Saturday, April 27, 2024
P K D.
Thursday, July 15, 2021
Hemmingway in Halifax
This is Phil the Ex-Fireman in front of an advertising hoarding in Halifax town centre.
He looks a bit like Ernest Hemmingway.Non?
Phil is my oldest friend. We first met at secondary school in 1963. We went to stay with his family on the Shankhill Road in East Belfast in 1968 and, later, hitched around Ireland ,the same year, meeting Beach Boy Mike Love and spending a morning with him ! True! not bull shitting!
Plus a million other things later (n.b. I am a Grand Parent to his children)
A Sound Gezzer! I Love the bloke.We are Solid.
Anyway.We went in Halifax for our first evening drink in 18 months tonight . Ken & Phil wanted to go in the afternoon , but I'd booked a Sauna/Gym & swim today so it had to be late.
Very dead in Town .Lots of tumbleweed !. Ken bumped into a friend called Julie .... she's the landlady of "The Blind Pig" in Sowerby Bridge . It was her birthday on Thursday ... .[Pictured below on the right.....]
The audio is Eric Clapton .
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
the leaves are just the colour of your eyes.......
I wanted to show him the route I took on my 30th Birthday , doing The Pennine Way with Phil the Ex-Fireman ..i thought it might help........
I have always thought it a strange,particular, place.
Last week's post showed it's magical spaces ( deer;mushrooms:holy wells ).
But (this week) it feels to have sinister elements too......
The Cragg Coiners tried to hide away there , from the government...but they got themselves found and hanged eventually.....
http://www.mytholmroyd.net/features/coiners.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cragg_Vale_Coiners
In more recent times, Jimmy Savile was a churchwarder at the local church. He lived in a campervan in the church's grounds........
He Put on lurid costums & gave sermons from the pulpit.
For 3 weeks over my 30th Birthday, me & Phil 'did' The Pennine Way , including our passing through Calderdale & Cragg Vale.
I remember turning '30' being quite traumatic for me.
. It's funny. '18':'21''40' even '60'! never really bothered me....
But '30'.wow! a shock....
I remember the night I turned 30. We were camping in some Godforsaken village in North Yorkshire. I got terribly pissed.
I started chatting-up up some woman in a local pub ( even though her boyfriend was sat right next to her at the time).
He got a wee bit angry & was going to thump me.
Luckily Phil ( home on leave from Northern Ireland) whisked me out of the pub sharpish. It was closing time, anyway....
" A Lucky Escape" I remember Phil saying as we went back to the empty field we had put up our tent.
. The next morning. Hungover, we crawled out of our tent , to find the couple had (in the night) pitched their tent right next to us.
we made our excuses, & left rather fast....
Thursday, January 25, 2018
drinking in dirty dick's:
I realise I'm stretching things a tad!
On a positive note , you can buy here:
“Most notable is the spectre of an unknown woman wearing seventeenth century Puritan or Quaker dress, who had been vividly witnessed by a customer around forty years earlier. The second presence was imagined to belong to the son of the last landlord of the original pub, prior to its demolition in 1929. This unfortunate young man is supposed to have burnt to death when a sparkling ember from the hearth set his clothes alight”.
The pubs third otherworldly resident, whose history is not connected to the pub, but with the ship from which it was built. The third ghost is a spirit of an unfortunate seaman who was fatally injured when the ordnance he was moving aboard the HMS Newcastle exploded. ........"
download here :copyright free"Temperance melodies consisting of English Welsh and American airs adapted to the temperance movement"
Postscript: Sunday 28th January.I just got sent (unsolicited) this: Job Spec for a post in Devon.Sounds really interesting.Might lure me out of retirement? Right up my street!
According to the Royal Photographic Society, it is “…a unique body of work, unparalleled, at least in this country, for its scale and quality”.
However, few of these images are currently accessible to the public. ........ a major conservation and digitisation exercise that will curate and publish online around 10,000 unseen images that together illustrate the late 20th Century social history of rural north Devon. .............
