It was a must-have photograph back in those days. Every time we got a new car - and let's not fool ourselves, a "new car" meant a car new to us - there had to be a photograph of my father standing next to it or sat inside it. The photograph would need to show … Continue reading The Car
Category: Scanned Negatives
Footfall On The Flagstones
Halifax Borough Market in the 1970s: fresh-baked teacakes, brown paper bags full of fruit, slices of boiled ham. Crowds of people - constant footfall on the flagstones.
Dark Days And Wet Cobbles
Halifax Piece Hall back in the 1970s and 80s: in transition between low carrots and high culture. Half full stalls and half empty walkways: dark days and wet cobbles. Everything is so much brighter now, the scale is so much grander.
Scan To Survive
What else is there to do during lockdown than visit the past? Therefore, I scan to survive; and the strip of negatives that took the journey across the scanner today included a set of photos shot in a typically West Yorkshire field some fifty years ago. In the first photograph the field divide is a … Continue reading Scan To Survive
Open Wounds And Cobbled Streets
Demolition : Dean Street and Granville Street, Elland (1970s) It is a sight you don't see much any more - demolition on a large scale. These days it's more discreet: hidden behind scaffolding and plastic sheets. This was Elland back in the early 1970s, when the demolition teams left open wounds: cobbled streets without a … Continue reading Open Wounds And Cobbled Streets
The Cocoa Sheds Of Elland
OLD SHED, CHARLES STREET, ELLAND c1970 In the days of black and white,In total love I fell, andWe'd walk the streets all day and night,By the cocoa sheds of Elland. (With sincere apologies to John Betjeman)
The Day Of The Parade
We all have different ways of occupying ourselves during the Great Lockdown; things we can do that will take our minds off the challenges and dangers that lurk outside the confines of our own houses. As will be obvious to anyone who visits these pages on a regular basis, my own particular approach is to … Continue reading The Day Of The Parade
Bottled Beer And Serial Bankruptcies
The last photo from this strip of six negatives focuses on something which was just visible in the previous image: the monumental end wall of the Old Lane Inn. There must be collective memories out there about this Halifax pub, but the written record is limited to the sad listing of the bankruptcies and liquidations … Continue reading Bottled Beer And Serial Bankruptcies
Between Smoke And Soot
Old Lane And Dean Clough, Halifax (c1970) There was a greyness about Halifax back in those days: fifty or more shades between smoke and soot. But it was honest, hard-worked muck - nowt to be ashamed of.
alanburnett.com 