'We Will Sing' #3

At a more detailed level, the elements of Ann Hamilton's 'We Will Sing' installation that most enthralled me were the beautiful woollen cloaks with sumptuous satin linings, made locally, and artfully arranged in folds and drapes. The colours, the tactile fabrics and draping all provided a visual feast, into which I could read a number of different 'messages'. 

Perhaps most poignantly, in them was an echo of those who might have left them... Cinderella fleeing at the stroke of midnight perhaps? Charlotte Brontë flinging off her cloak as she enters the house of a friend, ready for a cup of tea and a long and convivial chat? Or simply the ghosts of the girls and women who laboured long hours in this mill to produce the fine cloth that built our heritage.... 

The exhibition runs until 2 November 2025, so there's plenty of time to see it if you're relatively local. 

'We Will Sing' #2

Ann Hamilton's 'We Will Sing' installation extended into the other two rooms in the roof space at Salts Mill. Here she has assembled large pieces of wool fabric, of various thicknesses and weaves, each embellished with a blurry picture of what was termed a 'fève'. She apparently unearthed these miniature figurines in Salts Mill. They are ceramic objects that used to be baked into cakes for good luck. She has scanned and enlarged them massively, to form 'an audience of listeners' - and invites us, the visitors, to sing or write and read 'letters to the future'.

    

The neutral back of each of the large woollen pieces was paired with a cloak or coat made in locally produced fine wool cloth in beautiful colours, with metal light fittings that appeared to be original to the mill, and broadsheet newspapers with various photos and articles that were linked to the project. It was all rather odd, yet at the same time immensely evocative and touching. 

The adjoining room was simply furnished with six record turntables, each playing in turn songs and music recorded by various local community groups and schools.  Ann calls these 'a song for the future'. 

The installation is designed, I think, to be an ongoing and evolving project, inviting the participation of its visitors. The artist says that, for her, cloth and choral music are intrinsically tactile and democratic, each formed from individual threads or voices. 'We Will Sing' is a weaving of separate voices creating a chorus. 

(In this third room, I was mostly interested in the big doors that overlook the canal, through which, I think, goods would have been winched down to canal boats for transporting.) 

'We Will Sing' #1

A new exhibition has opened in Salts Mill's roof space, as part of Bradford City of Culture 2025. Called 'We Will Sing', it's an installation by the American artist Ann Hamilton, her first major work created in the UK for more than 30 years. 

The notes say: 'We Will Sing' is a work of memory and imagining. Drawing on the origins of the textile processes that once filled this huge space, Hamilton’s site-responsive installation weaves together voice, song and printed word in a material surround made from raw and woven wool sourced from local textile companies H Dawson, based at Salts Mill, and William Halstead, which celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2025.'

The photos in this post are taken in one of the three rooms that make up the roof space, originally a spinning shed. Most of the room is left empty, a vast, echoing space filled with the haunting voice of Emily Eagen, humming and singing a medieval folk song. This plays from three large, revolving, horn speakers, original to the mill and once used for announcements and alerts to the workforce. The effect is surreal, a kind of summoning of ghosts. 

There is written material too, in the form of broadsheets complied by the artist, which visitors are able to pick up and take away. 

I was really lucky to be there when it was relatively empty of visitors, which emphasised the floating and yet cocooning sense of history that the space holds. It really sent tingles up my spine!  It also sits firmly within the very modern way the mill is now used. Salts Mill has been transformative within our community ever since its inception in the 1850s, and that transformation continues under the sensitive stewardship of its current owners. 

80th anniversary of VE Day

I wanted to record that today, 8th May 2025, is the 80th anniversary of VE Day, the day World War II ended in Europe. It ended with Germany's unconditional surrender (though war continued in the Pacific, which had to wait until September for the surrender of Japan, in the meantime suffering the horror of two nuclear bombings in Japan.) 

I watched on TV the commemorative parade through London on Monday, culminating in an RAF flypast that included the Red Arrows display team. I have never seen them live, though I would love to. They are based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, a stone's throw from where my sister lives, so she's used to seeing them coming and going, though I don't suppose they normally billow red, white and blue smoke! (Pictures from my TV so terrible quality, sorry.) On Monday they were flying in a rare formation with four F-35B Lightning jets (so I understand!) 

