Jimmys Roller

Picture of the Rolls-Royce silver Corniche convertible that was owned by the late Jimmy Savile.

Jimmy Savile was born in Leeds and late last year died here in the city at his home in Roundhay aged 84.

Jimmy was many things including professional wrestler, semi professional sportsman as a cyclist he competed in the 1951 Tour of Britain, Bevin Boy having been conscripted to work as a coal miner in WW2. Later Jimmy found fame as a disc jockey, first at Radio Luxembourg 1958-67 moving to Radio 1 at the BBC in 1968. He also did much TV work being the presenter on the first edition of the long running Top of the Pops show later getting his own TV show Jim'll Fix It.

He real legacy though was his numerous charitable works, its estimated that he raised around £40 for various charities including Stoke Mandeville Hospital and sponsoring medical research at the University of Leeds.

Jimmy died at his home in Roundhay adjacent to Roundhay Park on the 29th October 2011 two days before his 85th birthday. Yesterday his possessions were auctioned off in Leeds including his Rolls-Royce silver Corniche convertible which sold for £130,000.



The above picture show the immaculate interior of the very low mileage (4420 miles) roller which sold at the auction at the Savile Hall at the Royal Armouries here in Leeds. Both these photographs were taken by my friend national press photographer Lorne Campbell prior to the auction.

Cricket at Calverley

Picture of a cricket match being played at Calverley in Yorkshire.

Yesterday afternoon passing through the village of Calverley I noticed that there was a cricket match in progress so I stopped and watched for a while.

The Calverley village cricket pitch is part of the public park.

Dragonfly

Picture of a dragonfly in Leeds.

Its funny I live out close to the river Aire and also the Leeds - Liverpool canal and I had been trying to get a photo of a dragonfly for some time and by chance I saw one in Leeds city centre.

I was down by the Leeds city bus station on Friday and a dragonfly flew past me so I followed it and it landed on a bush by the coach slip road. Of all the places I would image being able to get a photograph of a dragonfly Leeds city centre would not have been high on the list.

Yellow Flowers

Another plant picture today I do not now which plant these rather pretty small yellow flowers belong to at a guess from where I saw them possibly a herb?

Normal service will be resumed ASAP once I have killed that pesky virus.

Mint Flower

This picture of a mint herb plant in flower is not at all the photo that I would like to post but I have recently had a computer virus!!!

I am struggling to access the web at the moment, so please forgive me if my daily post here are erratic. The virus turned into a major problem when I tried several different anti virus programs to remove it this made a minor problem much worse!

48 Albion Street Leeds

Picture of 48 Albion Street Leeds.

Previously I have gone out of my way to ignore places like Starbucks on this blog about Leeds because they represent everything that is, in my view, wrong with our towns and cities.

This attitude is I think wrong in the sense that this building in the above photograph currently occupied by Starbucks, is I think rather a nice old stone built building.

This is the corner of Albion Street and Commercial Street in Leeds city centre, the light building on the far right of the photo is The Leeds Library of which I am a member.

I took the photograph a few days back on a nice bright and sunny day unlike today where it is 10/10 cloud and muggy here in Leeds.

Leeds Bus Station Clock

Leeds Bus Station Clock" title="Picture of Leeds bus station clock.

This clock at the Leeds city bus station will be one of the first sights in Leeds that many visitors first see.

The clock is on a small brick tower in the middle of the yard where the buses maneuver into the bays to pick up and drop of passengers.

I took this photo some days back on a dull and damp day. The BBC Leeds building is on the left of the picture, behind the clock is a metal aerial like structure atop the DHSS building at Quarry Hill.

Intrepid Granny

Picture of Xie Houguo and bicycle in City Square, Leeds.

Walking across City Square when I noticed some young Chinese, possibly students photographing an older lady with a bike. I asked one of them what it was about and he said that this little granny had ridden her bike from China to England for the Olympics.

