I found Heather Popazzi on Facebook on the South Kirkby Colliery Memories page. She was showing a miners' lamp and I wondered if I might be able to use it for my project. Then I discovered that Heather was more than 3000 miles away in Ontario, Canada.  Clearly, there was a connection to South Kirkby…

David Nuttall was born in 1944 at Hemsworth in South Yorkshire, on the road to South Kirkby.

David Nuttall - Image © Jonathan Straight 2021

He always wanted to be a teacher spending his entire career doing a job he loved, rising to the position of headmaster. He was head of…

I met Trevor Moxon at the Remembrance Sunday Parade in 2021. He was at "The Soldiers" pub early on in his military uniform. We spoke about his long career in the Air Force and the Army.  He had previously been the Parade Marshal, but this year handed the baton to someone else. 

Trevor Moxon. Image ©…

Ken Beardsley is a Scout and has been awarded the Silver Wolf - Scouting's highest honour. I met him along with another Silver Wolf recipient, Colin Walker, at the Remembrance Sunday events in South Elmsall. Colin Walker - Image © Jonathan Straight 2021

Ken Beardsley - Image Facebook.  

 Ken was born in Kingston upon Thames but…

On one of my first trips to South Elmsall Market, I quickly found that when people said they did not want to be photographed "but go to the stall around the corner", the person on the stall around the corner generally did not wish to be photographed either. However, one such person followed me off…

One of the strangest stories I had discovered about South Elmsall was that in the 1970s, a disused swimming baths on Westfield Lane was used for training dolphins. There was quite a bit of press coverage about this on-line which in turn led me to David Holroyd, a Mancunian who was a trainee dolphin trainer…

I wear many different hats - photographic artist is one. Despite the many pressures of other things I do, I like to complete at least one creative project each year and so I am always looking for interesting ideas to pursue. 

In July 2021, a commission was advertised on a service called Curator Space. Each week…