Veteran politician Roy Hattersley will give the inaugural annual lecture to mark the work of Bradford's best loved author, J B Priestley.

More than 100 people are expected to pack the University of Bradford's lecture hall tomorrow to hear Lord Hattersley, president of the J B Priestley Society, give the talk entitled J B Priestley - The Great Journeyman.

The event has been organised by the Priestley Society and the university's School of Lifelong Education and Development.

Dr Ken Smith, senior lecturer in English at the university, and vice-chairman of the society, said Lord Hattersley, former deputy Labour leader, will be talking on the range of Priestley's writing.

"It is this breadth of Priestley, this ability to deal with a whole range of topics and experiences, that I think he thinks is valuable in the modern age," he said.

"We have become very specialised in some ways whereas Priestley is the kind of writer that wrote about anything that interested him."

Dr Smith said Priestley is renowned for fiction, journalism and broadcasting.

"I think it was a bit of a problem that people found him hard to categorise in the period immediately after his death," he said.

"That was a problem but, since the centenary in 1994 of his birth, there has been a revival."

Bob Duckett, council member of the society, said Priestley's son Tom approached him a number of years ago with the idea of setting up a Priestley society.

"He asked me if it would be the kind of thing we could promote and I didn't think it would," he said.

"But I've been proved wrong - we've got 230 members in three years and we have an annual Priestley dinner to celebrate the man that goes very well."

It is hoped the annual lecture, which starts at 2.30pm, will add to this interest in the man and his work, which is very popular in America, Russia and Germany, Dr Smith said.

"We would like to develop the international dimension of this lecture and develop ties with colleagues in other countries," he said.