Wednesday, November 21, 2018

doris and the olden days

Me & doris in the early noughties outside the Crown & Anchor pub in Halifax.

A Lovely day.
 I met with Doris for a Greek Meal in Hebden Bridge at lunchtime ( catching up on news) .
It's what grown up people do.
 Strange how we might know hundreds of people in our lives,. but only a few come back to check up where we are now,
What a lovely person.
Then onto Halifax for a few jars with Phil & Ken...................
(Thursday night: ITN News spent 50 minutes looking at this post tonight.What's that about? Are they looking for "the new Trevor McDonald? )

Saturday, November 17, 2018

the haunted victorian pencil and his nanny.


Today I went to The Good Shepard R.C. church in Mytholmroyd .
. A Labour Party meeting.
The guest speaker was an Damian Casserley ,economist who was an advisor to Gordon Brown/Ed Balls in the last Labour Government.
 He was talking about the challenges to an incoming Labour Government.
We had tea & cake.
https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/jacob-rees-mogg 

Thursday, November 08, 2018

Negro Colleges in Wartime

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

 A movie sponsored by the U.S. Office of War Information:made in 1944. details here :
This is a sepia saturday post.
The theme is around images that feature " cold stone statues and haunted, unrecognisable faces...." 
The statue pictured is that of "Lifting the Veil of Ignorance" a monument to educator Booker T. Washington on the campus of Tuskegee University in Macon County.
The statue is  by Charles Keck , and was dedicated in 1922.
 I didnt know of Booker T until I saw this movie . You can read about his life here:
  My immediate thought, while watching the movie , was that I guess those Alabama students you see would have had to sit at the back of their buses travelling  from the college after  filming .......... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
Maybe   Emmitt Till's Open Coffin did more for US Civil Rights than any Statue or movie ever did.....?

Friday, November 02, 2018

it may be someone else's blood soaking into the dust, but i am that dust.

I saw this for sale in Manchester Art Gallery's shop today. My Christmas Present for everybody this year?Maybe Donald Trump or Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon  could make a campaign baseball cap with it?

myself & Cathy went to Manchester Central Libary today (2nd november 2018) to see the plans for Jeremy Deller's Peterloo memorial. https://manchesterhistories.co.uk/projects/peterloo2019
What I saw looks good ,although its hard to tell just from a wee model.
The only doubt is the location between The Midland & G-Mex.


 It will be built in that cordened-off area that ,during Tory Conferences, Boris goes jogging.
 Maybe he will trip up on it?
No more news about my 'Moston Photos' http://everton.blogspot.com/2018/10/peterloo.html 
.I guess it will all be under wraps until nearer the 200th anniversary next year?
All I have heard,so far, is  that blown-up versions will be displayed in 5 locations throughout the city (billboards?!) i will be everywhere...like a rash.hopefully, [unless i end up on the cutting-room floor......]
a photo i took of the artist Jeremy Deller a few years ago in Manchester Art Gallery.
All my assorted photos from the last couple of weeks are here:
https://zimnoch.smugmug.com/End-October-begin-November-2018/
The only other things of note today,in Manchester.
(a) I bought my first ever 'white poppy' in the Quakers Lodge in Manchester. Maybe, one fine day, the good people of Halifax, West Yorkshirewill build a monument to remember  the six people murdered in the town by British Army sabres during the 'Plug Riots' ?
https://www.breviarystuff.org.uk/catherine-howe-halifax-1842-a-year-of-crisis/
https://markwrite.co.uk/blood-on-the-streets-of-halifax/ 


(b) in Manchester Art Gallery , a young couple stopped me on the stairs and asked if I minded having my photo taken for " a book about 50 men in Manchester". A black & white headshot....
All of a sudden, everybody wants to capture my image! 
( winks ;) to Pulau Pinang)




Friday, October 26, 2018

day by day......

 Shirty got his nickname because he walked around with his long hair flowing,
his shirt-tail hanging out.......
 I always remember at least four or five young girls following him everywhere
.A babe -magnet!
As a 15 year old, i wanted to hate his charisma.But  he was such a nice guy. It was hard......
A nice photo taken tonight in Sowerby Bridge.
It was taken by 'Shirty 'Whitehead's daughter,Ellie, (she works behind the bar at The Shepards Rest) It was her birthday yesterday......
Shirty was in the same class as me at school.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

the leaves are just the colour of your eyes.......

So me & Chris went walking on The Tops again today. 
Up Cragg Vale.
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........
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cragg_Vale
 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.
How'a about that then? 
https://bitsofbooksblog.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/savile-and-st-johns-in-the-wilderness/ 
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....

Saturday, October 20, 2018

jaw bones and tooth rattles........

Look.To begin with, I know my opinion about anything  is irrelivant  .
(But I'm full of cold, and have fuck all to do but rant here today......)
You might be surprised to know that I think this march today in London is just plain wrong
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45925542.
I do not agree with it.Infact,I think  it dangerous.
The idea of going on a March in support of neoliberalism ( which  is what got us into this mess in the first place) is a wee bit daft IMHO.
I voted "Remain" , and would do so again.However, when the Brexiteers say that a "Peoples Vote" (in effect a 2nd referendum) would undermine our democracy, i think they are right.
We must respect the result of the Referendum ( even though I think it's leaders ;Farage:Boris;Rees-Mogg et al are all twats). Besides which, if there was a second referendum, the 'Leavers' would most likely win it again.
I find it depressing that the whole Brexit debate has been framed in terms of nostalgia.
The Brexiteers wishing for a return to the 50's. The Remainers wishing it was 1969 again. It's neither.This never can be.
Personally,  I would be much happier with a "Jeremy Corbyn Red Brexit" than a "Chuka Ummuna  Remain".
A photo i took during The Peoples Assembly March in Manchester in 2015. 80,000 marched. see all my photos here https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-Lr9ZhK/

Phil's Birthday

  My friend of 60 years Phil got married just a week ago to Iris . (He died last Sunday ) .  Today was Phil's Birthday . We went o...