Ilkley Revisited by Mike Dixon
The History Press, £12.99

Having just left Ilkley after 25 months holed up on the dark side of The Grove, I had not intended to revisit Charles Darwin’s favourite spa until at least September.

But then Mike Dixon’s latest compilation of Olicana pictorial memorabilia arrived on my desk.

Among the photographs that caught my eye is one of Bradford’s then-Lord Mayor Councillor John Senior presenting the Loser’s Trophy to fur-coated cricket captain of the ‘Black Hats’ Walter Forrest, after the centenary match against the ‘White Hats’ in 1980.

I’m sure I was there. It was a Sunday and I was doing the weekend shift.

This annual charity match was quite a big deal back than. Yorkshire cricketing great Freddie Trueman played and hit a six into the crowd – stunning an elderly woman, who later recovered.

Other photographs in this section of the book, called Cricket and Carnival, show what the players looked like in the late 19th century.

Mike Dixon writes: “The first match took place in 1880 when two teams made up of local tradesmen, each with about 20 players, took to the field – then situated off Railway Road. 1882 was the first year that the players distinguished themselves by donning black or white hats…”

Brook Street is the northern route through the town towards the river bridge, across which lies the green, rich opulence of Curly Hill. Everything is lighter, brighter and wealthier north of the Wharfe.

To look at Brook Street today you wouldn’t know that until 1966 there was a railway bridge towards the top end of the thoroughfare. Four photographs taken between 1911 and 1957 show how the area evolved. In 1912, for example, cabs used to line up down the centre of the street.

Talking of railways, one photograph shows 12 uniformed station staff (most of them look like Bernard Cribbins in The Railway Children) taken in 1925. Twelve! Those were the days when stations were properly manned and maintained on site.

One of the curiosities of present-day Ilkley is that, with the exception of Betty’s and a sweet shop, no other retail food shop exists west of Brook Street along The Grove and either side of it.

If you want to buy sausages or apples, you have to cross Brook Street.

If there is a reason for this, it does not appear to be among the 230 photographs of Mike Dixon’s engrossing visual history.