I thought wow, thats some trek for anyone but on further questions she had flown to Hungary and ridden the little folding bicycle from there apart from the ferry from France to Dover. No wonder these young people wanted to get a photo of this lady and her bike.

Xie Houguo aged 63, is a retired worker from the Chongqing Tap Water Company in China. Xie completed in 2007 a tour of China's 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions after being seriously injured in a road accident. In 2008 Xie was a torchbearer at the Beijing Olympics.

In the background are from left the newly restored Majestic Cinema building, the former General Post Office building, Bond Court and lastly the much newer 1 City Square.

Renault Twizy

Picture of Renault Twizy on Briggate, Leeds.

Walking along Briggate in Leeds shopping district this afternoon I noticed a small track had been laid out. Renault the French car maker were giving free rides in their new electric car the Twizy.

The Twizy is described as an electric city car (legally clasiffied in Europe as a heavy quadricycle) and has a range of 60 miles with a 3 hour charge period.

I was tempted to have a ride but there were kids queuing and they would have far more fun from this than me. With no road tax I would think this would be quite a popular car for people who perhaps commute across a city.

The young woman driver and demonstrator I spoke to said she had great fun driving it around, I can believe that. As for charging it has a standard UK plug on the end of a coiled cable, so you could charge it up at the office.

Pandora Girls

Just about everyone on Briggate in Leeds city centre wanted get a look at the Queen who was visiting the city yesterday morning.

The Pandora store at the top of Briggate was close to where the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were walking and chatting to people in the crowd. As I walked past the store I saw that the members of staff were standing on the staircase trying to get a view above the heads of the crowd. I asked if I could take a photo and they said yes.

Queen Visits Leeds

Picture of Queen arriving on Briggate in Leeds city centre.

This morning the Queen visited the city of Leeds, visiting Leeds Arena, the City Varieties and Briggate.

I along with several thousand others was waiting for the car to arrive and by chance I was reasonably placed to get a few pictures. As you can see from the above photo HM the Queen was accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh as part of the Diamond Jubilee Tour of the UK.

Picture of Queen on Briggate in Leeds city centre.

The above picture shows the Queen with The Lord-Lieutenant of West Yorkshire Dr Ingrid M Roscoe on the right entering Briggate from Swan Lane.

To get these photos I along with several others was balanced on a narrow low window ledge of a store at the top of Briggate.

Picture of crowd at Leeds royal visit.

I took the above photo holding my camera above my head and shooting in the general direction. Although the focus was out I like the Leeds flag and it give some idea of the bunfight to get a picture.

Tomorrow I will some more pictures from the royal visit to Leeds including the girls from Pandora on Briggate.

Majestic Blue Plaque

Picture of blue plaque at the Majestic cinema building in Leeds city centre.

At the back end of last week the Leeds Civic Trust unveiled a blue plaque on the former Majestic cinema building in City Square Leeds.

Various people spoke about their attachment to and experience of the Majestic when it was formerly a cinema. This was a time when home entertainment most likely meant the family sat in the sitting room listening to the wireless, it being years before the advent of home video and DVD.

Personally I have never been inside this imposing Art Deco building which closed as a cinema in 1969, when the last film was The Good, The Bad and the Ugly a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. After its life as Leeds grandest cinema the Majestic became a bingo hall.

The film South Pacific ran for 38 weeks back in 1958 and later the Sound of Music ran for 2 and a half years and in its first week 50,000 people saw it right here at the Majestic, incredible numbers.

The blue plaque reads..

The Majestic Cinema
Brought luxury and fantasy to everyday life when it opened in June 1922. Its fan shaped auditorium, complete with classical dome and Parthenon style frieze seated 2,800 cinema goers.
Music was added to the pleasures of film by the grand organ, the Majestic Symphony Orchestra and dinner dances in its sumptuous restaurant.
Architect Pascal J Stienlet

This Leeds Civic Trust blue plaque is number 136 and was only temporarily located in the entrance, it will at some time in the future be affixed to the building.

