A lot has been written about the local events surrounding Coronation Day on June 2, 1953.

Most people remember what they were doing: attending ox roasts, enjoying street parties, sitting in front of massive televisions with small screens For one section of Bradford's population, though, the big celebration came 12 days afterwards.

Sunday, June 14, was the day the city's Roman Catholics converged on Odsal Stadium to pay their own homage to the newly-crowned Queen. I'm indebted to Vincent Finn, a Bradfordian now living in the US and an avid online Past Times reader, for reminding me of this occasion.

Bradford Catholic Pageant was a massive event, months in the making. More than 2,000 people took part watched by 30,000 spectators, many from other towns and cities - quite a lot, but only about half the anticipated number. The writer of the T&A's Topics column suggested that was because of the threatening weather, but added "or perhaps the estimate was optimistic in the first place".

Whatever the reason, the pageant was "a religious thrill, a most impressive spectacle and an event of high educational value. No wonder it took months of preparation."

This newspaper's reporter on the spot at Odsal described the occasion, which depicted the history of Catholicism in Britain - and in Bradford. No punches were pulled. The characters taking part included an executioner, featured in the episode depicting the bloody reign of Henry VIII when abbeys were destroyed and Catholics galore paid for their faith with their lives.

But while this pageant didn't shy away from acknowledging the historic differences between Protestants and Catholics, it was used as an opportunity to stress the unity of all Britons under the new monarch.

The reporter wrote: "It was an impressive moment when all in the sports ground were blessed by the Bishop of Leeds, the Right Rev Mgr John Carmel Heenan. Loud bursts of cheering and clapping had greeted the Bishop on his arrival as, dressed in scarlet robes, he was driven in an open car round the stadium. Then he took his seat in the main stand to watch the portrayal of events from the coming to Britain of St Augustine to the present.

"The Bishop himself was the central figure in the sixth and final episode of the pageant. It was the fifth episode that led to the Bishop's part. This was called by the commentator the primary objective of the pageant, to pay homage and to declare loyalty to the Queen'.

"Small children from Bradford schools had formed a large square in the middle of the arena. Into the centre went children of St Bede's Grammar School who lined up to form the lettering E II R'."

The programme for the pageant, which lists the names of many of the participants, contains a knowledgeable history of Catholism in Britain and specifically in Bradford. It tells us that a large number of Irishmen came to work in the area digging the Leeds-Liverpool canal, and when the work was finished on the Bradford-Shipley section in 1774 some of them stayed in Bradford and turned their hands to work in the mills.

"Tradition has it that these were visited by a priest travelling through on his way to Settle. Certainly some of them and their children walked from Bradford to Leeds to Mass every Sunday, along a narrow path from Bunkers Hill past the present barracks over Bradford Moor."

By 1822 the number of Catholics had grown enough to warrant Father Ryan being sent from Leeds to live in Bradford and the first recorded Mass since the Reformation was held here.

The account tells us: "Fr Ryan hired a room in Commercial Street to say Mass, but when the landlord found out his intention, he refused permission. He then hired another room in the Roebuck Inn, at the bottom of Ivegate...and there, for the first time since 1535, was heard the tinkle of the Mass bell'. The town authorities stepped in, and the landlady was warned that she would lose her licence if she continued to let the room. So permission was refused once more."

Next move was a successful one to a small building in Toad Lane, a narrow alley off Chapel Lane, which lay behind the City Hall.

Three years later the old St Mary's Church in Stott Hill was built and it was from there that Catholicism in Bradford began to flourish following the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.

The 1953 account concludes: "A very conservative estimate of Catholics in Bradford puts our number at upwards of 35,000, one in nine of the population - a far cry from the handful who tramped over the Bradford Moor a century and a half ago.

"Every time a new church is opened, it is filled to overflowing; and another site must be sought again.

"It is a significant fact that in 1952 out of every five children born in Bradford, one was baptised a Catholic."

The community had come a long way since Father Ryan held that first mass in Bradford 130 years earlier.