A Photo Paints a 1000 Words.....
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I'm looking at a photograph.
It's of a summer day in Lancashire, England - which means the sky has 'just enough blue to patch a pair of sailor's pants' and the thick clouds are more white than grey.
I was standing on the edge of a narrow 'tops road' when I took it..a winding snake of tarmac connecting two mill towns, via rolling hillsides and scattered ancient farmhouses, sheets blowing on the ever-breezy lines.
The field drops down from the five-bar gate, towards a beck, following the line of the ditch, brown where the sheep have trampled away the grass on their endless mission to.....eat, I guess.
The hawthorn hedges and drystone walls identify the boundaries, scratched out so long ago, and beyond them the tall dark factory chimney marks the remnants of the cotton industry, which once was strong, in my hometown.
As you look further the modern homes and 1960s town-houses blend in with the thick-walled, centuries old, stone cottages and barns.
Way, way in the distance I can see the Yorkshire Dales - home of the Calendar Girls, Alan Bennett and Yorkshire Puddings.
When I was growing up, my town was in Yorkshire - not Lancashire - they changed the county boundaries.
Didn't they know?? - You can't paint a WHITE rose RED!!
(but that history lesson, probably belongs in a post of it's own).
The thing that strikes me most is the green...naturally irrigated, beautiful, grassy green.
That's what I literally 'see' in the picture, but still it shows me more.
Because I know what comes if you follow the road downhill and off the right-hand edge of the photograph.
A short stretch of small, family-run shops - fish & chips, donner kebabs, furniture & carpets, electronics, banks, hairdressers, old style barbers and no less than 5 pubs!
It would take you just 5 minutes to walk from end to end...assuming you ignore the pubs!
Turning the corner stand the two solid school buildings where I spent the first 6 years of my education. It's funny the things I remember - the slates being stolen off the roof, the mice in the stockroom, jumble sales and Santa Claus..to name a few.
Take a right and pass the park - once one my favourite places in the world - but the trampolines and mini-golf have gone now, along with the ice-cream shop. My memory wants to blame it on the 'coming of the red rose' - but maybe not.
Across the street is the terraced house where I spent my first couple of years..up and over the canal bridge and then on, to where my parents still live - the place where I grew up. It looks a lot different there now, but the memories still hang in the shadows.
The children still play in the street, and many look familiar..
..their parents are the ones who built snowmen and played in the building site foundations with me (dressed in muddy wellington boots, hand-knit fair-isle sweaters and balaclava hats - lol)
Oh, I could go on and on and on.............
It's of a summer day in Lancashire, England - which means the sky has 'just enough blue to patch a pair of sailor's pants' and the thick clouds are more white than grey.
I was standing on the edge of a narrow 'tops road' when I took it..a winding snake of tarmac connecting two mill towns, via rolling hillsides and scattered ancient farmhouses, sheets blowing on the ever-breezy lines.
The field drops down from the five-bar gate, towards a beck, following the line of the ditch, brown where the sheep have trampled away the grass on their endless mission to.....eat, I guess.
The hawthorn hedges and drystone walls identify the boundaries, scratched out so long ago, and beyond them the tall dark factory chimney marks the remnants of the cotton industry, which once was strong, in my hometown.
As you look further the modern homes and 1960s town-houses blend in with the thick-walled, centuries old, stone cottages and barns.
Way, way in the distance I can see the Yorkshire Dales - home of the Calendar Girls, Alan Bennett and Yorkshire Puddings.
When I was growing up, my town was in Yorkshire - not Lancashire - they changed the county boundaries.
Didn't they know?? - You can't paint a WHITE rose RED!!
(but that history lesson, probably belongs in a post of it's own).
The thing that strikes me most is the green...naturally irrigated, beautiful, grassy green.
That's what I literally 'see' in the picture, but still it shows me more.
Because I know what comes if you follow the road downhill and off the right-hand edge of the photograph.
A short stretch of small, family-run shops - fish & chips, donner kebabs, furniture & carpets, electronics, banks, hairdressers, old style barbers and no less than 5 pubs!
It would take you just 5 minutes to walk from end to end...assuming you ignore the pubs!
Turning the corner stand the two solid school buildings where I spent the first 6 years of my education. It's funny the things I remember - the slates being stolen off the roof, the mice in the stockroom, jumble sales and Santa Claus..to name a few.
Take a right and pass the park - once one my favourite places in the world - but the trampolines and mini-golf have gone now, along with the ice-cream shop. My memory wants to blame it on the 'coming of the red rose' - but maybe not.
Across the street is the terraced house where I spent my first couple of years..up and over the canal bridge and then on, to where my parents still live - the place where I grew up. It looks a lot different there now, but the memories still hang in the shadows.
The children still play in the street, and many look familiar..
..their parents are the ones who built snowmen and played in the building site foundations with me (dressed in muddy wellington boots, hand-knit fair-isle sweaters and balaclava hats - lol)
Oh, I could go on and on and on.............
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