"A seemingly pregnant woman would not be suspected of stuffing her clothes with pamphlets, Resistance newspapers, or even weapons."

Italian women  partisans on the Castelluccio front (1944) .Waiting to go on patrol with the US  5th Army.

Italy, Women in the Resistance during World War II

Late in the winter of 1943 ,three British SAS soldiers were dropped into (still) fascist occupied Italy.deep in a remote mountain region.

The  3 Brits were sheltered by villagers& partisans  in the remote hamlet of Gessopalena

One local must have  'grassed' on them?
Anyway, they were soon arrested, taken away & tortured by the Germans.

As punishment for trying to protect these English Squadies, on 21st January 1944 the  Luftwaffe bombed Gessopalena and completely destroyed  it.
Now ,perhaps different nations react differently to grief?

The Poles In Warsaw, they rebuilt an identical copy of their city after WW2.
However ,Italians( seeming to love ruins.)... kept Gessopalena's damage complete & intact......

They did bury  the bodies ,but otherwise  did nothing.....other than to move the undamaged  church bell .
To this day , nothing else  has ever been  moved!
 Clothes, toys furniture ,books ,mirrors....etc.remain  in exactly the same spot they were on the day the Luftwaffe called..
Somekind of  permanent record of what  " normality." might once have looked like for the victims.?
These days ,its rather weird when you hear that original  church bell call  the new villagers  to Mass in the new church in "new" Gessopalena which was later built a 100 yards away...............
I scratched my head and tried to  work out which was the "real"village and   which was the "replica"......

My son Chris.    Our friend Mick   & myself in Italy in 2010

 ( i briefly owned a ruined cottage in the Abruzzo mountains at the time ) Damien Rice: Montreal 2017(famous blue raincoat):Jackson Browne: Osaka, Japan; October 23, 2017:(late for the sky)
This is a sepia saturday post.The themes this week are Dance : Performance : Costumes : Stage

i found this photo in 2009 in a junkshop in Lanciano.I was told these are firemen .....Ironically!  looking like a bunch of girls........!

https://theconversation.com/forgotten-resistance-the-italian-freedom-fighters-dropped-from-our-history-books-34891

Fuck your sharia court : your fatwa: your old testament gods.....

Manchester 2nd feb 2018

"You don't divide up an empire with a handshake. You have to cut it with a knife"Robert Saviano.

"Saviano took the reader inside a world of moral rot, where values were upside down, love was replaced by hatred, life with death, and people were turned into guinea pigs to test drugs. Basic human decency had been lost. Many of those who lived in that hell had started to accept it as normal. It was not, Saviano told us......." Read More:

Roberto Saviano (the author of the book it was based on);  Live at the Bristol Festival of Ideas. 

Wednesday's on Sky Atlantic at 9pm sees the start of Series 3 of " Gomorrah". Shakepeare with an automatic rifle. Try catch it.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomorrah_(TV_series)

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

Me  in a Pennadomo cafe.( i failed the audition) +here -->some old images of me in Italy

Below.Full political interview with the author ,in Bristol.

Manchester 2nd Feb 2018.
https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Manchester-2nd-Feb-2018/ 

drinking in dirty dick's:

I went drinking in Halifax tonight with Phil the X-Fireman & Comrade Ken. Hurrah! If you can push past the child drunkard,you will see a slideshow of tonight's photos.......

I'm pushing my luck here a bit!This week's sepia saturday

is around 'rooms' & 'interiors '.......I visited a haunted pub in Halifax tonight.
I realise I'm stretching things a tad!
On a positive note , you can buy  here:

a sepian postcard of 'tony the child drunkard' to amuse friends,family & postmen across the world........

click here for all tonight's photos Dirty Dicks is a well-known Inn in the centre of Halifax for ghost stories and hauntings. It was mentioned in the book Haunted Halifax by Kai Roberts.
 “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. ........"

