This one belongs to Barry as much as me, and the notebook is careful about the shares. Barry from Dewsbury had seen it on the Tuesday and photographed it on the Wednesday — a left boot, black, laces undone but present, by the gate at the bottom end of Wilton Park, Batley — and sent the photograph over. The entry records that his photograph were good, and adds that he'd come on a great deal since 2013, which he had. His early submissions, and Barry knows I say this with affection, could have been photographs of owt. By 2023 he were framing a shoe properly, getting the light on the right side of it, and you could read the laces off the print. Ten years of steady improvement is worth putting on record, so I've put it.
The rules are the rules, though: a submission goes in the main sequence when I've confirmed it in person, so I went over on the Saturday. Cold rain most of the morning, Batley way, and the boot were where Barry said it would be, as Barry's reports reliably are. The notebook settles the accounting in a phrase I were quietly pleased with at the time and still am: mine to number, his to credit.
My own photograph also came out, so number 259 is one of the few entries with two photographers behind it. Wilton Park is a proper old park, bandstand and all, and worth the trip in better weather than I got. Barry rang the next week to ask how it had gone in the book. Fine, I told him. Left boot, black, laces undone but present, confirmed Saturday. He were satisfied with that, because Barry understands what satisfaction is in this line of work: the entry, complete, in the right hand's writing.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.