More bus nostalgia

More memories... This type of bus transported me to primary school and back, and to my grandparents' house, before we owned a car. You weren't supposed to ride on the open platform, though people did. It also meant people could hop on and off when the bus was moving! Unthinkable in these days of health and safety and much busier roads.

I can still remember swaying up those stairs as the bus moved off, and trying to see my distorted reflection in the convex mirror (which was there, I think, so the bus conductor could keep an eye on the top deck). My favourite seat, then as now, was always the one upstairs at the front, with a grandstand view of everything.

At the time, I didn't appreciate the craftsmanship in these vehicles... Look at that gorgeous wood-inlayed floor.

Bus nostalgia

I'm not sure whether yesterday's bus was linked in to this event: the 3rd Saltaire Historic Bus Running Day. Roberts Park played host to a dozen or so 'classic' buses, most brought over from the Keighley Transport Museum. I wandered down to the park just for a quick look, not expecting to find it particularly interesting. I wasn't anticipating feeling waves of nostalgia!

Bradford had trams (buses running on tracks in the road) until 1950 and from 1911 to 1972 it also had trolleybuses, which were powered by overhead cables. My own earliest experience of Bradford was as a student at the university from 1970 to 1973, so I actually used the trolleybuses. I was there when this trolleybus made its final journey, full of local dignitaries, on 26 March 1972, the last trolleybus system to close in Britain. I remember it well!  I am, I'm afraid, getting to that age when my early memories are now on display in museums!

Bus stop

There's often something new to see in Saltaire. I wasn't sure what to make of this bus parked on Victoria Road outside Salts Mill.  It said 'Blackpool Transport' on it and was, as you can see, a rather noticeable bright yellow and black, like a wasp.

There is only a little 'Hopper' service bus runs through Saltaire village and that doesn't venture down to the Mill. Tourist coaches have to drop their passengers off up by the college's Exhibition Building. Victoria Road is effectively a cul de sac at the bottom, past the Mill, where there is barely room for large vehicles to turn, so you rarely see buses or big lorries down here. There was a vintage bus rally in the park and I've occasionally seen a vintage bus doing wedding duty at the church (see here) but this one didn't look very vintage to me, though I am not a bus expert! Day trip to Saltaire from Blackpool? A minor mystery...

An eyesore

Theme of the month for my online photo group for April was 'Something I dislike'. I chose to submit the above image, of a derelict greenhouse. It's on the site of what was once a thriving little garden centre just a mile outside Saltaire village, right beside Hirst Lock, which is one of the more picturesque parts of the local canal. Such a shame that a) the garden centre had to close and b) no-one is doing anything with the site. It is falling into ruin, with the three glasshouses and the huts gradually being reclaimed by nature. Not only is it an eyesore but it is also potentially dangerous if children got into it, with all that broken glass and twisted metal.

I ♥️ Saltaire

Heart symbols seem to be a popular motif in the windows and gardens around Saltaire.

A tale of two gardens

I went visiting another couple of private gardens, opened to raise money for charity under the National Gardens Scheme. They were in neighbouring villages but couldn't have been more different. 

The one in the photo above was relatively modest plot around quite a modern house in Silsden. It was laid out with lush, undulating borders around a lawn, and with some attractive paved seating areas around the house itself. With varied foliage and some statement blooms, it was an inspiration to see how the owners had created a stunning garden in an average sized plot. Dotted here and there were some nice sculptures. You might be able to see a hen and its chick by the edge of the lawn, made of crushed wire.

The second garden (below) was much bigger: the grounds of an old stone manor house called High Hall, Steeton. The present building dates back to the late 1600s and was built by the Currer family. I have read that Charlotte Brontë's pen name, Currer Bell, was inspired by the name of this family and the bell at the south entrance of the house. There's also a legend that the seven Steeton men who fought in the Battle of Flodden, between the Scots and the English in 1513, cut their long-bows from a yew tree that still exists in this garden.  

The Arts and Crafts influenced walled gardens here were more formal and symmetrical, with herbaceous borders abundant with pink, white and purple blooms - peonies, alliums and iris among them. There was a pond, a belvedere and a dovecote, an adjacent walled vegetable garden and an area of woodland too. Absolutely gorgeous. 