.. Read More:

download here :copyright free"Temperance melodies consisting of English Welsh and American airs adapted to the temperance movement"

Saturday is Holocaust Memorial Day .It might be worth saying that British politician Nigel Farage and his (former) party UKIP.are really just a rebooted brand of National Socalism.The very ideology that informed the Holocaust.The smell lingers on......the ghosts remain......
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!

A Freelance Oral Historian .

"The Beaford Archive is a photographic record of people and community in rural north Devon containing more than 80,000 images covering the 120-year period 1870 to 1990. 
 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... 

I have family down in Devon ('could even be really cheeky and ask for a Reference!)

What could possibly go wrong? 

https://twitter.com/yunghusky

when i leave ,you will be dancing on my grave.............

I just booked two tickets to go see Young Fathers at O2 Ritz in Manchester on Friday 23rd March.  
wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Fathers
Great to see that the splendid Afro-Edinburgh hip-hop band Young Fathers have a new tour & album out.
They have been giving a wee silence recently.
Me & Cath saw them play live in March 2015 ,around the time they were awarded the Mercury Prize.
My photos& videos from that gig can be viewed here:

one of my photos.

  https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/young-fathers-in-my-view/

the resurrection men

A cine film taken in either

1965 or 1966: In Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh.

Pictured are my late Mum & Dad.

The third person seen is the Kirkyard's caretaker.Even then,  it was "closed" both for burials and for visting.He had come  specially to unlock the area & show us around.

Some of my maternal relatives are buried here.You can see from the inscriptions on the grave stone that they are buried 8 -.Deep.

 Greyfriars Kirkyard is famous as the scene of some of the early trade & work of the murderers & grave robbers Burke and Hare Of course,it is quite poignant,me watching this silent film..........

This is a sepia saturday post.See other contributers here

a photo i took inside Brompton Cemetery, London.

 

....Read More

Sugar Ray Leonard

Helping the police with their enquiries ;)  (with Nodge & Steve).No doubt i will write a post sometime about the times I have  tangled with the Police. several  funny ;several not so. As a taster,did you know i was interviewed by two detectives during the Yorkshire Ripper search? Anyway.That's for another time......i certainly feel i want to be more autobiographical here, this year.......fuck the 'mystery'!

Exclusive:watch a video of Nigel Farage's latest thoughts on Brexit :

Why on Earth is that prick Nigel Farage still being interviewed  on TV News?
 He is no longer UKIP's leader.
He has stood 7 times for Westminster and never been successful .
He's just a  Mussolini-in-tweed.
Although, I recall,Benito was also well hung 

I was due to be going out drinking in Sowerby Bridge tonight with Phil & Ken & Bryn.Unfortunately,Phil rang to cancel until next week (worries around snow).
So I,m sat at home having "the few beers " I promised myself this morning.Hence the Smörgåsbord  of a post this will ,no doubt,become .....!
Ihavnt had a drink in ten days & 'have swum 5 miles this week.. Enough Goodness!

 previous Cask & Feathers

I go to see Bob in Bacup on Monday .We are arranging a curry with him,Nodge,Jim ,Steve,Ken ,Phil etc in Ramsbottom in a few weeks time.
on the way home I have an appointment to do some heavy-breathing with my Asthma Nurse in Hebden Bridge.


. Also on the cards ,in the next couple of weeks,another curry in Rochdale with Daz,Jim S,Tony T,Martin (Thorpe) the Landlord of The Cask & Feathers (who's name always escapes me).Hydn,Phil & Ken
Also next week ,I visit a contact of my friend from Halifax,Israr Hussain.( i first met Israr via Halifax Swimming Pool) I am buying and promoting  Dates & Olive Oil produced in Palestine.The proceeds go to support a childrens charity there.
No doubt here & on facebook i will be reporting about the fine work the charity does in Halifax
(nb my brother Zyg has put an order in for oil & dates and the possibility of wine?)

