Nostalgic Thoughts

When Greenwoods was on't corner, and Marks at top of town; when one day you could wait up, and next day you'd wait down. When sun was always shining, and it'd never, never rain ...... why did folk wear thick coats and rain hats, perhaps you'd care to explain.

Sheffield Nights / Sheffield Days

There are no cars in this scene which always makes dating it a little more difficult. The clothes don't give many clues either: fashion takes a back seat to insulation when it comes to northern winters. Haymarket in Sheffield looks very different these days, and British Homes Stores is long gone. It must have been … Continue reading Sheffield Nights / Sheffield Days

It Was Snowing Earlier

CROOKES VALLEY, SHEFFIELD 1980 : It was due to snow today, but it is looking like heavy rain instead, so there will be no snowy scene to share. Never mind, here's one I took earlier. Forty-six years earlier to be exact.

We’ve Home

So, what have we got? We've a bare-faced hillside and a quarried landscape. We've a mill or two, a couple of chimneys, and some terraced houses stacked like dominoes. We've Halifax sixty years ago. We've home.

Back Street In Stoke

This particular photo seems to have acquired the title "Back Street In Stoke" at some stage over the last fifty years. My apologies to my friends in the Potteries for this somewhat underwhelming and unspecific title: the truth is I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in the area in the early 1970s. I became … Continue reading Back Street In Stoke

It’s Swinging Halifax

It seems like a different era: an era of broken walls and spaces laid bare by slum-clearance programmes or enemy bombs. The church is the same; then it was plain Halifax Parish Church, and now it's a Minster. Perhaps it's the swings that date it - can this really be what was meant by the … Continue reading It’s Swinging Halifax

Art?

Is art in danger of being undermined by Artificial Intelligence? Why slave over a canvas for endless hours attempting to achieve a dramatic interpretation of a pub at the bottom of an old cobbled street in Halifax when you can press a button, produce a picture, and then go and enjoy a pint in peace? … Continue reading Art?

A Hungry Hill

I took this picture of Hunger Hill in Halifax forty years ago. There are a few more trees about these days and some of the buildings have changed, but the snow is still here. I asked AI to explain the origin of the name, and it came up with a somewhat silly theory that the … Continue reading A Hungry Hill

Free School

This is a photo of mine from sixty years ago of a rural school in Ireland. I'm not sure exactly why I took the photo; maybe I just thought it was a colourful scene, or maybe I thought that it captured a changing world. I looked the school up the other day; it is long … Continue reading Free School