Military bands, wartime songs, lots of flags and horses, 1300 marching service personnel including - poignantly - a few soldiers from Ukraine, Timothy Spall doing his best impression of Sir Winston Churchill, King Charles taking the salute, and he and his close family chatting animatedly with some of the veterans who were there (and later, hosting a tea party for them in Buckingham Palace). It was relatively understated as these events go but, as always, of high quality and conducted with absolute precision; yet it had a warmth and lack of arrogance to it, unlike the military parades you see in some other countries. 

I was surprisingly touched by the stories of those veterans still living, now getting on for 100 years old. Maybe it is the current political turmoil across the world, the ever increasing hostility of certain countries towards others, the normalising of dictatorships. 'Normal life' suddenly feels fragile again and one feels that a slide into a widespread war could too easily happen again. It made me realise too how little I actually know about WWII, beyond stories of the London Blitz, evacuees. the D-Day landings and suchlike. I was born in 1952, just seven years after it ended. We were not taught about WWII at school (though we studied WWI) so I don't know much about how it all unfolded. I suppose people, my family included, were just glad it was over and didn't really want to think about it any more. My own parents were just too young to have been directly involved (dad was 19 and mum 17 by VE Day) though my father had to do National Service after the war and my mother, a telephonist, was sent to work for short periods in busy telephone exchanges in London towards the end of the war. My grandfathers were both too old and worked in protected occupations, thankfully spared conscription. Rationing continued for some time after so I had my own ration book, which I still have somewhere, though I can't find it! (I was going to include a photo of it.) I've no family photos taken in wartime, as far as I'm aware, at least none that have any reference to the war or conditions at the time. So I drew a blank when it came to personal mementoes. 

Evening stroll

Lighter nights and warmer weather make it possible to take a stroll in the early evening. I don't do it nearly as often as I could (should) but, when I make the effort, I'm rewarded with a rather different view of familiar scenes. The canal, currently low in water and rather sluggish, was covered in masses of seeds and pollen, so that even the water looked golden in the low sunlight. They are talking of having to close it to boats because of the lack of water. Those in the know seem to be moving to their chosen berths. I saw the hotel boat Lady Teal coming through Saltaire the other day, perhaps keen to get back to its home mooring in Burnley. 

The light just catching the trees made them look like they could be the portal to another world. 

Bingley street art

I made a quick visit to Bingley with a friend, to see what I thought was a photographic exhibition by Bingley Camera Club. It turned out to be a sale of prints but my friend bought a couple, so it was a worthwhile trip. Around the railway station entrance, I noticed some newish street art. The mural above, filling in the windows of an empty property, shows a few Bingley landmarks like the famous Five Rise Locks. 

The other two paintings are by a local artist, Jane Fielder, who created them originally, I believe, to brighten up the entrance to the swimming pool. The pool is now closed and doesn't look like it's going to be saved, despite people's efforts. So the paintings have been weather-treated and placed outside, around the town. I think there are a couple more somewhere though I haven't managed to find them yet. 

 

Through the mill windows

Workers in the spinning sheds in Salts West Mill enjoyed far-reaching views, across the zig-zag of the roof of the combing shed, across the administrative block, with its little decorative arch (where I think the mill's bell once hung) and then through the trees (which I suppose were smaller and younger in the 19th century) that surround the church with its domed tower. 

Twisting slightly to look north, the view is dominated by the ornate chimney of the New Mill, modelled on the campanile of the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. Hope Hill and Baildon Moor rise behind. The New Mill is actually on the far side of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, which threads between the two mill buildings. The stone building in the middle ground was mainly warehousing, situated on the canalside so that goods could be taken on and off canal boats.  

Nowadays, we have the great pleasure of being able to view paintings by David Hockney (see HERE)  inside the spinning shed on this level, and then these beautiful views outside. 

Inspiration

One of the joys of having moved to my apartment is that there is much more wall space suitable for hanging pictures. I've been able to put this print in my hallway, facing the front door. It gives me a great deal of pleasure every time I look at it, and I think the dark blue wall paint really sets it off. It's one of my oldest pieces of art, a print of a photograph by Georges Meis, a Greek photographer whose work is sold by the ton in tourist spots in Greece: prints, calendars, postcards. I must have had it for over forty years, bought as a memento of a Greek island holiday. (I'm a great fan of that 'Greek blue' you see everywhere on the islands.) 

It's associated with very happy memories for me and yet... more than that... It's hard to describe but in many ways it represents the first time I became interested in photography as an art form, rather than simply a record or snapshot. There is something about the liquid quality of the print, almost as if it was shot underwater, and the way that the shadows blend with the cracks on the wall so that you can't really tell which is which. The whole has a kind of balance, lyricism and movement that appeals to me. I think it was where my own photographic journey really started, and so it means a lot to me. 

