JIM GREENHALF looks at the times when the area was awash with fairs, feasts, shows and showmen

Fairs and fairgrounds are comparatively rare these days. Years ago, however, feast days and fairs abounded. The Post Office Bradford Directory for 1921, for example, lists 58.

Among them were two Bingley cattle fairs, held on the first Tuesday in April and the second Tuesday in October; Great Horton feast on September 4 and 5; Ilkley feast on the first Sunday after September 14; and Wibsey horse fair on October 5, with a ‘fancy fair’ the following day.

There used to be hiring fairs for labourers and farm workers. Fairgrounds evolved over the years into what we know now.

Their long and colourful connection with Bradford has been chronicled in a 141-page illustrated booklet by members of the Laisterdyke Local History Group.

The book is a redesigned version of the 2005 edition. In the ensuing seven years, three of the book’s contributors died – Jimmy Williams, Arthur Spence and John Hale.

Arthur provided photographs. His own recollections can be found in the chapter entitled A Fairground Livelihood, a conversation from May 2005, which Arthur had with Gina Bridgeland and Dennis Dibb.

The late Marjorie Stanley, born in Bingley in 1923, grew up on a fairground. Her contribution to the book stems from tape recordings made in 1986.

She said: “You had all your fairs in them days mapped out – we went to Shipley at Easter time (not the Glen then, it was the fairground), and then there used to be Bowling and Peel Park at Whitsuntide, you always went there at Whitsuntide, and then the week after you used to go to Bingley Children’s Gala – that is a gala that had been on, I can remember all me life...

“Farsley Feast, which is where I met me husband – that was a good feast at one time, but it just deteriorated and fell off... I wor so upset, I say, about having to settle down, but me husband used to let me go, and he used to mind me little children so I could go and help me mother and father – until I got this stall of me own, making these fairy dolls and all these fancy goods, ‘children’s novelties’ they call it, and I have that now at all these fairgrounds.”

* Voices From The Fairground, Laisterdyke Local History Group. Copies from (01484) 721845 or e-mail g.bridgeland@talk21.com.

* For a full version of this feature, and more pictures, see today's T&A.