• Digitising, cataloguing, archiving and publishing to the web approximately 10,000 existing 35mm black and white negatives from the James Ravilious and Roger Deakins Beaford Archives • Production of a new fully searchable website to provide a showcase for existing digitised work, newly digitised images and audio, and new work as it is produced
• A programme of oral history, learning and community activity which will create new work and engage people in learning and education...
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| https://twitter.com/yunghusky |
Friday, July 21, 2017
people say believe half of what you see
Had me a long talk with Norman Perry.I told him about how I used to live & work in the East End of London.what a nice bloke.
He seemed interested in me,as person,rather than some sort of voodoo doll.Refreshing to find a willingness to engagement from someone in a pub band, rather than they expecting me just being some sort of 'extra' in their vanity project......
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Friday, October 28, 2016
Dont Forget To Turn Your Clocks Back To 1958 This Weekend.
Friday, January 15, 2016
under pressure
I went to Halifax tonight.Drinking with Comrade Ken& Phil the Ex-Fireman.
Friday, March 06, 2015
. Melange:
A cruise somewhere.I found it on the site www.viewfromthisside.com .
It shares Kodachrome slides and suchlike.Many found unloved in carboots.
I love the clarity & vivid colours these contain.
Somewhere below is a slideshow of photos from today,s night in Halifax with Phil The X Fireman & Ken .
Ken [beard]is a friend of George ,a member of The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.
Thursday, December 04, 2014
hell on earth
It is full of cellars and inhabited by prostitutes, their bullies, thieves, cadgers, vagrants, tramps and, in the very worst sties of filth and darkness, by those unhappy wretches the 'low Irish.'"
[REFERENCE:]
Karl Marx described it "Hell On Earth" and it inspired him to write The Communist Manifesto while he lived in the City.
Marx always imagined it would be here,not Russia, that Communism would rise up to heal the world. [Wikipedia:St Michaels and Angel Meadow Park]
Today mostly all that is left is a pleasant Park.(think of it as the opposite of that Joni Mitchell song .."they unpaved the parking lot & put up a park......") Its ironic.The Park is Beautiful.It's just the rest of Tory Britain that's turning feral.Hey-hoy.......
But ,underneath the grass are still some cellars inhabited by prostitutes, their bullies, thieves, cadgers, vagrants, tramps & 'low Irish.? I tread gently & listen closely whenever i travel there.
Every year since 2008 myself & assorted Lancashire & Yorkshire friends (many from the Rochdale Turkish Baths,itself now closed & disolved)visit Manchester to see the Christmas German Markets.
Usually we include a visit to The Marble Arch Pub which is on the border of Angel Meadows.
It's one of the few buildings still standing around there.
We go for our 7th year next Wednesday.We start drinking at 2 pm & carry on until around 11pm.
Its strange looking at last year's photos.I look really healthy (yet a few weeks later I was in hospital with Pneumonia ).
Phil the x-fireman has been to all six,but will miss this year as he's still on the 'Injury List' (incidently , he's doing well & Will be back next year.He comes with me to see the movie "TURNER" before Christmas.We are keeping him in the picture!)
You never know what around the corner or hidden under your feet and noses........obviously .
Thursday, October 30, 2014
The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar. It was tense.
this is justabout near perfect...
In the photos below,you may glimpse on several occassions, a couple dancing .
They are not quite as old as the elderly singers.but are they .rehearsing or anticipating?
they danced so beautifully i was spell bound.....
Most of these photos were shot in The Hare& Hounds pub on Shude Hill in Manchester.
(Me & Cath had met Don & Margaret there a few months ago briefly before going onto a gig.It intrigued me then).
I remembered the elderly singers & suggested to the lads we might visit tonight. We had intended only a swift drink then onto the trendy Northern Quarter.....But ,instead we stayed all night.Something quite magical about sitting with these 80 year olds having a ball! We stayed the rest of the night.....