Chris liam from Portland Oragon donated the track specifically to this blog..The other track"Museum of Childhood" is sung by the late  Jackie Leven.One of the nicest people i have ever personally met

  

Israr Hussain.( image from a portrait displayed at Dean Clough Gallery, Halifax )

Israr is a lovely bloke (he went to Crossleys School). He's told me some really funny stories about his various travels. He concides, he doesn't have the most "airoplane-friendly" 'look' post9/11 !

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

Over the last few weeks this blog has been bombarded with hundreds of threatening messages (this is the least of it). I have ignored up until now, but maybe i can smoke the person out? I will post here ,in this thread, any future messages....."Clutch " away,honey!

Myth Of Sysiphus

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

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

OK. This week's sepia saturday
is themed around 'BRIDGES : BUSY SCENES : TRAMS : TRANSPORT : STREETS'
i suppose my obvious choice might have been 'Hebden Bridge' my recently ex-hometown.
But rather, I have picked a photo from my childhood in Halifax.
no trams,no bridges,no people...just  a single lonely kodak-hintered street of the 1960's.
Significantly for me ,a row of buildings long demolished.
I bet most Halifax people would be hard-pressed to recognise this perspective now.
It's King Cross Street.(just near where Wynsors Shoes now searches for fresh footfall.......)

in the 50/60/70's I lived with my mum & dad & brother Zyg nearby (left of photo..and out of shot....)
These long gone shops included two Chip Shops :a hardware shop:Halifax's only off-licence:2 Paper shops( one of which i delivered newspapers 1964-1966)

Although.In my Minds-I , i remember this road as being steeper...as  I carried my big bag of newspapers up it....
I dont know about you  .But I still dream of wandering such architecture.
A bit like a phantom limb or the gap where a tooth used to be.......
God Bless & long live these Kodak Sponsored Dreams!

Are you leavin' Bein' alone

 Always made you so sad 

I got memories of the city Followin' me everywhere I go

 Are you mad with heartache Got a country home And you a Parisienne 

Gonna take all your sorrows 

Right along with you when I'm gone And I got to go away

 Only need a couple of days I got one more chance to sing it And I ain't gon' waste my time 

'Cause everything including you Is on the line 

 Are you troubled Feelin' bad And no one seems to care

STEPHEN STILLS 

Brexiteer spotted on  Corn Market today , Halifax.

"......We all live lives afflicted to greater or lesser extent by sin; but it isn’t our state of being that makes us sinful; it’s what we intend when we do things, to ourselves, to others, to God."
Fr Alec Mitchell
Manchester
Guardian Letters:Saturday 13 January 2018  

*....an intended victim writes. although, knowing it occurs doesnt stop it still happening to others....*.

Happy Birthday Mr Rumi

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Manchester11thJanuary-2018/

Lovely meal today at mowgli + visit to Manchester Art Gallery;s Waqas Khan's exhibition with our friends Don & Margaret in Manchester .
+Thanks For The Dylan!
Waqas Khan in conversation with Fareda Khan, Head of Speacial Projects, Manchester Museums and Galleries Partnership from Manchester Art Gallery on Vimeo.
 this exhibition opened on Rumi's Birthday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi The artist produces art in a trance; the art is a record of that trance: by looking at his art the trance resumes & it is shared with me/you.[The singular becomes communal ]: I like that idea.......!

one careful owner

We moved house  just before Christmas.
The place we are renting ( for approx 6 months) is much smaller.
Some things like furniture  have gone into storage.
However ,I have a load of electrical tools that Bob in Bacup is very kindly looking after for me.
 If there is anything you would like to borrow/buy ,email me at zmnsnt@aol.com
and we can talk more.
you can see the full list here

Bob (right) Ken (left)

after Brexit , I hope the ladies of Halifax get their Charm Schools back.......

'ats

another of Brenda's Saranac Photos .Lots of fine hats & bonnets......Part of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival

my contribution to the first sepia saturday of 2018 is around the theme of "hats". 

