By George Palmer-Soady
Boxes containing hundreds of photographs depicting Bulwell in the early 1900s sat on a shelf collecting dust for years – until they fell into the hands of an amateur historian who is bringing them back to life.
Paul Turton was passed the mystery boxes of glass slides in 2017 by a local woman who was aware of his expertise for local history.
The 56-year-old has no formal training or qualifications, but says he’s always been interested in Nottinghamshire’s past and is a keen member of various history groups.
The majority of Paul’s work revolves around Bulwell – the Nottinghamshire town where he’s lived and worked for most of his life.
The original owner of the photos approached him to look after the 18 boxes full of old images of the town, which Paul says would otherwise have been thrown away.
Five years later, he has now digitally restored the photos and begun uploading them online as part of a video series titled ‘Bulwell TV,’ which he hopes will keep the town’s history alive.
The photos depict shopfronts, family portraits and streets in the early 1900s. Paul has only begun working on the pictures this year after admitting that he put off processing them after being handed them in 2017.
“I didn’t have the time to do it so I put them in a plastic box and left it,” he said.
“Earlier this year, I thought I needed to get round to doing something with them, so I brought the right equipment I needed and started.
“The photos came out from what was a negative where you can’t see anything, to something which looks really intense and pleasing.”
Paul says the process is now relatively simple and only takes 20 minutes thanks to his new kit. He lays out the negative glass panel photo negatives onto an electric scanner which lights them up to reveal the real picture.
He then takes a photo on his phone, uploads it to a computer and edits it before compiling the finished products together and uploading online.
Paul hopes the project will keep the town’s history alive and unearth new information about the people who used to live there.
“I was brought up in Bulwell and worked there until 2014. I’ve always been there and I’ve hung around, so I’ve always been interested in finding the history.
“These places are lost, we will never know where they are. But I now know what these places are.
“Parts of these buildings are still there, so I can now put a place to a photograph.
“When we look back at these photos, you see that nearly every building was a shop. You’ve got drapers, dress makers, musicians – everything was a trade of some sort.
“One of the shops identified was a butchers – it’s now a Chinese takeaway. If we hadn’t seen the photos, we wouldn’t have known that.”
People have been in touch with Paul to help him unravel information behind the different photos. Street names and buildings have been identified through cross-referencing with other archive material.
While only one of the people in the pictures has yet been identified, Paul hopes he will hear from surviving friends and family as he continues to process the images.
He says he has not been approached by any museums or local official archivists, but hopes this will be a possibility in the future, adding: “We’re only all here for a short amount of time, so it would be nice if somebody had an archive where these photos could go.
“It’s important we keep that information, because if we don’t, it could be lost forever.”
