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I was looking through my photographs the other day for one of the old Northowram Hospital, and I came across this photograph, which I took just a little further along Lands Head Lane showing Marsh Hall. When I took this photograph fifty years ago, the 16th/17th century Hall was showing its age; towards the end of last century, however, it was spruced up and renovated. I went to the Hall back in the 1950s when it was occupied by a farmer and milkman whose son was in the same class as me at Junior School. I remember being fascinated by those wonderful old windows which, when seen from the dark interior, seemed to let light flood into the room. If it was anywhere else other than West Yorkshire, the house would probably be famous with people travelling miles to see it. Here, it keeps itself and its history to itself, not wanting to make a fuss.

I can’t be certain, but it must have been around 1967. I had been to the Central Library – which, at the time, was perversely located about a mile from the centre of Halifax – and I was walking back to the bus station, down Hanson Lane. I had my camera with me (which was more of a creative investment back in those days when cameras were bulky, heavy, far from smart, and unable to make the simplest of phone calls), and I was anxious to capture something of interest. The fire engines, hosepipes and watching crowds provided me with just the opportunity I needed: a fire in Halifax.

The original shot was in black and white, but I couldn’t resist adding a touch of colour to brighten up my daily calendar on a very damp and monochrome day.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) colouring programmes are all the rage at the moment, and can be quite successful when it comes to adding yellow sands and blue skies to an old snap of Blackpool, or even a bit of colour to the cheeks of your Great Aunt Maude. The real test, however, is asking the AI wizard to colourise something a little more gritty, and a little less likely to feature in the coded algorithms of blue dresses and green leaves. As a test – and for want of something better to do whilst being half bored to death by a tedious goal-less FA Cup tie on the telly – I subjected one of my old photographs of Dean Clough to Deep Blue and his/her mates. The result is some mucky looking steam, enough browns to kit out a small army, and a few greys with smiley faces. On the whole, not bad!  (Update: there were two goals in the last five minutes of extra time).

I was lying in bed last night thinking, the way one does, about neural pathways. I can’t be sure that is the correct name for the strange threads that connect memories together, but if it isn’t, it will do until a better one comes along. Like country pathways, they tend to avoid straight lines, and cannot resist going from A to B via J, Q and G. What started this thought journey off was the random choice for my daily calendar for today which is a photograph I took at the Halifax Labour Party Flower, Fruit and Vegetable Show some fifty-three or fifty-four years ago. Leaving behind the somewhat quaint vision of these fathers and mothers of modern socialism with their entries for best dressed dahlias and presentation plates of soft fruit, my memory was quickly striding off down every neural pathway in sight. Yes, that is the then Halifax MP, Shirley Summerskill, anxiously awaiting the presentation of prizes. The hall is, I think, the one that used to be below the Halifax Labour Party rooms in St James Street: my memory of the internal layout of the building is less than perfect, although I can remember those stage curtains and back wallpaper as if it was yesterday. From that hall, the neural pathways lead to all manner of people and places, and with the photograph on my desk for this coming day of twenty-first century lockdown, it will provide me with endless opportunities to go rambling in my mind.