Joppa

This week's sepia saturday prompt photo is of a sister & brother looking happily,lovingly at one another.
I took from this that the two  kids didnt really  care that the photographer was there or not. (S)he was incidental and  accidental .

They would have  looked  that   way anyway......

With this thought in mind .My offering for this week's post

is  below.

A photo of my Mum.Aged about 3-4? 

It's taken in a bus shelter on Portobello seafront in Edinburgh.1930-ish?

. The elderly lady is My Mum's Aunt Nellie.

I remember Aunt Nellie well from my own young  childhood.She was ,obviously much older/smaller & wrinkly then! She was  nearly 100 when she finally died.
I even stayed in her house in Joppa .We used to visit her when i was roughly to same age as Mum  in this photo.I remember travelling upon a   steam train  ( The Flying Scotsman?) directly from Halifax Railway Station to Joppa Station ( pre-Beeching )

My bedroom   in Joppa  had a  big brass bed! If i stood on tip toes & looked outside  I could (if  I stretched!)  view a tiny corner of the sea ,' just visible from the  top  right hand corner of the  window
There was lots of "family politics" floating about on the horizon...... .Even by the late 50's/early 60's.
Aunty Nellie lived alone in that house near the sea.
Her sister Aunty Margaret lived with my Aunt Brenda 100 yards away on the other side of the busy main road into the city.
They never visited /talked to each other for  perhaps 20   years......
(How strange  to be so close , yet so invisible........)
We stayed at Nellie's and visited Margaret for Tea. Nellie of course never joined us.
 I still dont know the cause of the feud.They didnt have blogs then.Who Knows.......
My Mum as a child was  passed around various family members ( Her own Mum dead in childbirth & her dad at sea and remarried)
.My Mum showed me this photo a few years before she died.
Here  we  see  her and Nellie.
She said they had not been "allowed" to meet at the time......
But evidently they did! but in secret .
(I never thought to ask who the photographer was. )
What is even more poignant , Nellie looks very much like my Mum did  in her final years.......
Make of that what you will.
Your guess is really as good  as mine.although I cant help thinking that that Me ,brother Zyg my Dad & Mum staying at Nellie's &  not at Margaret 's was meant as a "statement".......

Meanwhile.Things are still shit for me.
Various worries currently.
It really pisses me off how people seem to think me laid -back . I'm not really .I keep it  too myself generally ( apart from here.now.and to the world!)     😎😎😍😎
We even got a letter recently criticising us for posting a photo of us smiling on New Year's Eve. We must not be "that bothered" ,obviously!
Photos hide more that they reveal. Although that is ,i    believe ,a bloody good haircut wot i got today !!
Not bad for a bloke who is 65 on July 30th........!
Anyway.The best bit of news I,ve had this  week is that "The Blitz" Tearooms in the Square in Hebden Bridge is closing down!
(tripadvisor link)
Bloody Appalling place IMHO.
Perhaps they may now open a Tea Rooms in Syria instead?
'Never did like the concept. Fake Nostalgia. Now, had  they served Spam& Powdered Eggs & dressed the waitresses in stripy Concentration Camp threads..well,maybe it would have worked..

but,as it was, the place just reeked  of Brexit & Nigel Farages socks and farts.......

Saturday update: we went to an Art Exhibition in Hebden Bridge at north light studio.I saw a very regal (royal) family hiding behind screen ,spying on us.........

 

jesus in a basket

we   are   all playing  at dying......

My son Chris took this photo of me hanging-out in the Republblica Grimy region of Italy. Even i can get a little cross sometimes.Although (notice) i was still  vain enough to take my glasses off for a "photo opportunity".

a big ciao to all my visitors & "friends" in "Italy"

e 'altamente probabile che ........

La famiglia di mia moglie che vivono nella Repubblica Grimy  ,  sono così crudele stupido e prevedibile che la prima cosa che farà è andare e tradurre questo testo "Google Translate"! fica tristi

n.b.   for those who dont know the region ,  a  rough guide to The Repubblica Grimy can be found [ here]

 https://scarfolk.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/real-easter-egg-1971.html

i died laughing when i read this on twitter.......

A Polish Radiologist living inLondon who  i follow of twitter.

I love her Anger.I love her intelligence .

 You can follow her too,if you have a mind.......

at

https://twitter.com/CromulentTweets 

all my pictures r falling from the wall i placed them yesterday ......

Chris took this photo in Italy a few years ago. He was travelling around with Mick & Nick..it was  Spring in the mountains of Abruzzo.{They later travelled down the spine of Italy to the beaches of Sicily }In Chris's photo here , it was cold enough to still ski:but warm enough to begin thinking about getting a tan....!

This is a sepia saturday 

post. 

click [here] to see others. 

I took the prompt to be about the beach &   it's  possible  substitutes or alternatives..
Neil Young's "on the beach" pops into my head ( hence the title) 
It's a very dark & sombre album.
I'm in a similar place myself, at the moment.
I havnt been away & relaxed for some time now.

