Something to celebrate – the home of New Model Army, the 1 in 12 club, NMPFT, School of Peace Studies, Saltaire, etc has been made 2025 UK City of Culture – the gateway to the Dales and the Calder Valley where it rains every day and the cobbled streets are paved with glass, but the curries are magnificent, and the beer – I miss it so.
That was my experience 30 years ago. Any more recent markers for the jewel in the West Riding?
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/may/31/bradford-named-as-the-uk-city-of-culture-2025
Well there’s this.
The Shipley Glen Tramway, loved by J Peel his wife was from nearby.
Death-defying speeds – and awesome drops to the ground – and that lightshow? Blackpool has nothing on that, I tell ee.
Years ago there was a fun fair at the top, alas ow replaced by housing.
A manual aerial glide was the highlight.
https://www.joylandbooks.com/shipleyglen/
https://www.joylandbooks.com/themagiceye/articles/taleofshipleyglen.htm
How can there not be a place for Bad Boy Chiller Crew in the cultural calendar?
Word be born, shout out to my main man Inspector Goole. Brotha be wilin’.
Bradford’s Famous Daughter
Ladies and Gentlemen … Miss Kiki Dee
My first love. I immediately fell for her on seeing Don’t Go Breaking My Heart on TotP. I think partly the combination of the funny name and the dungarees made me think of the ladies on Playschool and the like.
I was 39 at the time etc
Lots of childhood trips to Bradford. Stayed with relatives and looking back, they were some of the funniest people I have known. Granny and I left her house one morning ( I was about 8 ) to go to the shops and a passing neighbour said hello and had a nice, friendly, lengthy chat with her. We got on the bus and I asked if that woman was a friend of hers…? “Ah tell you what she is … she’s a nosy bitch, THAT’s what she is!”.
No nonsense plain talkers – when I lived in Bradford, there was a whole set of middle-aged to elderly Quaker women who stood for no nonsense and were fantastic company – pillars of the community, with supportive, but somewhat quieter menfolk in tow.
I’ve got a friend from Bratford who never bleedin’ shuts up. He’s not a Quaker.
We booked in at our hotel just after two and met a family from Bradford that we knew…
Is that half a drainpipe in your trews, or art thou jus pleased to see I?
My University city in the mid 1980s.
Truly a place of green and grey.
Birthplace of Harry Corbett and therefore Sooty and Sweep, unquestionably the finest entertainers of the 20th century. For that alone, Bradford deserves its hour in the spotlight.
There used to be a Sooty and Sweep museum.
I have just read that his mother’s maiden name was Ramsden and his uncle (her brother) was Harry Ramsden, founder of the famous fish and chip shop in Guiseley. Going to the biggest fish and chip shop in the world was a big deal.
I love it.
Have a dear old pal who’s a native & always relish a visit at least once a year.
The curries are spectacular & my pal who knows about these things (i.e. beer) always steers me towards excellent micro brewery local stuff. This is my annual phase when I become a beer drinker for the week & most enjoyable it is too.
Also the jaw dropping Yorkshire moors are only a stone’s throw away – what’s not to like?
My last trip to Bradford was from my home in west Leeds, age 16, on 21 February 1979 to see Lene Lovich at the University Union. Supported by a band called Fingerprintz who had a singer called Jimme Shelter. Can’t remember much about the concert but was arrested afterwards while sitting in the carpark waiting for my dad to pick up us up. Me and my schoolmate were thrown in the back of a Police Transit van and told to ‘shut it’ and accused of trying to break in to cars. Was eventually released when my dad showed up. Something tells me my lucky number didn’t come up that evening. Despite living only five miles away I never went Back to Bradford, which incidentally is the name of a Smokie song.