Bradford in the 1950s

Its buildings were solid and soot-blackened. Its people were largely down-to-earth working class. They gave themselves no airs. But they had a strong sense of independence and a deep pride in belonging to a city which was at the heart of the country’s wool-textile industry. Back then, Bradford knew its worth.

It was into this city that Derek A J Lister was born in Walden Drive, off Haworth Road, on May 2, 1938. Its defining characteristics were more-or-less still intact when he left it on October 30, 1956, clutching a small suitcase and packet of sandwiches, to begin his National Service.

During the intervening 18 years he had soaked up the atmosphere of his Bradford, logging away in a remarkable memory details of his own life and the life in the streets around him. Now 70, and blessed with virtually total recall, Derek has chronicled that period in his latest book, Bradford Born And Bred.

It was when he was researching for one of his earlier books, Bradford’s Own, that he realised that nothing had been published in book form about Bradford in the 1940s and 1950s. So he spent nearly three years putting together his account of that period, linking events in his own life with those affecting the wider community.

The result is a book which will resonate with many, many Bradfordians. It’s packed with reference points we can all recognise in our own lives: with incidents we heard about or witnessed as we grew up, with experiences which are common to us all, with places we visited and characters we encountered.

Derek was asked to produce a book of about 60,000 words. “But as I went along, digging into my memory and backing it up with research, I realised that I could probably turn each chapter into a book of its own,” he says.

It ended up at 137,000 words which, along with a host of black-and-white photographs, many from his own collection, fill 334 large-format pages.

At the core of the book is the story of a lad born into a caring home, with a hard-working, mild-mannered father and a feisty mother of Irish Catholic stock. Lad goes to school, endures childhood illnesses, plays out with his mates, joins choir, encounters triumphs and misfortunes, leaves school, meets girls, gets various jobs, and finally gets called up.

So far, so like so many other lives. This lad is special, though, in that he keeps his eyes and ears open, and his mind retains in sharp detail the things he sees and hears. And what he remembers are the sort of things that might have happened to us all here in Bradford.

Here are a few extracts and pictures from Bradford Born And Bred, which is both a personal account and a social history of a brief but special era...

During the 1940s and 1950s hardly anything had changed in Bradford’s centre since before the war. It still had many fine Victorian buildings and, although smut-laden, they still showed quality and pride. Overlooking all were the beautiful parish church, Town Hall, St George’s Hall, Mechanics’ Institute, Swan Arcade, the Wool Exchange, the Alhambra, and the New Victoria Cinema.

Three large department stores dominated the town. Brown, Muff’s was in Market Street. On Manningham Lane there was the fine art-deco building of Busby’s, looking more like a glamorous ocean liner than a department store. This unusually-styled building looked magnificent when lit up on winter evenings, especially at Christmas.

The third big store was the Sunbridge Road Emporium (later to become Sunwin House). This was a nice, open, clean store that had its own clientele and attractions, one being its escalator – the first in Bradford. Incidentally, my best mate Vincent Davey and I were asked to leave the Emporium for messing about on the escalator, and were sheepishly escorted out of the building… The Elysian picture house was a single-storey, rather squat stone building, purpose-designed as a picture hall and opened in 1912. It was on Wheater Road, Lidget Green… We could go to the Elysian for 6d, catching the trolleybus to Lidget Green and home for 1d each way, and paying 4d for a ticket. The 4d seats were two long benches at the front, so it was pushing-up time when someone else arrived and sat on the end. As we moved up, it was inevitable that someone would fall off the other end. One fearsome lad called Roy always made people fall off.

This turmoil allowed the fallen to sneak back a couple of rows to the proper seats, which cost 6d, until the manager walked down to the front and moved everyone back to the benches.

Vincent Davey and I worked out that a maximum of 15 youngsters to a bench was comfortable, but it was not unusual for there to be over 20, which caused a lot of pushing, shoving, elbowing, punching, kicking, and the odd fight. All this while trying to watch the picture.

Lister Park was the park I visited most when I was younger, with my parents and later with the gang. It was two bus rides away but it was well worth it, as it had all the amenities you could wish for. A beautiful lake was the centrepiece, with large family rowing boats.

If you were quick-thinking you stopped the boat at the far end of the lake, out of earshot of the boat attendant who shouted your number and told you your time was up. The Lido swimming pool was always crowded when the summer came. I didn’t like swimming so this wasn’t of much interest to me. Aged just two I had fallen into a small paddling pool situated above the Lido, and had never forgotten it.

As most transport services finished at about 11pm, people could be seen scurrying around Bradford centre every evening as the Town Hall geared itself up to give us the 11 o’clock chimes. From many shop and warehouse doorways courting couples emerged to catch that last bus. Many lads had to walk home after seeing their girlfriends to their bus stop, especially if their last bus was the other side of Bradford.

This was the accepted thing. If you were lucky and had some spare cash you could visit the taxi rank in Town Hall Square, but otherwise it was the long walk home. Women as well as men took these walks after missing buses, either in groups or singles, and hardly any trouble occurred.

Inside Kirkgate Market was the very successful music shop of Haydn Robinson, who in the evening ran a dance orchestra, the Dunedin Players.

On Saturdays, Haydn introduced the American innovation, unique in Yorkshire, of a girl singer who sang songs from sheet music. If you asked for the sheet music of a song, and Haydn wasn’t available to play it on the piano, then Sandra Anstey obliged by singing the number. She was very popular, and her wonderful voice could be heard high above the noise and bustle of the market.

Sometimes John Hockney and I, in our lunch hour from Burton’s, bought a Lyons individual fruit pie from the Maypole shop and popped into the market, not to hear her voice but just to ogle her. She was beautiful…

Bradford Born and Bred, published by Bank House Books, is available from local bookshops at £17.99. Author Derek A J Lister will be signing copies at Waterstones in Bradford tomorrow and Saturday, between 10am and 3pm. Below, the author at 18