I keep getting obsessive dreams that I am swimming in the ocean.
Perhaps I am in  need of  Mr Jung not Mr Young? !
Me ,Cath Don & Margaret saw& heard Bashti  Bunyan sing in the Bridgewater in Manchester once.

 Her voice always   soothes   me.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vashti_Bunyan 

  Vashti Bunyan ( after the goldrush) :Janine Nichols & Kevin Hearn ( expecting to fly) : 2010 .Hal Willner's Neil Young Project: Queen Elizabeth Theatre.Vancouver.
thesnipenews.com/music/concert-reviews/neil-young-project-vancouver/ 

me & my Mam on Portobello Prom ,near Edinburgh ,when I was a nipper.
The late 50's?

a photograph by Francesca Woodman: via: www.newshelton.com/wet/dry/?p=14369

"ever since I left the city you"

the thickman of europe

The irony is that I  have never been a big fan of Europe.Under different circumstances: at a different time,I would probably have voted "out"too. But not at this time:with these people.
They are going to fuck us royally.
Maternity Right: Sickness Benefits .Pay  etal etc
You Stupid  Fuckers.........

museum of childhood......

".....It means a fallow field in winter 

When frost is on the land

 when the fox is on the run down by the riverside 
where the furrow meets the sun 

where the furrow hugs the riverbank 

and nothing can be done...."

READ: lyrics to  " call mother a lonely field" by Jackie Leven. 

 LISTEN:"call Mother A lonely field" Jackie Leven.

Another Jackie Leven song ."Museum of Childhood".Live: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Leven
https://everton.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/mystery-of-love-is-greater-than-mystery.html 

what me mam taught me (reprise)

 This is slightly redacted , replenished  &   republished version of a post I first published in July 2013. See the original [here:]

I dont know how my image for this week's Sepia Saturday. fits the Theme.......It's a group of people.They share a common purpose (unknown).It's not not prescriptive,you can imagine your own narrative around it.I find it hopeful in a strange sense.I also cant help thinking it compliments Mike Garry's words ......................
I dont know anything about the image itself, other than it was taken in 1967.In South Parade Halifax.

When his Mum died two months ago, Michael Garry's family asked him to write this poem for her funeral .He also read it on stage at The Hebden Bridge Picture House on Sunday 30th June.(which i recorded for you here). Michael is from Fallowfield in Manchester.

{In The Interest of Balance, here is some beautiful writing to celebrate a Father.}

 thanks again to Bob Piper for  your help.( he kindly donated free tickets for me & Cathy).
John Cooper Clarke was as funny as fuck! A grand night.

'above poetryis  by Robert Montgomery. See some of his other stuff [here:]

me mam

"Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes.

Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation."

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī جلال‌الدین محمد رومی 

memory is more like art than fact

PLANETS

Our man Dizzy , in the prompt photo for this week's sepia saturday ,seems to be in dreamland.
Which reminded me of  this story of Commandant Darget.The man who photographed dreams.

EAGLE

here is a link to a recording of Ella Fitzgerald playing live in East Berlin  in 1967

http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1857
The Internet Archive also holds several of Ella's live concerts {here} 
They are copyright free.You can listen/download them there at your leisure. 

 

the mysterious dancing epidemic of 1518.

[Hebden Bridge Trades Club.]

Reading this today reminded me not a little of Trump,s Inauguration.

 “...............they suggest that hunger and psychological stress were the likely culprit, with a healthy dose of religious belief thrown in: “In times of acute hardship, with physical and mental distress leaving people more than usually suggestible, a fear of St Vitus could rapidly take hold. All it then took was for one or a few emotionally frail people, believing themselves to have been cursed by St.Vitus, to slip into a trance. …..........”  

{Read More:}

 kY1l19qn7B16540Z89X5

 BUY THE ALBUM HERE!

caught by the river

Me & Cath went this afternoon to Caught By The River

at   Machpelan Mill in Hebden Bridge .

An  afternoon of poetry   &    short stories.

Splendid .......

......although odd at times.They were  holding a "Laughter   Workshop" in another part of the mill.

It seeped through occasionally. 

Shakespeare competing with a stranger trying to smother Les Dawson with a duvet!

 Only in Hebden Bridge........

A special mention for  Zaffar Kunial

His poetry was top ~notch.

The afternoon's photos (+short video) are here

the day that winnie came to town

 Happy New Year Sepians! This is my first post of 2017

See other posts

  here.

