This week's subject is David Mellor (1920-2009), the outstanding designer and manufacturer whose modern industrial and domestic designs have made such an impact on our daily lives. He was born in Sheffield and trained as a silversmith at Sheffield College of Art and the Royal College of Art. As Stephen Bayley wrote, "He was in every sense a modern industrial designer, and technologically adept, but his spiritual roots were in the arts and crafts movement and its belief, not so much in work-life balance as in work-life integration". 

The photographic archive of Joseph Hardman (1893-1972) at Lakeland Arts documents the changing ways of Lakeland life in the mid-C20. Here we see children and adults picking blackberries with a view of the Winster Valley beyond. Hardman also photographed the local damson harvest for which the Lake District was once famous. Happily, there are now efforts to revive Westmorland damsons in the Lyth Valley. 

Failing the walking stick method (see Monday's Post), blackberry-pickers have always devised ingenious ways of reaching the best fruit. Blackberrying in a Devonshire Lane is by Frank Dadd; it appeared in The Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper in 1891. Its light-heartedness is a long way from the complex blackberry-themed poems by Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney.

So popular was blackberrying at one time that London Transport advertised buses to take day-trippers out into the countryside to make the most of the free harvest. The London Transport Museum has a lovely collection of blackberry posters from the 1920s and 30s, including this from 1924 by Walter E Spradbury. 

It is blackberry-picking time, so this week on the Post we look at this still-popular activity.  Harold Harvey painted blackberry pickers in Cornwall at least four times; this is A Walk by the Sea; the Blackberry Gatherers (1921). The little girl's walking stick would be used to pull down higher branches in order to reach the ripe fruit without  tangles and scratches.

Scarborough's churches are worth a detour. The parish church, St Mary's, dates back to the C12 and has spectacular views over the old town and South Bay. It is just below the remains of the castle which was damaged in the English Civil War and bombed in WWII, as was the church. The replacement east window (1958) is by Harry Stammers; it is full of incident, wit, colour, and his very specific style of mid-century modernity. By contrast, fans of William Morris, Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite artists will find plenty to enjoy in the high Victorian St Martin's Church (1863).

One of the most striking features of Scarborough is the number of grand hotels, including the Grand Hotel itself which stands on the site of Wood's Lodgings where Anne Brontë stayed (there is a blue plaque). When it opened in 1867 it was the largest in Europe; it is still there but its grandeur is sadly faded. No longer standing is the Pavilion Hotel (1870) which was run by the hotelier family of actor Charles Laughton (1899-1962) who was born in the Victoria Hotel (see Simon Callow's excellent biography for more).