Jumble bells!

This scene is at the heart of Jumble Hole Clough. Apparently there used to be a house called Beverley End somewhere here, and the hillside is elaborately terraced. It's all connected with the textile trade and the mills that used to fill even this little valley. My daughter thinks the terracing may once have been a 'tenterfield', where they had the 'tenters': wooden frames that they used to stretch and dry woollen cloth in the open air during its manufacture. The cloth was held in place by rows of 'tenterhooks', which is where we get the phrase 'to be on tenterhooks', meaning to be in a state of unease or suspense. 

Now, the whole hillside is alive with bluebells and wild garlic, so very pretty. 

Tucked into the banking we found a patch of wood sorrel. Its trefoil leaves fold up into little tents at night, and the flowers close, opening again in the light of day. 

I also found this red, white and blue variety of comfrey. Comfrey roots and leaves contain allantoin and have traditionally been used in ointments to heal bruises and sprains.  

Jumble Hole Clough

My family have recently returned from an epic holiday in Japan, so it was lovely to catch up with them. They've just about recovered from the jet lag! As it was such a gorgeous day, we went for a walk up a little valley called Jumble Hole Clough. 

Calderdale is riddled with steep sided ravines or 'cloughs', where streams tumble down to join the main River Calder. As the textile trade moved from handloom weaving onto a more organised, commercial footing, numerous small mills were built to harness the water power of the streams. This little valley alone held at least four mills in the early 19th century. (To read about its history, see HERE.) 

We stumbled across a tiny little burial ground that belonged to Mount Olivet Baptist Chapel. The chapel itself was opened in 1842, closed in 1909 and was demolished about 1946, but its graveyard remains, the gravestones weathered and the land covered in bluebells. 

The fresh, green foliage comes in a multitude of layered shades, with attractive glimpses through the branches. 

The steep valley stream has been 'engineered' in many places to provide water power for the mills. There are bridges, weirs, mill dams, goits and sluices all along its length, though the burgeoning vegetation and rocky debris in the stream gradually seek to reclaim it all to nature. 

Where there are breaks in the trees, you can catch glimpses across the valley, here looking up to Stoodley Pike, a prominent monument built in the 1850s, on the site of an earlier memorial commemorating the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Standing 121 feet high, it is visible for miles around. 

Apple blossom

Isn't apple blossom the prettiest sight? I love how the little buds are deep pink and fade to white as they open. At Harlow Carr Gardens, they have a long row of apple trees, pruned into a dense hedge, at the back of the kitchen garden. They are a delight all year round as, of course, they fruit with hundreds of small, shiny, red apples in the autumn, when they look almost as though they have Christmas decorations hung all over them. But this seemed like an appropriate post for May Day! 

Harlow Carr bits and bobs!

I generally like the photos in a blog post to have some kind of unifying theme that makes sense... but so often when I have categorised them, I end up with a few random ones that don't really fit, a kind of photographic 'junk drawer' as it were. 

Here are a few from Harlow Carr Gardens: some colourful willow stems, bundled and drying, next to a living willow arbour, just beginning to get its leafy covering. 

Spring flowers - daffodils, wood anemones, primroses - provided a pretty backdrop for a song thrush, hunting for tasty morsels in the earth. Song thrushes used to be plentiful when I was a child and nowadays I hardly ever seem to spot one; their numbers have declined alarmingly in the UK. 

There's an area with a bird hide and bird feeders and I popped in to see if I could spot any interesting small birds. I'd seen a wren hopping around, though couldn't get a photo, and there are always friendly robins around the place. All I could see was a very colourful cock pheasant. Perhaps he'd scared the little birds away, or more likely some talkative humans had disturbed their peace. (I can never understand how people don't know you should be quiet in a bird hide!) 

Also at the bird feeders, a wily grey squirrel. He hid for a while in the shadows and then scooted up a tree, along a wire and hung upside down to fill himself with bird seed from a feeder. Clearly very practised at that manoeuvre!

One of my favourite spring bulbs is the trillium. There are lots of different varieties, all characterised by three petals. This one was a clean, neat looking white variety, very attractive. 

In the woodland, ferns are unfurling. They always remind me of a nest of snakes! (Not that I've ever seen a nest of snakes!) I can remember learning the complex life cycle of ferns in biology at school. Absolutely fascinating.