We’ve had a lovely package from Mr C E Clark, of Bradford, who wants to share with us his memories and wonderful photographs of Baildon at the end of the First World War.

Take it away Mr C: “My grandfather, Daniel Clark, kept the Angel Hotel, Baildon, during the period of the First World War. The accompanying photograph, taken in 1918 shows him (third from right) in front of the Angel with a group of officers of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (said to be the working man’s Masons!) “One of the girls on the float would certainly have been one of my aunties, and the boy in the doorway my Uncle Dan. There is no record of what the occasion was – it could have been a special day in the RAOB Calendar, a May Day procession or perhaps a celebration to mark the end of the Great War.

“Two of his sons went to war but the eldest didn’t come back. Bombardier Frank Clark, Royal Field Artillery, was killed in 1917, aged 20. He has no known grave, but is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, France, and also on the Baildon War Memorial.

“My father, Daniel Cotton Clark, was born in 1868 at Shoreditch, London, his father a miller. The family later moved to Hitchen where in 1874 he attended the British Boys School (now the British Schools Museum).

“By 1881 he was back in London with his father living in Lambeth. He was now 13. His first job was as a page boy at the renowned Browns Hotel, the haunt of King Edward VII and the actress Lily Langtry, for whom he opened the door on many occasions.

“With several years in the hotel trade he became a waiter for the Midland Railway Company, working on the London-Bradford Pullman Service. As this meant he was in Bradford overnight, he found lodgings in Wilfred Street, Otley Road, where he met my grandmother, whose father, Francis Clark, had a grocer’s shop.

“Settling in Bradford with wife and family, he moved to a post at the Midland Station refreshment room, and after a spell working in Leeds he returned, becoming a waiter at the recently-opened Midland Hotel where he was later promoted to head waiter.

“He was on duty the night Sir Henry Irving, the great Shakespearean actor, collapsed on stage at the Theatre Royal, Manningham Lane. He was brought back to the hotel where he died on a couch in the foyer.

“Like many in the hotel trade his ambition was to have his own hotel or public house. This he achieved some time just before the First World War, becoming the licensee of the Angel Hotel.

“After many years in Baildon and looking to his advancing years, he bought his retirement home, a newly-built house on Wrose Road, and for a few years took on the post office at Five Lane Ends.

“He died in 1959 at the age of 91 and was buried in Undercliffe Cemetery.”