A recent T&A article about the award of the Order of Merit to Bradford artist David Hockney prompted Shipley reader Nick Buck to revisit another newspaper article published 50 years ago.

“I was intrigued to find that 50 years ago it was David’s father, Kenneth, who was then making the headlines,” he told us.

In January 1962, while son David was making a name for himself at London’s Royal College of Art, Hockney senior was campaigning against... smoking. At his own expense, he designed and painted a poster “in eye-catching fluorescent paints”, which he then paid to have displayed in Otley Road.

“I’m no crank,” he told the newspaper, when interviewed at the family home in Hutton Terrace, Eccleshill.

“My concern is the enormous amount of money spent on advertising cigarettes, particularly on television, where it is seen by millions of children, while at the same time there is an absence of any warning on the dangers of excessive smoking.”

The irony won’t be lost on our readers, of course: no-one in Britain has more ardently stuck up for the right of smokers as David Hockney, making it an issue on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme a couple of years ago in his role as guest editor for the day.

Before that, in January 2000, when he was made a Freeman of the City of Bradford, Hockney’s requested civic gift was a couple of ashtrays. The Council coughed up two ceremonially stamped silver ones worth £5,000 each.

In not being afraid to speak out on matters of public interest, David is like his father. Kenneth Hockney hadn’t waited for somebody else to take the initiative on tobacco advertsing.

He told the newspaper he had approached a poster firm, arranged payment of rental and intended to put up more of the posters in other parts of Bradford, but only if financial help was forthcoming from other people as concerned as he was about unfettered tobacco commercials.

Described as an accountant, David’s dad also repaired prams and bicycles and occasionally painted posters for cinema shows.

Like his son, Mr Hockney had attended Bradford Regional College of Art.