Peter V Barraclough Remembrance Plaque

I got a remembrance plaque for the bro from a charity - the funds go to the charity which is good . It has had some personal info blanked out on the photo obviously but we are very pleased with it. The plaque is displayed publicly, so the old bro will most likely like that (I hope!).

Richard Hornshaw Manningham Mills Director Plaque

It is hard to believe that my Great Granduncle (my Great Great Grandad's son) was once a director of one of the most important mills in the whole world during the Victorian and Edwardian Era. Lister's of Manningham Mills even supplied the White House in the USA with velvet curtains. I think a lot of people tend to forget him as the not as well known director and it is always Mr Watson, the Managing Director whose family owned a spa hydro in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, who gets the public acclaim.

With this in mind I got him a plaque from a charity I support and the charity displays the plaque in public. The funds go to the charity, so it is win win all the way.

Richard Hornshaw wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth - he worked up from Office Clerk, to Manager of the Silk Mill, to Export Manager, to one of the Board of Directors for the whole of Listers Mill (Manningham Mills) Bradford. He lived in a nice (but fairly modest, given his position) house in Heaton, Bradford.

Alderman Horace Robert Walker, Charles Frederick Walker And Doris Walker

Alderman Horace Robert Walker

Doris and Charles Frederick Walker

These are pictures of relatives when they are obviously quite old. Horace Robert, known to us as 'Uncle Bob' was Lord Mayor of Bradford back in the 50's. The other photo of elder brother Charles Frederick (Grandpa Charlie) and his wife (Nanny Doris) was taken in 1974 at Hallow Bank, Kentmere, Cumbria. Former family members made a big contribution to the growth of Bradford, West Yorkshire, in the past - one was even American vice-consul to Bradford when the place actually had a consulate.

 Most family members have now left Bradford for what they probably consider to be more genteel, nouveau riche areas, but I have always felt my roots are here, though Bradford is only one place the family hails from - there are many other places we also have direct heritage with.

I remember once living in Halifax, West Yorkshire (not the one in Canada, the original Halifax in England) and seeing a bus go up the road back to Bradford through Boothtown and wishing I was on it. The same happened when I lived in Huddersfield. If I looked at the place in a certain way then I could pretend it was Bradford. Why have a veggie burger when there is veggie pie at home?

Bradford may be a lot of things but I have always cinsdered it my true home and when I look at the lighted windows in the dusk I can almost see our Victorian and Edwardian family still going about their daily business. I believe I can still feel their energies  in the air.

I also got the impression that Peter had returned to his former Baildon home. As a professional spiritualist medium, researcher and author, I was shown him waiting in his house as it was back in the 70's at Fyfe Grove, Baildon, Shipley. The old Chesterfield was there along with the slate fireplace, the brass smith's clock, the glass and brass coffee table, the 'Stag' bedroom furniture popular in the 70's, the original study, later turned in to a breakfast room, the chandelier in the dining room, handed over by Dad - all of this stuff . I didn't get the feel that Peter was down in St Ives Cornwall with his late career painter/property developer wife or that he was up at Windermere with his mid life second career  elder daughter, but he was waiting for them - yes - in his Baildon home.This is indeed what I was shown.


Find out more about Alderman Horace Robert Walker's Portrait on Art Detective

Holehird Walled Garden Windermere To Islington London

There is a painting which will most likely now be known to PVB -  kind of doing the rounds quite a bit, so to speak. This is a particular painting is of Holehird Walled Garden which is a part of a set of gardens open to the public in Windermere, Lake District.. The postcards above show both Holehird Walled Garden and Islington which is an area of London.

The painting transported itself from Windermere and took up residence on the wall of an owned basement apartment in an Islington residence. The top part of the house which is also owned belongs to a joint consortium with the bottom apartment. Neither however appear on Craigslist but may be climbing up a gumtree if they were in Australia, for example.

I am not too sure what Peter would make of them really, but he could well approve or not as the case may be. I am not sure he entirely approves though if I am honest, I get the impression he feels all is a little too clinical and not really a part of the gouache of towns and cites generally.

York To Scarborough Fishing Boats

Peter V. Barraclough once went out in a fishing boat on the sea and actually quite enjoyed the experience. He also once went down a mine too, though not one of the Cornish mines,it was a northern mine he has to visit for some reason or another. Scarborough is very easily accessed from the ancient city of York - where all the other places called York in the world get their names from, including New York. Yorkshire has some lovely beaches that easily rival those found anywhere else in Britain.

Lammas Celebrations From Bradford To Penwith - Does Peter Barraclough Fly As A Seagull?

Peter V. Barraclough has been in spirit for over 12 years in earth time now - but he sometimes signifies his  presence as a bird. There appears to be a spirit bird in the top picture which was taken at a meeting of our coven during Lughnasadh - Lammas -  celebrations.. As there are a lot of seagulls in St Ives, Cornwall and the surrounding areas of Penwith. It could be that Peter sometimes sits on the roofs of the properties watching the tourists and then appears again back in Bradford. Peter Barraclough was a Bradfordian from Heaton who married a lady from Aireview Crescent in Lower Baildon, Shipley. He later moved to the Lake District where he lived at Windermere Park and worked for Kendal Customs and Excise in the VAT office.

Peter Vivian Barraclough In Cornwall

I have a poster on my wall which says that Felix J C Pole is the General Manager of the South Western Line of the Great Western Railway. Actually - he was - back in the 1920's. He wrote some interesting books on train travel in Devon and Cornwall too.

I have tried very carefully to look beyond the tourist modality of South West Cornwall , the Penwith area really more than the heartlands. What else is there in Cornwall besides tourists, painters, shipwrecks, Poldark, Jamaica Inn and the like?
What is behind the seashore and away from the moors and crumbling ruined outposts above Zennor? Does Truro have the answer or even Penzance? Where are the areas of zilch tourists?

PVB took his wife and kids on cottage holidays to Cornwall back in the 1980's and the place obviously resonated on many levels and called them back like a rip tide.

Here's the question:-

 Is PVB in Cornwall? has the mark his physical presence made on the sands of time been enough to hold his essence there?

Well it is a difficult one. PVB sits at his glass coffee table at his house on Fyfe Grove which floats on the ether like many places of times past. Everything is just 'so' in his house, the furnishings ready, neat and clean, but he feels loneliness. The house is just as it was in 1980, or thereabouts.

So - is PVB in Cornwall or not? Is his ghost house perched firmly on the Lizard Peninsula? Is he in a cave on the radioactive beach at Carbis Bay? Does he sit on the Lion Rock at noon?

No - he holds out a bunch of red flowers which are placed by a bowl of fruit and a banana. He picks up a key and shows a weather vane that looks like a fisherman - it is dark like black wrought iron.

He says 'I haven't been very well" his cheeks are a little red -flushed - he is looking up - over the top of his glasses - his eyes are very blue - like the sea and his hair is very black. He says 'It's hot here'. He is wearing a pale blue shirt under a dark blue sweater. He looks like he is sitting against a red or burgundy velvet seat - like a pub seat. He is holding out a black box -  there is something in this box,  it is like a deeds box - there is more, something else, in the box.