I really must have picked up something in the air when I started talking about the Times pictures
This Saturday the magazine treated us to a selection of 1930s photos from their archives, featuring the British at work
The pioneering picture editor of those days was Ulric Van den Bogaerde. I used to be in love with his son, Dirk Bogarde. Especially in his incarnation as Dr Simon Sparrow. And I now know that the current picture editor is Paul Sanders
One picture particularly captured my attention. Just browns, blacks & a little red (very Rembrandt) it shows a man tending to a wallpaper printing machine in Darwen, Lancashire
My grandfather was a calico dyer & printer. From him I learned, almost without realising it, a lot about textiles. How to judge the quality of a piece of cloth. Do a quick thread count. Tell the difference between a pattern which was dyed & one which was printed. How to have a good idea of which colours would be fast in the wash & which were likely to run
All information which is still useful, especially when so much tat is offered on the grounds that cotton is, ipso facto, superior to anything manmade
I should love to be able to sit & look at this photo with my granddad. He could tell me if printing wallpaper was in anyway the same as printing cotton, expand on all the technical details in the picture
And it would be great if there could be an exhibition of these photographs, preferably in Greater Manchester
Now I can look at a blown up version of this picture I see that there are actually patches of blue in the top left hand corner
But mostly I see how stiff with paint are the mans overalls. My grandma would never have let grandpas get into that state
