The recent photograph taken at the Mecca Locarno in 1972 was a real memory jogger for Mark Neale, who spent a lot of time at the Manningham Lane dance hall around that era.
He says the musicians on stage in the picture were the Bobby Brook Band, who alternated with the Terry Blakey Four. The stage at the Locarno was a revolving one, and the band which made its appearance as it turned would be playing the same tune as the departing band.
"The two tunes used for the changeover were Time Is Tight (by Booker T and the MGs) and Groovin' With Mr Bloe (by Mr Bloe)," he recalls.
By coincidence, the day that photograph appeared in the T&A I watched a DVD of the 1963 classic Billy Liar, filmed in and around Bradford and including scenes in and outside the Mecca.
That film provides a marvellous record of this city at another time of tremendous change. The story of fantasist Billy Fisher is played out against a backdrop of demolition and reconstruction similar to today's.
Landmark locations used in it, like Collinson's Caf and the old Exchange Station, have long since vanished. Forster Square has been through a couple of reshapings and has now disappeared.
As this film shows, when it was a proper square with people sitting around the lawns and flower beds on seats it was a great asset to Bradford.
What a shame that it was first shrunk to something the size of a traffic island and has now gone entirely.
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