I went up to see Phil the X-Fireman at his house in Siddal.(i see him most weeks)
He is ok.He has of course lost a lot of weight (maybe cos he hasnt been drinking for 8 weeks?!)
His 7 week Chemo & Radiotheraphy course in Leeds is now over (no 'results' for a while yet,he reckons) He Sends Everybody His Love.
He drives down to Hebden Bridge on Wednesday 12 Nov to meet me to see the film 1971
.Its about a British Squaddie in Northern Ireland in 1971, the same year Phil himself was fighting there.It will be interesting to gather what he thinks about it.
This coming Wednesday,Me & Cathy go to Manchester's Dancehouse Theatre to watch/listen to a talk from James Ellory (LA CONFIDENTIAL etc).Expect some images & audio?
The day after that , me ,Comrade Ken,Bob,Nodje,Jim#2 ,John.Jim#1 ,Martin & Phil #2 meet for a curry at Eastern Spice in Hebden Bridge.
Friday, October 10, 2014
living legends..forever!
"One recent interpretation is that it was composed about the execution of Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII, whose badge was a falcon...."{wikipedia}
[n.b. the footbally-challenged might need to know that West Ham's ground in London's East End is known as "The Boleyn Ground" because ,in those wacky olden-days,she used to go a-hunting there......]
This image was taken in Manchester this week at The National Football Museum
A Get-Well Present from me to Phil the x-fireman.
Phil is in his 6th week of Chemo & radiotheraphy for throat cancer.
Like me,Phil is a massive West Ham United fan.
On the mug are illustrated Martin Peters,Geof Hurst & Bobby Moore.It reads "Living Legends:Forever"
Phil's mouth is always very dry.He is always wanting fluids.This is practical.
Phil finishes his treatment in a week's time.I'm hoping eventually he might want/be able to visit the Museum with me once he has more spare time (his NHS treatment takes up 5 full days a week at the moment)The mueum is right next door to Victoria Railway station.Not a long walk for him.
Phil said last week that all he seems to do at the moment is "sleep & take drugs".I cheered him up (i think) by telling him he was turning into Ken Before my very eyes........
Dexy's Midnight Runners:Live at Haarlem, The Netherlands; October 27, 1982.
Friday, September 05, 2014
An Architect's Dream.
She is singing
"An Architect’s Dream".
The image is a still from a video I took today on my Hebden Bridge Patio.
Phil the x-Fireman's daughter Rowena asked me to do it.
Phil himself has cancer.He started a 5-week radiotherapy & chemotherapy course of treatment this week at NHS Cookridge:Leeds .
If anybody wants the entire 3cd set of Kate Bush's opening night,just let me know & i will run you off copies.(This includes 2 video clips!)
To me,she is Peter Gabriel in Frock (this is not a bad thing........)
Saturday, August 16, 2014
behind garden walls
A wee timeline to inform this post:
*February 16th 1968 saw The Beatles,Mike Love,Mia Farrow,Donovan travel to India to visit Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at Rishikesh.
*July 12th 1968 saw The Belfast Orange March .(which was to be the last trouble-free march for 30 years)
*5th 1968 saw the start of Northern Ireland's "Troubles": {"The Troubles:1968-1998"}
My brother Ziggy gave me & Phil (the X-Fireman) a lift in his car to catch the Heysham -Belfast ferry. It was 1968.
This was my second holiday without my Mam & Dad.The previous year, 5 of us from School had hired a caravan in Great Yarmouth.
This time only me & Phil. As i write this I realize that , for the first time , Belfast was the only occasion we have ever been abroad together.He nearly came to my house in Italy a couple of years ago..but because of his mother's illhealth ,had to cry off at the very last minute .)
Anyway......I knew nothing about Northern Ireland politics..I didn't know it was going to blow up only months after we had been there.