To see the contributions of others , visit here

I dont own a hat. I tend to borrow from others........

in 2008 i was a member of Grant's Stag Party in Benidorm.Most of the lads were from an Oldham rugby club .Grant was ,at the time,on St.Helens books. Mick (pictured with me) is an ex-prop forward with Oldham RLFC.We all went as members of Village People ( i was the token Polish Plumber).It was so fucking hot.....I had hold my moustache as the sweat prevented it sticking properly.......see other photos here

2005 in the car park of a shoppimg mall in Northampton,Massachusetts.it was Febuary & freezing...My son,  Chris,pictured next to me.We were guests of my good Muslim  friend Ayse who was studying in New England at the time. a grand photo i took of Chris & Ayse.https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-ff4c2/i-7Q9TK8x/O

at the 2015 Peterloo Massacre Memorial in Manchester.See more photos here .( i took a lot of photos of famous TV & Movie 'faces')  Actually that IS my own hat...but I look a bit of a prune wearing it.(Its in a drawer, somewhere.........!)

n.b. See more of my photos https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/

ßest Wishes for 2018

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fire-Fury-Michael-Wolff/dp/1408711400

love isn't done

love & respect at Christmas to you my visitor.

A Christmas Card sent in 1907 from Saranac Lake by my  Grandfather in  New York State to the family back home in Scotland.....

See other photos from  my Aunty Brenda's Collection here:

 https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-bqTqB/

Read about Saranac here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saranac_Lake,_New_York 

 This is a  sepia saturday post   

Magda Davitt (Sinead O’Connor) 

With the Ulster Orchestra. Live at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland; May 12, 2008. 
lyrics 

a lovely song about Christmas time & family love & loss .......

biblehub.com/songs/1-5. 

me & Cath went to Christmas Eve Mass  in  Mytholmroyd.http://www.thegoodshepherd.org.uk/

 Tu Spoczywa 
Wladyslaw Zimnoch 
(14th Feb 1917-26th Dec1984)

great vanilla journeys

A few random images of our move from the top of the hill to the waterside.
I have    bloody awful lower back pain today.....! Removing was the cause......I find swimming helps ( must be something to do with moving horizontally rather than vertically?) Less strain on my spine.? Looks like that canal gonna come in handy....

moved

the view from our new living room......

We moved house this week!After 33 years in Hebden  Bridge.......
email me at  .zmnsnt@aol.com For new landline number:postal address;etc  (although the line wont actually be  connected until  the  20th)
[We will contact people individually  with these details eventually ,but we are running around like blue-arsed flys this week,so forgive any delays in getting in touch personally .]

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2017/12/09/open-for-business/

black teeth & a brilliant smile

the short reckless life of andrea dunbar  { Spectator}

Me & Cathy went to this talk at Halifax Central Library attending anevent  given by actor/author George Costigan & author/poet AdeleStripe.
 Much of the conversation  was around the life of Bradford writer Andrea Dunbar.Proper Northern Chops!

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

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

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

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Rita-Sue-Bob-too7th-December-2017/ 

Upper George Pub,Halifax.

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Upper-George-Halifax-30th-November-2017/

black friday

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/23/uk-no-earnings-growth-budget-brexit-productivity-ifs

 

gentle cheeses meek and mild.........

Ladies & Gentlemen Martin Platt.   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Platt 
He knew that Coronation Street was shit. He would rather sell you fucking cheese

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Manchester-German-Markets-16th-November-2017/

3 studio photos

The prompt for this week's sepia saturday is "studio photos"
 I give you 3 of mine.

 My grandma Helen who died in childbirth.

My mum as a newborn orphan with nurse instead of mother.

 My poor wee orphaned Mum

All were shot in Edinburgh in the early 1920s.

 sepia-saturday-394

Boris Johnson's Head Apon a Stick!

