Category: Scanned Negatives

If It Wasn’t For The Trees In-Between

Back in the 1950s, there was a school geography textbook which, in the section on urban geography, had a picture of Halifax, and pupils were encouraged to count the number of mill chimneys. My photo was taken a decade later, but you could still make a decent counting exercise out of it. These days you … Continue reading If It Wasn’t For The Trees In-Between

Cauldron Lip

If you follow Howes Lane from Northowram to the point when it overlooks the Shibden Valley, you can get wonderful views across that valley towards Halifax. The industry, the heat, the life, and the movement of the town seem to spill over into the quiet valley. I have photographed this cauldron lip many times over … Continue reading Cauldron Lip

Fill In The Faces

Market stalls in Brighouse in the 1960s. Other than the little girl (who is probably just about to become a pensioner!) you can't see any faces. You don't need to. Your mind automatically fills in the missing detail. The faces lined by years of work. The complexions scarred by too much worry.

Bobbin-Ligging

Holmfield Mill in Halifax - a photograph I must have taken in the late 1960s or early 70s. I had a summer job there at about that time, working as a "bobbin-ligger" - collecting used bobbins from around the mill and stacking them in pointless piles. 

Kind Of Blue

The colour isn't particularly real - I must have added it at some stage in the fifty or so years since I took the original photograph. We tend, however, to think of Halifax back in the '60s and '70s in terms of black and white, forgetting that the mill-ponds could occasionally reflect blue skies. You … Continue reading Kind Of Blue

Spot The Nostalgia

This is a photograph of Bradford Road in Brighouse that I took back in the 1960s (back in the days when camera shutter speeds were too slow to freeze a passing wagon). Think of it as an exercise in nostalgia; a wistful version of Spot the Ball where you have to mark things that are … Continue reading Spot The Nostalgia

Monumental Beer

I must have taken this photograph of the Old Lane Inn, Halifax, in the mid-1960s, by which time it had already closed. It briefly came back to life as Dicky Mints 20 years later, before closing again, and eventually, the building was demolished. The monumental bottle of beer painted on the gable wall should have … Continue reading Monumental Beer

Peeled Away By Time

This is one of those photos where I have to start drawing potential lines of sight in order to work out where I was standing (it was an awfully long time ago!). There's Whitaker's Brewery and there are (I think) the Albion Street flats. And there are numerous layers of industry, most of which have … Continue reading Peeled Away By Time

The Fate Of The Horse

This is one of those photographs where you try to line up buildings and, with all the skill of a CSI officer, work out where I might have been standing when I took the photo fifty-odd years ago. I'm not sure of the answer, but zooming in on the background and seeing which buildings have … Continue reading The Fate Of The Horse