Sometimes

Sometimes there is no point to be made, no memories to be revived, and no surprises to be released. Sometimes there is just a nice view and the chance to step back and appreciate it. This is just down the road from where I live. This is grand.

Market Days

Brighouse is in the process of getting a new market. My photograph isn't of the old market - it's of the even older market. I'm not sure what the new building will turn out like, but I doubt whether there will be a corrugated iron roof nor tarpaulins stretched over banana boxes.

Busy Brighouse

It's negative week. This is not some quasi-political outburst, merely the start of a week of new scans from some of my old negatives from half a century ago or more. We start the week in busy Brighouse where memories come by the car-load.

A Paper Portal To The Past

If there is one thing you would have needed in 1919, it is a bit of a tonic. The memories of the carnage on the fields of Flanders are still raw, and the influenza epidemic is now picking off many of the people who survived. So this old photographic postcard from exactly 100 years ago … Continue reading A Paper Portal To The Past

Commercial Street

From the mid nineteenth century onwards, every northern town worth its weight in brass had a Commercial Street. To these streets the new generation of drapers, bakers and umbrella makers were drawn. I took this photograph of Brighouse's Commercial Street over half a century ago. It was busy then and, I'm glad to say, it's … Continue reading Commercial Street

SUNNY VALE

I know these are supposed to be 1001 Photos I took before I died, but I can't be absolutely certain whether I took this or my brother did. It was the late 60s and Sunny Vale Pleasure Gardens were already in terminal decline - as this picture of one of the boating lakes shows.

Graveyards

Things should fade away in graveyards: become less sharp and less certain. Colours should merge along with moods; hopes and fears become one. Graveyards are the breeding grounds of memories.

Dear Daley, Not!

I bought this old picture postcard of Elm Cottages which still stand on Bradford Road between Brighouse and Bailiff Bridge because of the subject matter. The photograph captures landscape I am very familiar with, but captures it 100 years in the past. For those who live in these parts it is full of fascinating detail - the tramlines on … Continue reading Dear Daley, Not!

John King Lane, Brighouse

This vintage postcard of Brighouse dates from the early years of the twentieth century and shows a part of the town that has undergone changes over the last 100 years, but will still be recognisable to those familiar with the town. Just imagine that you are stood near the top of Wilkinson's car park and … Continue reading John King Lane, Brighouse