When rearranging a family library - ie rendering order out of some chaos - a young person was intrigued by the number of slim soft-back books about Belfast and surroundings which had been published over the last 20 years and more. Not about divisions and violence, not obviously on anyone's side, just picture books of times past with a distinct and direct appeal to her sense of social history. In most cases these volumes consist largely of full-page pictures with only a brief caption, but their appeal was instant and led to many questions. Most of this particular lot, by the way are from Friar's Bush Press, others from Blackstaff and Appletree. Some are the work of one photographer, others dip into such collections as that of Welch.
Arthur Campbell, brother of George the artist, took his own pictures and in Return Journey (1987), opened young eyes at, for example, the four-masted sailing boat (windjammer, says the caption) which, amazingly, had just docked in Belfast "high in the water after unloading a cargo of Australian wheat." And Campbell tells us that the annual grain races half way round the world, were nearing their end. This was in 1936. She was built in 1892, and was finally broken up in 1958. Street performers often caught his eye. One picture shows a juggler seen balancing a bicycle on top of a pole which rests on his chin. A helper "collects the coppers in his cap."
Horses and donkeys abound in the streets, not hauling tourists, but goods: coal, potatoes etc. A picture in Up the Shankill shows a very young girl with the caption "Running Home with Father's Drink", and the text reads: "During the 1890s and early 1900s, it was a common sight to see young children carrying alcohol home to their parents." A salutary read by Paul Hamilton.
One of the most comprehensive of all is Brian Mercer Walker's Faces of the Past, a photographic and literary record of Ulster life 18801915: politics, literature, farming. And, in this connection, Welch's famous photograph appeared of two women on a sloping field, tidying up their lazy beds of potatoes. The thorn trees at the head of the slope are carefully left untouched. Farming in Ulster, and a slim soft-back on railways in Ulster. And that is only touching on the life of a few generations ago. Belfast publishers have scored heavily with such readily acceptable historical vignettes.