and a grainy sky, and little else to do other than walk the dog and play with Photoshop.
