Column: Looking Back with Alan Burnett

These days it would probably incorporate the Piece Hall, and that is a tribute to those who have transformed that fine old building into a busy, twenty-first century success story.

If you watch the opening credits of Look North, you will see the Piece Hall in all its splendour, a symbol of a town that has found its place in this modern, post-industrial world.

The Piece Hall has not always been the symbol of a confident, forward-looking town of course.

I took a picture of it in the 1960s when it was a busy, but shabby, fruit and vegetable wholesale market.

The old stone colonnades had, by then, soaked up almost two centuries of smoke and soot, and a few mill chimneys still stood out against the bare hillsides.

Dean Clough mill would be another contender for iconic Halifax, as, for much of its industrial life, Halifax was one of the great carpet towns of Europe.

My photograph was taken in the early 1970s when smoke still emerged from the various chimneys and vents the characterised this giant manufacturing complex.

The Dean Clough mill complex is another fine example of one of the outstanding buildings of Halifax finding a new and exciting use - or rather a dozen new and exciting uses - in the twenty-first century.

For a whole generation of early twentieth century school children, the familiar view of Halifax would be of a sombre, smoke-shrouded mill town, in which children would be asked to count the mill chimneys as part of a somewhat depressing geography lesson.

Such photographs were normally taken from the top of Beacon Hill, and the town in all its raw beauty would be spread out for the world to see.

A little of this industrial panorama can be seen in my photograph taken from Godley Bridge in 1966. It is my own personal iconic view of Halifax, the view that would greet me from the front of the top deck of a corporation bus as I made my way to Halifax and to school.

By 1966 you could still play count the chimneys, but now you could begin to spot high rise flats bullying their way into the landscape.

There was a time in the twentieth century when Halifax earned itself another sobriquet, “Toffee Town”.

The various factories of John Mackintosh dominated the bottom end of town, and the first thing to hit you when you stepped off the train at Halifax station would be the sweet aroma of boiling toffee.

My photograph of Albion Mills dates from the mid 1970s, in the days before Mack’s became Rowntree’s and Rowntree’s became Nestle.

The search for the iconic picture of Halifax could be a lifetime’s quest, and in part it will depend on your age. As we get older, it is the early images that become more fixed in our memories.

The beautiful Victorian Halifax Market still clings on to life today, but my memories of it transport me back sixty years to when my photograph was taken.

It was a time when biscuits came in square tin boxes, and shoppers still wore pack-a-macs.

Halifax is mills and factories, hills and valleys, beautiful buildings and dark, satanic snickets. The town is all of these things and our iconic picture must somehow bring all these different aspects of our home town together.

My final picture dates from about fifty years ago. When I took it, it was a black and white image, and I have cheated slightly by adding a touch of colour. That’s not really cheating, however, as Halifax has always been a colourful place, a town of vibrant carpets and colourful toffee wrappers.

My photo captures the old mills and the new flats and roads. It has the steep hills and the outlying moors. For me, it is “our Halifax”.