I was struggling with my Internet connection, else I would have posted this a couple of days back. Talktalk are great except when it goes wrong.

Love Leeds

Picture of Leeds city.

I’ve lived in Leeds for two years, but I semi-grew up here, which basically means that I spent all my summer holidays here. I feel for this city a long time ago, and created to photo collage in homage (pun intended) to Leeds. I deliberately choose some of the slightly less iconic buildings and sites to show Leeds from a different angle.
This collage was created by Sarah Oxley on behalf of One UK, providers of city apartments and flats in Leeds. Visit their website http://www.one-uk.co.uk/ for more details.

Majestic Once More

Picture of the former Majestic Cinema building in Leeds.

I took this photo of the former Majestic Cinema building in City Square Leeds two days back.

The old Majestic, once Leeds finest cinema had seen better days and until recently its past glory was but a memory. Recently the former cinema building has undergone a transformation by being restored by Rushbond Plc.

The work on this fine old Grade II listed building has almost been completed as can be seen in the above photograph. I shall return to the Majestic once the inside of the building in unveiled.

City Square Skyline

Picture of skyline in City Square, Leeds.

I have always liked City Square in Leeds city centre, in part because its the entrance to Leeds from the train station. For many visitors to this Northern city City Square will be their first view of Leeds.

Personally I think of the several buildings in city square my favourite is the former Post Office building with its clock tower. Also in the square are several bronze statues but the most impressive is the monument to Edward the Black Prince.

In the above photograph taken by me this afternoon can be seen the clock tower on the Old Post Office and the statue sculpted in bronze by Thomas Brock of the Black Prince.

This morning in Leeds it rained but as you can see above by around midday the cloud had broken up and sunshine with blue sky was here.

Great Yorkshire Show Canceled

Picture of pigs at the Great Yorkshire Show.

Sad news earlier this evening this years Great Yorkshire Show has been canceled after the first day today.

Due to continue on Wednesday and with the final day on Thursday the organizers announced that with regret the remainder of the show would be canceled due to the exceptional rainfall.

This is the first time in its history that the premier agricultural show in England has been called off due to bad weather. The only other times it has not run was in the two wars, the Great War and WW2 and once because of foot and mouth disease. The first show was way back in 1838 at Fulford near York, today the show is at its permanent show ground at Harrogate.

Personally I had been discussing going on the Thursday just this evening before we found out about the cancellation.

I took the above photograph at the Great Yorkshire two summers back in 2010.

Rain again today.

City Centre Mushrooms

Picture of mushrooms growing wild in Leeds city centre.

Travel into Leeds city centre this morning by bus I was glancing out the window when I noticed some mushrooms growing in a small patch of grass next to Leeds town hall.

These mushrooms are part of a small fairy ring in the small garden of the Oxford Place Methodist Church. I was lucky to be there between showers, not being keen to lie on soaking wet grass. Yes, here in Leeds it rained again today.

For the right photo I would happily lie on very wet grass but this was not the time.

Rose as Art

Picture of rose flower after rain as art.

Whilst at school I liked art classes, mostly because I liked drawing. I was never very good with a paint brush.

The younger me would have been amazed that I could produce an image like the above photo. OK so its a photograph and I used photoshop, but even so I could still claim it was mine.

This rose that I photographed after another period of rain looked OK, but I do like this version. What do you think?

Six for Gold

Picture of a group of magpies in Leeds, Yorkshire.

Nope I am not writing about the Olympics, rather the rhyme about groups of magpie birds.

One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a story never to be told
Eight for Heaven
Nine for Hell
Ten for the Devil himself

There are regional variations to some of this little rhyme. When I was a boy it would be rare to see a group of 6 magpies as in the above photo. I saw two groups of magpies a couple of days back in Armley, pity they were apart else I would have got a bakers dozen in the frame. I think perhaps it was because the grass had recently been cut quite short that there were so many in one place.

