According to my Little Oxford Dictionary, the definition of "wandering" is to aimlessly move from place to place in a casual fashion. That being the case, I declare myself a wanderer, indeed I will consider putting that down as my religion when the census forms arrive in a few weeks time. The Lockdown places a severe … Continue reading Hope Over Elland
You need a touch of colour on days like today. Days when daylight comes grudgingly and brings a sleet storm or two with it. Days when you approach a pile of grainy black and grey photos from forty odd years ago and wonder why our memories never made it into technicolour. So, on days like … Continue reading A Touch Of Colour
This is Elland in the 1970s. The harsh straight lines of lampposts and mill chimneys stand out in sharp contrast from the curve of Upper Edge in the background. One of the mills is now long-gone, the other has been converted into apartments. The lampposts are still there - and so is the hill.
When you go to Paris, you take a photograph of the Eiffel Tower, in New York it's the Statue of Liberty .... and when you visit Elland it has to be the Calder Valley from Hullen Edge. I must have taken this photograph in the late 1970s: the bypass looks as though it is still … Continue reading Greetings From Elland
One of my photographs from half a century ago taken, I think, from the appropriately named Gas Works Lane, in Elland. Many of the buildings, along with the gasometer, have now gone and the aroma of the maltings is just a distant memory.
Elland Power Station used to sit on the floor of the Calder Valley like a mucky residue, creating black shapes against a grey sky. It's been replaced now by a bright business park; all very clean and the slightest bit boring.
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)
It was a glorious Spring day today and we were tempted outside. Wanting to respect the Government advice on social distancing and the avoidance of parks and beauty spots, we decided to attempt the ascent of Mount Blackley by taking the old footpath from South Lane in Elland to the top of the hill in … Continue reading The Lonely Ascent Of Mount Blackley
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