Almost as soon as I got my first instamatic camera (a Kodak Instamatic 50) in the 1960s I started experimenting with black and white film which could be developed and printed at home by taking over the bathroom and blacking it out with either sheets of thick plastic or by shovin drawing pins into the window frames through a few layers of blankets... This alsi meant that the family had to wait sometimes for quite a while before they could use the loo... but sacrifices have to be made. Not by me though - I was already in there!
Hollingworth Lake in Littleborough was Rochdale's main go-to place for relaxation. It was really a reservoir, covering a village so the rumours went. Of course there was another that said you could hear the church bells on stormy nights... Must be a ghostly one then because there are no buildings left apart from very low walls and foundations some of which showed themselves during the droughts earlier this year.
The lake used to be a hive of activity in summer, yachting, motor boats for hire, the odd brave person (or the brave odd person) swimming... and fishing. I was never a dedicated fisherman, but went several times with a mate, Barry, fishing on the canal and once at the lake where we persuaded someone in a boat to take our lines right out from the shore. On reeling back with a spinner lure I felt a bit of weight and eventually had a 2lb pike on the line. Perhaps not on the hook through as it dropped back into the water on being lifted out. Drat!
There was a tiny fair and a few one-armed bandits at the Lake, but every year a travelling fair would set up and we would go to enjoy the atmosphere and grab a few photos.
There was a scrap yard somewhere, possibly around the end of Albert Royds Street (now Rochdale Bypass) but round the back of Halifax Road, and I used to go taking photos of the wrecked cars there, with a mate. The chap who worked there soon got to know us and apart from a warning not to go climbing up the stacked cars, was happy to let us in to wander.
This was a Hillman Minx, a tank of a car, one of which was to be my own first four-wheeled car after a brief dalliance with Reliant three-wheelers at the age of 16. I would only be 13 at the time of these outings.
It's fascinating looking at these now - not so much for the girls - who let's face it are a bit young for me now ha ha - but this is Yorkshire Street, Rochdale in the swinging 1960s. As far as I remember it was 1967, the Summer of Love. You know, I always wondered... Where was all that free love that we heard so much about, going on? This must have been one of the first black and white films I ever developed myself. Full of drying marks too... But just look how busy Yorkshire Street is...
Snapped walking across a zebra crossing. The girls were walking the opposite way, towards us and I got a smile from one of them.
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