2006

Monday September 25th
Ian Dewhirst MBE, well known and respected local historian described to a fascinated audience of 47 "The Way People Lived in the 1950s". He reminded people that though it was a more innocent age with very few cars and lots of dances and dance bands, there were also lots of small wars going on and that there were stinking, suffocating smogs. This was another very enjoyable evening with Ian.

Monday October 30th
Lesley Horton, a former teacher in Bradford and now an author highly commended in the Dagger in the Library Award, gave 21 people a fascinating and very interesting account of how she came to be a writer of police drama books set in and around Bradford and also how an author works in
"A Novel Life of Crime". She even described how Baildon came to feature in one of her books.

Monday November 27th

Gerald Brooksbank, talked to 18 people about "Books and my Bookshop". He told how he came to own Reid's Bookshop in Keighley and how he was fortunate to be doing a job he loved. He had always wanted to work in retail and had put his name down for a job in Sainsbury's when he was only seven years old! It was an interesting, insightful and instructional talk on running a business.


Monday December 18th

Dr. Susan Deal got the festivities off to a seasonal start with
"A Victorian Christmas - Carols and Slides",
which showed an audience of 31 how the Victorians had remade Christmas and what are thought of as long-standing traditions are actually their invention. The slides showed original Christmas cards which illustrated many of her points. Members brought refreshments which made a pleasant end to the joint meeting with Baildon Local History Society.

2007

Monday January 29th

Canon Max Wigley, retired clergyman, reminisced to 18 people on his interesting "Life Before Baildon".
His memories included the time Cliff Richard Came to Liverpool to talk about his newly discovered faith. Max was Chaplain to Bradford's Alhambra Theatre for 28 years and remembered that when Dora Bryan was Fairy in the Panto she used to walk he dog round the block in the intervals still in costume.

Monday February 26th
Alan Plowright, intrepid walker and author, presented an evening of slides to 29 people showing a walk of about 45 miles set up in 2000 by volunteers to highlight the glory of the countryside on "The Bradford Millennium Way".
As usual, Alan entertained with his splendid photographs as well as snippets of history, geography, geology, horticulture....


Monday March 26th
John Luckett, retired Librarian, took 22 people on a quick trip through the history of books and reading from the earliest times of clay tablets and the first printed author (who was a Princess Enheduanna) right up to the invention of printing and the Gutenberg Bible in a talk called "The Pig Got Up and Slowly Walked Away". Illustrating that human nature doesn't change, he told how one of the earliest works of fiction ended with a warning that whoever stole this book would be covered in festering boils and his mother eaten by dogs!

Monday April 30th
Alan Walsh, formerly a Military and West Yorkshire policeman, made a return visit and caused 24 people to wonder
"Did Jack the Ripper Visit Bradford in 1888?" He explained how a young boy's body had been found mutilated in the same fashion as the Ripper's last victim and how someone in Keighley had returned home to find their house broken into and their belongings rearranged in a similar manner to that same victim. The Police arrested a man, but he was released as he was obviously innocent and the mystery remains unsolved. Alan then told about Other Famous Crimes and Trials, including murder by insulin and also the Case of the Homicidal Sergeant Major.