TRIBUTES have been paid to Hilda Riches - a well loved dance teacher for 70 years - who has died, aged 89.

Hilda ran the Hilda Riches School of Dancing on Little Horton Lane and was still teaching - and dancing - as she approached her 90th year.

Born in Manningham, Hilda went to Drummond Road Infants and Green Lane School.

She started dancing aged seven but, as she revealed to the T&A in 2020, she wasn’t keen at first.

Hilda said back then: “I was a tomboy. My dad did the football training for Manningham Mills team and I liked to kick a ball around.

“But my cousin, Ethel Riches, who ran a dance school, thought I should take up ballet.

"I wasn’t bothered, but back then you did as you were told.”

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Hilda took up dancing at the age of seven Hilda took up dancing at the age of seven (Image: Hilda Riches)

Hilda trained in ballet, tap and stage dancing. She qualified as a dance teacher aged 21 and in 1960 she opened a dance school at Unity Hall on Rawson Square. She later moved to Textile Hall, Westgate, and recalled the night in 1981 when a fire tore through the building: “As soon as I heard about the fire I went straight there. I didn’t even get dressed, I was barefoot. I had to rescue my dance certificates, they meant so much to me.

"The firemen said, ‘You can’t go in there Madam.’ I said, ‘Do you want a bet?’ I marched in and got my certificates and whatever else I could.”

Hilda danced in many shows in Bradford. At the Alhambra she led the the corps de ballet in 1958/59 pantomime Dick Whittington. “I was always the biggest girl at ballet class, so I often ended up playing the principal boy,” she said.

Hilda married her late husband, Ronnie, in 1958 and they had a son, Robert. “I danced the Can Can in a Catholic Players show when I was pregnant,” she told the T&A.

Hilda’s dance school moved to Little Horton Lane in the 1980s. She taught ballet to generations of children, as well as Silver Swans over-50s classes. Some of her students became professional dancers.

“When I set up my dance school I promised my dad that I’d keep classes affordable,” Hilda told the T&A. “I’m from a working-class family; I grew up in a back-to-back with an outside toilet. Dance changed my life.”

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Hilda taught generations of children to dance Hilda taught generations of children to dance (Image: Newsquest)

Fiona Waller, a dance teacher who worked with Hilda for more than 30 years, said: “I knew her since I was five, when I first came to her classes. She called me the daughter she never had.

“Hilda had incredible energy; she was dancing the week before she died. She was a great advocate for how dance benefits mind, body and wellbeing.

“It has always felt like a family here, the children loved Miss Riches. They were very upset when I broke the news.”

Fiona hopes to keep the dance school going, but needs another qualified dance teacher. “We have helpers but we need someone with a Royal Academy qualification to put students through ballet exams,” she said. To find out more, go to hildariches.co.uk

Hilda's funeral is on Monday, May 20 at 12.45pm at Park Wood Crematorium in Elland.