Moo!

Moo! or perhaps that should be Boo! I'm not sure who was more surprised, him or me, when he popped his head over the wall and we came face to face!

Neighbours

My neighbour stopped me as I was walking home the other day, to ask me if I'd take some photos of their nearby allotment. She has often seen me setting off with my camera and she knows I'm a keen photographer. I love taking pictures of other people's gardens, so it was a pleasant task to take on.

They've had the plot for a couple of years and have worked really hard to transform it. Despite the dry weather we've been having, it currently looks really lush and productive. There are vegetable and fruit beds, interspersed with bright flowers and even a small pond in the corner of the plot. The showstopper at the moment is the border of colourful annuals: white and yellow daisies, pink poppies and blue cornflowers, creating a random and wonderful kaleidoscope.

The end of the day

I love these long summer evenings - and May and June this year have been unusually warm and sunny until the final few days. People often take advantage of the last rays of sunshine on the terrace of Saltaire's Boathouse Inn, overlooking the river and Roberts Park. A relaxing evening with friends, over a drink, enjoying the view, is very pleasant.

Puddle two

This was another possible contender for the 'Puddle' theme (see yesterday). I decided it looked better in colour than mono, though. It's a reflection, in a puddle, of the rounded top of one of the big warehouse doors in Salts Mill.

Puddle

Back to the rain again here... And back to March for my photo. The theme for March in my online photography group was 'Puddle' and the image had to be in black and white. There's rarely a shortage of puddles around here; the last few months have been exceptionally dry but it never lasts for too long. British weather is endlessly changeable. When there are puddles, Saltaire has some amazing puddle reflections from all the elegant buildings. In the end, I chose this image as my month's entry. It has a vague reflection of part of Salts Mill but it was the diagonal dynamic that appealed to me, and the mix of reflections and shadows.

A hive of activity

It seemed curious to see beehives in the centre of town - but then I realised they were part of the Shipley Street Arts Festival too. The little copper plate covered a spy hole... and through the spy hole I spied....

 ... a Bee CCTV monitoring station - watching me watching them! 

Each hive had a different scene. I liked the Bee Cinema.  The interval must have been about to start, as the usherette was coming in with her tray of ice creams. What a funny buzziness!

Shipley Street Arts Festival 2017

When I popped into Shipley town centre on a few errands, I happened across some activities taking place as part of the Street Arts Festival. (Thank goodness for camera phones!) It is a long weekend of street entertainment organised by our local Q20 Events, funded by Arts Council England and Bradford Council. I'm not sure what had been going on to amuse these children; the performance was just drawing to a close. But I was intrigued by the beehives in the background...

Gran duty

The childminder, who usually looks after my littlest granddaughter whilst my daughter is at work, has gone on maternity leave, expecting the birth of her own baby very soon. That means a few days of 'gran duty' for the next few weeks, stepping into the breach until the school holidays start. I must admit to finding it quite tiring, being on high alert all the time. M, however, is a delight to look after. Being two and three quarters, she likes to do things for herself and gets quite cross with me if I try to intervene (lifting her into the car seat, for example: "No! I do it!") Generally speaking, she is a very contented and secure little girl, with a remarkably long attention span. She loves building things with Duplo and Magna-Tiles, and will play for ages with little figures and her dolls' tea set. I also found a book with magic pictures that appear when you paint over the page with water. (I remember them from my own childhood, but these days they are reusable.) She loves discovering the pictures and keeps up a constant flow of chatter, exclaiming over what she sees. Utterly cute. I'm a very lucky gran.

Watchtower

Here is another moody, stormy sky that really seemed to make all the colours glow. Despite the dry spring, the trees of Shipley Glen and the fields on the flanks of Hope Hill are looking lush and green. The clear lighting picked out the peculiar little glazed watchtower on the roof of 47 Titus Street, Saltaire. No-one seems quite sure why it's there. It may have been simply a decorative touch, being more or less central in the village, but in the 1870s the house was the home of Salts Mill's security chief and so the tower may actually have been used as a watchtower.

