Ah, those simple summer days of long ago - when Beacon Hill was bare of trees, when charity parades meant kids riding on the back of lorries, when King Street was cobbled, and when mill chimneys still split the sky. (Feel free to insert your own nostalgic meanderings as required.)
Tag: Scanned Negatives
Deep History
For a long time, this was indexed under "unknown location" in my negative files, but a recent Google search allowed me to identify it as the former Hanley Deep Pit in Stoke-on-Trent. That means my photograph must date from the late 1960s or early 1970s, when I was at Keele University and the mine was … Continue reading Deep History
Escaping The Mill
The telegraph poles provide the date stamp for this photograph of a mill fire escape in Halifax. At some point over the fifty-six years since I took it, I seem to have decided that it was somewhere near Akroyd Place, just outside the town centre. Time, however, has changed the landscape and eroded any meaningful … Continue reading Escaping The Mill
Sheffield Days
This photograph dates back to my Sheffield days in the 1980s - days of grey and white and miners’ strikes. I’d probably just got off the bus, and as I skated down the ice-covered streets, I stopped to record the scene.
Busy Elland
I can't be exact about the date, but I suspect it was around 1969 or 1970 when I took this photograph. It looks as though I was standing in the grounds of what later became the Barge and Barrel pub, but back then it would have still been the Station Hotel. My photograph captures a … Continue reading Busy Elland
History Preserved
My photograph dates back to the 1960s and shows the Mobil petrol station on Winding Road, Halifax. The garage was built on the site of the Old Crispin Inn, which dated back to the 1840s. That inn was itself built on the site of an even older Crispin Inn, a famed meeting place of local … Continue reading History Preserved
View From St Thomas’s
Those of us who spend our lives looking at pictures of old Halifax have a range of potential dating pointers: Is Square Church still a church, or just a spire? Is the Queensbury railway line still in place? are there trees on Beacon Hill? I think this photograph of mine was taken in the 1960s, … Continue reading View From St Thomas’s
Green Change
Whenever I revisit one of my old photographs, I can never resist the temptation to seek out a modern view of the same scene to see what has changed. With this view of the junction between Northowram Green and Land's Head Lane, I assumed it would be much the same, but I was surprised by … Continue reading Green Change
This Is Bradford
This is Vine Street in the Great Horton district of Bradford. My father grew up a few streets away; my mother grew up a few more streets away in the other direction. There are terraced houses, a cobbled street and a mill at the bottom. This was Bradford. The houses are still there, but the … Continue reading This Is Bradford