 

my Dad (top right)

 I was sat in the sauna at Halifax swimming pool last Tuesday morning.
We got talking about Polish Immigrants to England.
I told them how my dad was Polish.
How ,during WW2 he was based in Scotland.How he was in the Parachute Regiment  of the Free Polish Air Force.How he flew with the RAF in Battle_of_Arnhem.....
About how he defeated Hitler practically single handed !
(Incidently ,my Uncle Gordon was a pilot in the RAF .He was shot down ,and spent 3 years in a fascist prisoner-of-war camp .So it goes.......)
I said how my   Dad  was demobbed but  couldnt return to Poland because he had abandoned  the Soviet Russian army at the begining of the  war and ,because of this ,was technically classed as a "deserter".So it goes......
In 1945 he & my Scottish mum & brother Zyg first stayed in a resettlement hostel near  "the moor" in Halifax in the building that is now the club for The Halifax Old Crossleyians

Dad,Zyg & Mum.

 In 1946  they got their own  place on Lord Street in Halifax  where I was born in 1952.

I told the blokes in the sauna this because I get fed up of hearing anti-Polish predudice & UKIP lies.To me, Nigel   Farage is  just another  Oswald_Mosley

( children! learn  your history...)

An old bloke in the sauna  box started telling me his story .He had been a  16 year old lad in 1945.
One day ,during that year's  general election campaign ,Winston Churchill came to speak.
Thousands turned  out.They packed the bottom  of Hanson  Lane, right into Georges Square.

At the time , the Bull pub was being constructed.
Exposed steel scaffolding was  all over the shop.
The chap in the sauna was stood right near where Churchill spoke.He could see him   clearly.
During Churchill's speech ,a bloke with only one leg ( a vet fromWW1 ?) moved gingerly along a high scaffold bar and took a seat  halfway along it.
One leg dangling.
 They all began to  listen to the  great war leader & prime minister wannabe 's   speech.
Halfway through Winnies talk ,the Vet shouted .

"Mr Churchill.Tell them about Gallipoli"

 Churchill ignored him and continued.
Then a  second time,louder ,the ex-solider cried

"Mr Churchill .Tell them about Gallipoli "

 Churchill  ignored  him   again .
A third time the man cried out.
But ,this time, Churchill turned and  whispered something to an aide stood next to him.
A few moments later two policeman inched across the scaffold .Somehow they removed  the man away....
He was taken   to Harrison Road Police Station to recieve some  sort of Caution.
So it goes.......

Read more about Churchill's failure at Gallipoli here :

http://www.history.com/news/winston-churchills-world-war-disaster

For more background of Churchill's visit to The Calder Valley in 1945   you can read this report fromThe Halifax Courier:
http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/day-winnie-came-to-town-1-1897717

My thanks to Malcolm   Bull's Calderdale Companion for  two photos and  this    extra  text   
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~calderdalecompanion/m_4.html

My dad would have been 100 next month.So it goes........

A pair of bullets that collided in mid air at Gallipoli. Take that!

The Human Forest.

Many thanks to photographer Adam Summerscales for kindly giving permission to use the image below  [his website]

Me & Cathy went to Dean Clough  in Halifax this afternoon. Several exhibitions are on.http://www.deanclough.com/arts/whats_on.asp

I was  especially taken  by The Human Forest !

Street Photos by Adam Summerscales.Shot in Sheffield.

As well as being technically great.and having  arresting compositions, I loved how the people in the photos are (mostly ) unaware & uninterested .

They were getting on with their lives........reminding me of what street photography was like before digital  and CCTV arrived. 

.These days we  sense & expect surveillance.We strike a pose whenever a camera pops up.Ironically , the more we are photographed, the less we show of ourselves.

Somehow .Adam's photos catch people unaware and natural. Maybe its the  angle he shoots? Maybe people see only his  mobility scooter ?

you can visit Adam's website  [here] 

and learn more about him   & his   work and  see  the pictures.

a bigger bark

I took this photo on boxing Day outside the Co-Op in Mytholmroyd. Me& Cathy were driving into Halifax. She pointed the image out to me.

......The bird was glancing nervously in their direction , freezing still and then hopping , poking and probing in the rocks for food and glancing back intensely ,fearful and yet free. As they moved closer , it hopped out into the flat , hard sand, dragging one of its wings.

 It's injured , Meg whispered.

 It's an act .They do it to lure predators away from the nest. He took another step toward the bird and it skittered up the sand ,keening loudly , dragging its wing.

 Let me try to explain.Living things , all of them , are tied together. A bird is roped in tension,it's beautiful to watch. It's part of what makes a bird beautiful , he said. She'll fake it until it's a reality if she has to, luring the predator away , at the risk of her own demise.Once it gets near enough she'll keep playing and playing until it's close in and then she'll try and scare it . That's about ninety percent of what you need in the natural world; the one with a bigger bark , a display of power, wins.

 DAVID MEANS: HYSTOPIA

 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/21/hystopia-david-means-review

Me & Cath will be attending this fine event on Saturday 21st January in the afternoon 1-4 by The River Calder . [Link:Details] It would be nice if you joined us.

you could do it with your eyes shut .don't you see ?