A lovely friend of mine recently gave me a couple of cameras, both Minoltas. The first was an X-300, which I already had, so I passed that along to a worthy friend. The other was the SRT-101, which I have a soft spot for. I had one previously and managed to fix it right at the beginning of my second film journey. Unfortunately, I no longer own that example, so I was very happy to receive another one.

This example seemed to work perfectly. I loaded it with a roll of Exeter 400 and took it on a walk around Beverley.

This was my second outing to this market town, and I went back a further time to see the Christmas Market. It is a lovely place to visit with lots of quirky things to see. This time I went with a friend and had a wander around the churches. I didn’t know anything about the church, but I gave my friend a tour of the Minster as I had visted that on the first trip.

Anyway, it turned out to be a perfect place to start as my friend loved the Chronicles of Narnia series of books. The church, St. Mary’s, had some carvings restored around 2020, which were based on the characters from that series. The maquettes were on display inside the church, while the finished carvings had been installed around the outside. Also, inside the church was a rabbit carving that was thought to be the inspiration for the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. What a very literary place to visit.

The minster was also an interesting place to visit due to it having more minstrel carvings than anywhere else.

The brick road and manhole cover denote the switch of locations to Saltaire. Again, I had been there recently, but I decided to go back and meet a photographer I admired. Ian Beesley had an exhibition at the Gallery and would be there signing books. I took along a book I had previously bought and purchased the new zine for this exhibit. His talk was witty and engaging, while his photographs were thought-provoking.

What a lovely few days with one film, one camera, and two places.