It was a terrible event the San Francisco earthquake in 18th April 1906 – destroying most of the city and claiming over 3000 lives. It was doubly poignant to find this amazing piece of archive footage of Market Street, San Francisco shot on 14th April 1906 just four days before the devastating earthquake. doubly poignant because of the brilliant restoration job done to these images by Hardscrabble Pictures who not only produced a visually impressive print copy but, uniquely in my experience, added an incredibly realistic audio track of realistic street sound effects. The result is magical.

Sit back and take the journey down Market Street, enjoy the sounds and wonder at the traffic and at the crazy confidence of the pedestrians trying to weave their way between the vehicles. It is still astonishing to think what was about to happen to this street.

Bravo Hardscrabble Pictures – brilliant job.

Now look at this film, also from Market Street in 1906 – it shows the clean up after the earthquake. Shocking.

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My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

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