Keighley firm Brian O'Hara Removals is celebrating 30 years of successful trade in the town.

The company was launched in Redcliffe Street in February 1968 by Brian O'Hara, as a one-man business with one pantechnicon. Brian retired nearly four years ago, but still maintains a keen interest and is often seen helping out.

His son Stewart took over when Brian retired, and now the company - one of the best known in the area - has two lorries and employs two full-time workers.

Brian spent most of his working life in removals, working for former Keighley firm Tingles before spending four years as an ambulanceman.

Like most removal firms distance is no object, and one of his most memorable jobs involved moving a baroness from Penzance to her new house in Oakworth.

"When we arrived I was sure I could hear a horse walking about inside the house," he recalls.

"Sure enough, when we went in there it was. The baroness had asked a friend to show her horse around her new home."

He also vividly remembers searching the Woodhouse area for a lost budgie.

"The woman we were moving passed the cage to me and said to be careful, but the next thing I knew I was holding an empty cage," says Brian.

"The bird had escaped, and we spent ages looking for it and calling its name. In the end I had to buy her a new one."

Another memorable job came while Brian was doing some delivery work for a local furniture company.

"We had to take a bedroom suite to a house in Keighley, get the key from next door and take the furniture into the bedroom," says Brian.

"We got the key, went in and dismantled the old suite and took it outside.

"It was when we started to take the new furniture in that an old lady further up the street shouted to us, asking when we were going to deliver hers.

"We had got the wrong house! We quickly took the old furniture back in a reassembled the bedroom, and left without the occupier ever knowing."

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