Sixty years ago this month, the Festival of Britain opened in London.

The object of the multi-million pound exercise was to give post-war Britain, still a place of rationing and bomb sites, a bit of a boost.

For in spite of the brave new world that the future was supposed to be, there were worries about the health of King George VI – he was to die at the age of 56 from a lung condition on February 6, 1952 – and British troops were fighting in Korea.

On Thursday, May 3, 1951, the T&A announced on page 3 that, “The West Riding is playing a full part in the Festival of Britain… although the main activities will be in June…”

In places, these festivities reportedly went on until the end of October.

Back in 1951, the T&A was a broadsheet costing three-halfpence (less than 1p). The front page, bare of illustrations, was covered in small ads for films, shows, situations vacant, vehicle sales and public notices.

The round-up of local events to come included a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers by Keighley Amateurs, fancy dress processions, dances, concerts and a military tattoo in Shipley.

Bradford Corporation hoped that J B Priestley would return to his home town to open an art exhibition by local artists at Cartwright Hall. He did. Bradford’s most famous artist-to-be, David Hockney, was a 14-year-old Bradford Grammar School pupil at the time.

Football supporters would have been alarmed by the decision by the Football League to raise the price of admission to grounds from one shilling and threepence (6.25p) to one-and-six (7.5p).

The Festival of Britain was, in part, a celebration of the 1851 Great Exhibition when, under the glass and steel cupolas of Joseph Paxton, the industrial and cultural ingenuity of the Empire was exhibited for the world to see.

But the main hope of the 1951 Festival was that it would promote better-quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities following extensive aerial bombing suffered during the war.

Within a few years, plans were drawn up in Bradford for the extensive remodelling of the city centre, what David Hockney’s generation ironically termed “the improvements”.

Next Friday, the National Media Museum is putting on a Fifties Night from 6pm, including films about the Festival of Britain, a fashion parade, music, food and dancing.