 
Me & Cath found ourself Guests of The Commoners Choir at Hebden Bridge Trades Club tonight..
Never been "guests" before! Gold Tags and no pay ( we did buy a CD & teashirt afterwards..it only seemed fair..)
I  used to work with Mark Wyatt ( one of the 50 folk onstage tonight) Commoners Choir are rather brilliant.
http://www.commonerschoir.com/

https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Commoners-choirHebden-Bridge-Trades-Club11th-Nov2017/

Piece Hall & Square Chapel Halifax

Me & Cath were in Halifax yesterday.
I had an eye-test at Specsavers.
Then we walked around The Piece Hall:Square Chapel & Central Library.
We have (another) funeral tomorrow.zimnoch.smugmug.com/Piece-Hall-Halifax30th-October-2017/i-f9rwXnq/A
On Friday we are back at the Square Chapel to see the movie "The Death of Stalin"
See my photos here:https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/Piece-Hall-Halifax30th-October-2017/

visit the Piece Hall website here:  The Halifax Piece Hall

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears" :Rumiی

This week's sepia saturday theme is around "Parades". I share a photo below  of The Halifax  Charity Gala Parade sometime in the70's.
I was a Samartian Volunteer for 7 years in Halifax. ( n.b.The Samaritans are a suicide support line)
You can read much more  about that here 
During my searches for this post I  also came across This   
wonderful video of 1950's Halifax.Included (17 minutes in ) is the Gala Parade through the town center  and at Manor Heath..Copyright prevents me from embedding here, but it's worth a view here http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/civil-defence-exercise-etc 

my own photo from a later Gala Parade.It's not me in the bath !

جلال‌الدین محمد رومی

  Photos of me out for a curry with friends on Thursday night.

she's not there

This is a sepia saturday post  

from my Aunty Brenda's photo collection. an unknown stranger  outside her door in Perth Scotland....

I told you two  weeks ago that  we were attending  the funeral of Sue Trigg in Fixby.

What I havnt told you is that i missread the details of when the service was to be held ( despite me putting the Huddersfield Examiner's online Obituary on this blog!)
As a result ,we did go to Fixby Crematorium.
 We did attend at 2pm on Friday
But, It turns out  ,I got the week wrong and we attended on Friday 13th (not Friday 20th).
 To compound the mistake ,we followed the mourners into the 2pm service.
Now I wasnt surprised not to recognise any of the fellow mourners.
 I knew Sue from 50 years ago at School plus our various much more recent  1- to -1 meetings had been at Hebden Bridge Trades club.We  know none of her family or none of her more recent friends.
So . Me & Cath are sat at the back of the room at Fixby Crematorium on Friday 13th.
The only speaker was a Polish Priest who talked for about 5 minutes...but his accent was soo thick that I only understood about 10% of anything he said.
Although,halfway through,he did say "JILL" which set a few alarm bell ringing........
 No family members spoke. So after a short service I went to the coffin ( no photo on it). Touched the coffin. Made the sign of the cross and we followed the other mourners out the door and down a corridor.
I then shook hands with the priest, who was stood next to the framed photo of a beautiful elderly lady called (you guest it!) JILL. Me and Cath left blushing to avoid upsetting  to our fellow mourners......
I had never been to Fixby Crem before,so at least it turned out to be a 'rehearsal ' for Sue's funeral today.Although ,are not all funerals "rehersals" really?

Sue's funeral was packed today.Very moving ,and a great tribute to such a grand lass.
Lots of music! As we entered the service we were greeted by Santana playing "She's not there" playing full blast.
I couldnt help thinking that Sue ,sat in the sky,was looking down on me and taking the piss about my adventures the previous week !
During the service,the vicar asked the mourners to give Sue's  coffin a round of applause ( a new one on me).
Her service concluded with John Martyn singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".
Now,the previous week i had taken this photo of a rainbow over the crematorium.Maybe this was the real purpose of my mistaken visit to Jill the previous week? one Door Shuts:  Another One Opens I Guess.......

Finally, my most recent photos......
See all these photos in one place here