Wonderlab

The National Media Museum in Bradford has recently changed its name to the National Science and Media Museum (it was always part of the Science Museums group) with a greater emphasis on the science of sound and light. They have opened a new gallery called 'Wonderlab', aimed at children, but when a rainy day spoiled a planned walk for me and some friends, we decided to go to the museum and play. It's a fascinating place, though a bit bright and noisy for us oldies!! (Perhaps would have been easier on the senses outside of the school holidays, as there were a lot of children racing around excitedly.)

I especially enjoyed the infinity mirror maze, where you really couldn't tell what was a mirror and what was a corridor or whether you were coming or going!  Hundreds of 'me' visible at any one time. It was utterly mesmerising, although considerably disorientating.

Being deaf, a lot of the 'sound' exhibits defeated me but I liked the light lab that explored the colour spectrum, with lots of filters and lenses to understand refraction and the effect of mixing different coloured lights.

Worth a visit if you're in Bradford, especially if you have children with you. (Free entry too.)

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Alan Troake and Suzanne Jackson

Just had the good fortune to spend a lovely, warm, sunny evening in Roberts Park watching a free open-air performance of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', this year's play from Shakespeare in the Park, Saltaire. This is the third year they have done a play, though the first I have managed to see. The story of how these performances came about is an interesting one - see here.

It was a delightful evening. The play is, of course, a light comedy about love, fairies and comical mistakes, with some engaging characters. The performance had a modern twist but was pretty faithful to the original dialogue. Being so deaf, I wasn't able to hear much of it really but I know the story from my schooldays so I could just about follow it. (I'm not sure if I've got all the cast correct...) I enjoyed it all very much. It's being repeated on 24/25 June and 9 July, if anyone local wants to catch it.

Puck (Suzanne Jackson) with Hermia (Sophia Leanne), one of the sleeping lovers.

Titania (Meg Hughes) falls in love with Bottom (Stephanie Hindle).

The Mechanicals perform their play for Theseus (Colin Pinks) and Hippolyta.

Pyramus (Stephanie Hindle) dies - amidst a great deal of tomato ketchup!

Red and green

I thought this a rather pleasing juxtaposition of colours. The red door echoes the red leaves of the acer and the bright green shrub is a lovely contrast. This is one of the houses at the eastern edge of Saltaire, built later than the rest of the village, on land used for the Royal Yorkshire Jubilee Exhibition in 1887, which celebrated Queen Victoria's golden jubilee. The land was sold off to developers after the exhibition; these houses don't form part of Salt's master plan and are not included in the World Heritage Site.

Birthday honours!

It has been my birthday recently and I arranged to meet my daughter for the day in York - chance for some light retail therapy and a good conversation over lunch, uninterrupted by the usual chatter of her little girls. It turned out to be a hot, sunny day, so we decided to sit for a while in one of the parks in the shade of the trees.

All of a sudden, our reverie was interrupted by marching music from a military band. My daughter said she'd ordered it specially for me! It was 'birthday honours' but for Queen Elizabeth's 'official birthday' rather than mine. There was some more music, a few short speeches in front of the gathered VIPs and then a 21 gun salute, fired at precise 10 second intervals from three guns. It was impressively done, with each soldier and team knowing exactly what to do and when to do it, amidst a good deal of marching about and standing to attention.

A soldier gave me a leaflet explaining that, in 1971, to commemorate the city's 1900th anniversary, the city of York was given the honour of being one of 12 'saluting stations' across the UK. Gun salutes are fired to celebrate various Royal occasions. The salute was fired on this occasion by the 101st (Northumbrian) Regiment Royal Artillery, accompanied by the band of the Yorkshire Regiment.

I gracefully accepted all the fuss in celebration of my birthday!

(Photos from my phone. I didn't take my camera so I couldn't zoom in very close to the action.)

Where did you get that hat?

Dancers from the Crook Morris side were wearing colourful flower-bedecked hats - with the odd mouse hiding among the blooms!

The Flag Crackers wore a wide variety of wacky headgear, many decorated with pheasant feathers, badges and greenery.

The gentleman below had a top hat with a couple of sunloungers and a pool on top! Not to mention various miniature drinks bottles around the sides... all empty!

The lady below seems to have a tiger in her tank. (Oh dear, knowing that catchphrase rather dates me, doesn't it?)