In fact Belfast harbor itself 'blew my mind'.A big beefy Policeman glared at us as well walked off the ferry.A big fat gun on his hip....It looked more like a Chicago mobster movie to me...I felt like Elliot Ness on a Mission....
Phil's dad Bob was a Protestant Ulsterman. His family lived on the Shankhill Road. Phil had never been before,so we had to walk with our rucksacks through the terraced streets .They all still had the archways & bunting & dates& King Billy scrawled on walls from the previous month's Orange March......Seriously fucking weird.
Phil had primed me beforehand."Dont talk about religion" "tell 'em your CofE";We were hitching from Belfast to Dublin afterwards.The agreement was we swapped religion at the border.
(Strangely.Phil would join The British Army a couple of years later & patrol those same borders again.)
His family made me very welcome .Being both Cof E & an English accent gave me browny -points i guess..........
After as couple of days we set of out of Belfast.Camping &hitching our way to The Free State.
Eventually we got to Dublin.Staying in a Youth Hostel opposite Mountjoy Prison
After that we walked inland........eventually staying in a pretty rural Youth Hostel on the other side on Bray.It had a Graveyard with bodies of Germany Navy sailors from World War 2.
we stayed for several days R&R....& meeting new arrivals. It was like a scene from Easy Rider! This American dude & beard rode his motorbike into town with a very young girlfriend in tow (she must have been 10 years his minor).
The Irish wife of the hostel warden was scandalized ( she looked like the housekeeper from Father Ted).But she let them stay a night (saying something to the effect of 'Good Riddance' as they rode off into the horizon the following morning)
He was a really friendly bloke.Said they were from California .They were just touring Europe for a few weeks on their own.
Thing was.He looked like Mike Love from The Beach Boys.We were too shy to ask him more......Now this may have been an opportunity missed?But ,on the other hand, our silence then allowed us to dine out on the possibility ever since!
A few weeks after returning to England, i happened to be reading in the NME that Mike Love had spent August 'holidaying in Europe'.......who knows? Perhaps....? From this distance , its nice to imagine that Me & Phil might have had a couple of walk-on parts in the The Californian Dream.
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| Phil The Pre-Fireman in 1966 |
{. Sandy Denny & Fairport Convention: Like An Old Fashioned Waltz :Live at Clark University, Worcester, MA; April 27, 1974. }
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| Ken,Tony ,Phil & Iris: This Afternoon in Halifax. |
Friday, June 27, 2014
cant find my way home.
Really Nice To See Bob from Bacup & Noj & John & Jim in Hebden Bridge at The Eastern Spice with Ken & Phil the X-Fireman.Thank You All.Again soon I think. I am blessed with friendship.
Finally. I've been really interested in Edinburgh's Young Fathers.They first appeared to me in January.They are so good.I love everything about them.
They are trying to break America.Good Luck Guys!The Music they make is rather special........If you like what you hear,give me a shout & I will run you off a copy of the latest album.The ghost of Jackie Leven lives on!
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
I'm Ready To Go Anywhere........
Thursday, March 27, 2014
I Forgot to Remember to Forget:{4 tracks from the basement tapes}
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| Arnhem 1944 |
I watched it on DVD a few days ago.
You really need to view it when you can. The gentle author was blown away.
Its the best surreally political film imaginable. Think : 'Yellow Submarine' combined with 'Apocalypse Now' ( some of the photography is pure Haight-Ashbury)
The 'plot' is far too complicated to repeat here.
Just one little image.The main man in the movie is called Anwar.He is /was a gangster who personally killed approximately 1,000 people, usually by strangling with wire. He plays himself in this film! Because he was murdering 'Communists' for the Indonesian government & that government is still in power, he & they think him a hero still. ..imagine the Nazi's had won the war...& they had let Josef Mengele direct a musical about his life.... Anwar is given licence to produce & direct reconstructions of the murders he committed!
