Anne Lister

Just in from Halifax.

Our usual morning sing with the community choir. Fun and excitement about our big concert in St George’s Hall. It’s not until September!

After we went to Bingley station to see if I can sort out seats for my train journey after Easter. Ticket office closed due to technical issues!

So, after a coffee, we went to Halifax with my blackwork embroidery to a framing company recommended by Pinkdragon ( thank you J). He was very helpful with frame choice and I was immediately endeared to him as he was feeding two cats, one outside and one in! It will be ready to collect next Monday.

We continued into Halifax to do our weekly M & S shop. A long time since I’ve shopped here but it’s a good store. As we were near we went along to Halifax Station - same story here, their whole system must be down.
Time left on our parking ticket and the weather had dried up a bit so we went into the Piece Hall - where the cloth merchants used to sell their pieces.. It’s the first time I’ve been since it was upgraded. Halifax has done a good job of blending the old with the new by keeping historic buildings such as this from a past era though I do remember the time when pulling it down was seriously debated.

As we walked to the station we passed lots of posters promoting Anne Lister’s birthday. I knew there was a statue of her in the Piece Hall so sought it out and here it is surrounded by flowers as the anniversary of her birth was 231 years ago yesterday.
You may be more familiar with Anne Lister as Gentleman Jack, a new, second series by Sally Wainwright starts next Sunday in the UK.
She resided at nearby Shibden Hall and through her secret coded diaries her life as a lesbian was discovered and serialised for TV. Much of the filming has taken place in our locality include in Bingley Old Main Street and Saltaire as well as in Halifax itself of course.

The hares are still there but I avoided blipping those as there have been so many of them on blip over the last few weeks, the bigger ones are either the same or very similar (certainly by the same artist) to the ones that resided in Lister Park, Bradford and featured on our local TV news titles for several years and one we saw at Yorkshire Sculpture Park last year.

So an interesting little interlude in Halifax and we may be back again next week!

Tiday is the actual day. I started blip 12 years ago!