INFORMATION

General Information

During the year 2000 D J Clark built a visual record of the Lancaster & Morecambe district using photographs and information submitted by those that feature in the pictures. The project was conducted in association with Lancaster Museum and has been archived for future generations to look back at the district at the turn of the new Millennium. For more information on the project visit the information page. If you find a caption is wrong or there is a fault with the page please e-mail D J Clark.

Date: October 28th, 2000
Location: Various locations

Photographer's Diary

Saturday 28th October - Halloween Ghosts and Murderers Tour

In a moment of madness I had agreed to go to Abbeystead on Halloween night to give a talk on the project. Working in Bolton during the day this would give me no time to shoot pictures of the event. Not that a lot went on, just a few kids trick or treating, and the odd hollow pumpkin. I saw in the paper there was to be a tour and quickly phoned the lady in charge for permission to photograph. She agreed.
Arriving with Maggie, I made the great mistake of suggesting an umbrella was not necessary. Within minutes of the tour beginning, the heavens opened and I was left struggling for a picture in the dark and rain. We circumnavigated the castle and the heavens opened. I was desperate for a picture, but could see little or nothing through the viewfinder. I shot in hope.

We moved down to the Judges lodgings through town to Sugar house alley and the grand theatre. The crowd started to dwindle as more rain and wind kept coming. Maggie went to her mother's wet and miserable and I was left with the one broken umbrella we had between us to shield from the rain. At the finish I was unclear if anything had been achieved. But I had managed to shoot two films and held them in the knowledge that I might not have been able to see much, but the technology in my camera should have been able to get the exposures near enough.

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