I would think quite a few people of my generation know the magpie verse from Magpie the children's TV show.

Snoopy Dislikes Rain

This is my friends cat, Snoopy who was sitting on the windowsill looking out at the rain earlier today. As soon as he realised I had my blackberry on him he looked round. Snoopy is not keen on snow but he really does not like rain and I think he was bored with mooching about inside all day. Yes folks it rained again today and for most of the day.

Holbeck

Picture of Holbeck sign at Holbeck in Leeds.

On my regular train journey into Leeds station I had noticed a church with a steeple close to but not in the city centre. I spent a little time trying to work out which church this was, it being one that I had never visited.

The church turned out to be the former St. Matthew's church in Holbeck, Leeds which is now the St. Matthew's Community Centre. Just opposite the old church building and on the edge of Holbeck Moor Park is the above "Holbeck" sign laid out in a slightly raised flowerbed.

The location of this Holbeck sign is adjacent to St Matthews Street, Holbeck on the edge of the park.

Leeds Skyline

Picture of Leeds from some distance.

This was the view looking towards Leeds city centre from some distance up in Armley today around lunchtime. The sky was totally overcast and the light was pretty dull.

On the left in the above picture is the Parkinson building at the University of Leeds and on the right is the town hall. There are quite a few other Leeds landmarks but I would pick a day with better visibility before going into more detail.

Later during the afternoon it rained, again and by the end of the afternoon it was quite bright but with dark rain clouds.

I have tweaked this photograph of Leeds, in its natural state it was less dramatic and indeed duller.

Street Fundraising Leeds

Picture of Street fundraising workers on Albion Street in Leeds city centre.

I was unsure which story to run with here today, was it to be the Barclays saga or street fund raising workers. I said my piece to the Yorkshire Post reporter who asked me for my view on the Barclays story yesterday. Also I think this is a story that will run and run. So street fundraising it is.

Over the last few years there has been a rise in the phenomenon of the street charity fundraisers. I never really noticed them until I started this blog and was spending more time on the streets both in Leeds city centre and also some of the towns around the city.

I have spoken to several of the young people doing this job here in the city if only to get an idea of what it is all about and also have featured a couple of them on the blog. I have found them to be polite, idealistic, enthusiastic and genuinely well meaning. To be fair I tend to chat with the newer recruits to this industry and I am always surprised by what seems to me to be a very high burn rate or churn rate.

Charities today have changed from being mostly about the "charitable" thing that they do to being much more like big business. Many of the high streets here in the UK have several charity shops, not necessarily run by volunteers as they used to be but run by paid employees.

I took the above photo late yesterday afternoon on Albion Street in the city centre. Although there are 3 charity fund raisers in the picture there was I think also one more. You cannot miss them with their red hooded tops moving around in the middle of this pedestrian street. The girl in the centre of the picture later stopped me and asked if I could spare a minute... I said I liked her red Hunter shoes and she was a nice young woman from a nice family.

I first heard the term chugger from one of the cities better known buskers. A small part of me agrees with this sentiment. What do you think?

Weather Record

Picture of small flowers after rain in Leeds.

The Met Office here in the UK has announced that, yep you most likely already guessed this, June was the wettest since records began back in 1910.

Not much to add to that except perhaps that I took the above photograph of a few little flowers in a window box in Leeds city centre just after it stopped raining this afternoon. Not sure what these small flowers are.

Foxglove After Rain

Picture of foxglove flower in an old garden in Leeds.

Yesterday here in Leeds it rained again, despite it being the height of summer.

I was in N Leeds yesterday afternoon a little after it rained and I saw some foxgloves in an old garden. I nearly always have my camera with me and when I took a few shots I was surprised to see the bee so soon after the rain.

I have always loved bees and wildflowers too!

When I first started looking at this photograph of a foxglove I was not going to crop the image but that way the little bee would have been less obvious.