He loves Elvis Presley Films.A movie theatre in 1965 Indonesia was just across the road from where he executed political prisoners.So In between killing ,he would watch films to relax. Often he would saunter into the murder scenes still in 'Elvis Character' You can read[ here ]what OXFAM thought of the film.And here is the trailer for the movie......
The longest recording of the Basement Tapes, and often regarded as one of the highlights from the sessions.
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| Stan gets a medal! |
Thursday, March 20, 2014
reassuringly the appearances are within normal limits{x-ray style!}
Today I ,finally,got a letter from the Consultant saying "I have reviewed your chest x-ray from February 2014. Reassuringly the appearances are within normal limits. To ensure there are no further changes,I would like to repeat your x-ray in may 2014..."
Which is fine and pretty much what was said by my Asthma Nurse
.I am not worried any more...& i see my GP next week to discuss [in the nefarious zone..] .
But i still think the consultant could have explained better&quicker.Still ,its reasurring that the NHS [in general] is being so thorough.....
I will also be speaking to my GP about my hernia & diets..Hey ! I am still not smoking..but ,increasingly, I am vaping which i dont take as being very positive (?).....
I worked in Bradford for 9 years as a teacher in the middle 80's onwards.
I used to drive each day from Hebden Bridge to Bradford to school.Cant say i have many very good memories of the place (which is sad). < I went to Bradford with Chris this week.It's the first time I have set foot in the place for,what, maybe 2 years?
If it was to remind me of anything good,it would be my playing Rugby League once at the massive (100,000 capacity) Odsal Stadium ) .I played 'hooker',and we (Halifax) got thrashed by Bradford Northern!
And seeing Ian Dury there once with Cath & Phil the X-Fireman.....
I got a new compact camera.
Its much cheaper than the my old faithful (R.I.P. Fujifilm exrfinepix f70)
but my new panasonic dmc xs1 does have a few interesting whistles & bells.
I'm still getting used to it but i took it with me on my travels this week to Hebden Bridge,Sowerby Bridge,Burnley[ Sauna],Halifax,Bradford (with Chris) & Halifax (with Ken).These are the results.... all fairly random....
Friday, March 07, 2014
What Jesus did next......
.We went to The Puzzle Hall pub & a good band was playing....... [Issimo: Marc+Abi]
On our way to The Puzzle , we walked past a church.Phil showed us where his son Bryn was the model for Sowerby Bridge's Stainglass~ Jesus in St Paul's Methodist Church[ see in video ]
Bryn lives in Sowerby Bridge.About ten years ago a stranger approached him while he was out walking.The bloke was an Artist .Would Bryn like to pose for him? As Jesus! The result you can see 15ft tall in the church window. Must be rather strange seeing yourself as the Messiah everyday you walk through town........
Rest in Peace old faithful servant. Fuji F70-EXR You have died .Shall we ever see you like again?[especially in relation to the Gigs ].No doubt you shall be replaced.....but by anything better...I doubt!!!!
I also have my NIKON D200 for special/pre-planned occasions.but wildly too big to hide in my pocket!
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
dont old people look sweet?
Phil the Ex-Fireman's Mum ,Madge,died a few weeks ago.Me & Ken took him out drinking in Halifax to cheer ourselves up.
Tuesdays are very quiet in Town during the week.As we sat in Cookies Bar nursing our Pints,a lovely young lass (Zoe, a vague friend of Ken's) started putting 40's Music on the jukebox.A discussion began about the merits of Doris Day & the erotic appeal of petticoats.She insisted we all danced with her in turn.It was nice to see her put a smile on Phil's face.
Later in the evening,as we listened to Phil & Ken sing Small Faces songs, i leaned over to Zoe and whispered "arnt old people sweet!". She gave me a slightly dismissive look.This i interpreted as her thinking i looked much younger than Ken & Phil.....& i shouldnt poke fun at my elders.Point Taken!
See all the night's photos here
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I t's been a strange & wonderful week. Me and Cath celebrated our 40th Wedding Anniversary . Plus I've I've been having 3 l...

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