Keighley Library will be hosting Heritage Day again on Saturday 10^th September after a two-year pandemic break so please come along from 10.00am.

Wharfedale & Airedale Family History Society will be on hand to help you with your family history and Keighley & District Local History Society will be exhibiting some of their photo archive collection.

The award winning Men of Worth Project will also be there to help you with any enquires and showing off their work including The Morton Banks War Hospital records project.

Volunteers have been working hard to transcribe and digitise the Patient Register from the First World War. The original War Hospital Register is archived at Keighley Library (BK39) and contains 13,214 names of servicemen who were treated there. It also contains the names of German prisoners of war who were being held locally and required treatment from time to time, notably from the influenza epidemic.

There will also be a display on the Women of Worth with compelling documentation on the roles of local women in wartime.

Come and see old photos of 1950s Keighley including school photos from David Kirkley’s collection and of Gala Days gone by. 

Along with the amazing and interactive Heritage Open Day events the library has planned, there will also be a couple of rare artefacts on display to promote an exciting and forthcoming “Pink Floyd in Keighley” library exhibition.

And if that isn’t enough to tempt you at 2.00pm local footballing (legend/ star/) Mike Hellawell will be talking about his career and life growing up in 1950s Keighley. Going from playing non-league to playing top flight football for QPR, Birmingham City, Sunderland and Huddersfield Town, gaining two England Caps. 

The talk is free but seating is limited so booking is advisable, contact Keighley Local Studies Library on (01535 618215).

It is not that often that an enquirer of Keighley Local Studies Library on a Keighley history subject, comes ‘right back atcha’ with a casual, “I am researching an autobiographical work coming out soon” but occasionally they do. Don Chapman enquired earlier this year about Keighley baths and his new book that includes sketches of the Keighley he came to know and love, surprisingly as an in-comer from Oxford and its University, is published now and in due course will be in Keighley Library.

When he became a graduate trainee with the Bradford and District Newspaper Company in 1956, it was the landlord of his first digs in Keighley who took the tops off the bath taps. He went to the public baths down the road fearing the worst. Hence the title of his tongue in cheek memoir featuring some of the wackier articles he wrote in a 40-year career in journalism, A Tenpenny Dip in Paradise and other flights of fancy. In it, Don Chapman hopes that he has captured some of the “banter and bonhomie I shared with my colleagues at the Keighley News”, that he remembers most fondly.

Just a few of his Keighley memories are quoted here:

“I’m not sure I even knew where Keighley was when the Westminster Press told me I would be starting my career as a graduate trainee reporter there in September, 1956. Before I took up the post, I decided I’d better take a look.

I arrived by train from Oxford shortly after 2pm. The hotel at the bottom of Cavendish Street had stopped serving lunch and everywhere else was shut. It was early closing day. Eventually I stumbled on a workmen’s café and a satisfying plate of bacon and eggs, served with a large mug of Yorkshire tea, somewhere in the back-street.”

“I quickly grew to love Keighley. The flowers in the front windows of those who hadn’t got gardens. The washing in the streets between the back-to-back houses. The rich array of cakes and savouries in the bakery shop.”

“The war years and the period before them had left their mark on the town. Sooner or later, chaps I met in the pub would start rueing the privations of the 1930s Depression: an economic downturn Lord Nuffield’s Cowley car factories had protected Oxford from.

Although premier Harold Macmillan was telling people they’d never had it so good, many in Keighley were still struggling. At the Mechanics Institute Saturday night hop, on more than one occasion the manager said to me: ‘See that couple there, Don, they’re on their honeymoon!’”

The book is out now and available online and from bookshops. It will also be in Keighley Library soon.

Gina Birdsall
Keighley Local Studies

The Local Studies service offers Local and Family History resources for the Bradford Metropolitan District and the West Yorkshire region.

The two specialist Local Studies libraries in the district are in Bradford and Keighley, and libraries across the district can also provide local information and help with accessing online sources.

The Local Studies centres at Bradford and Keighley welcome visitors to use the collections for study and research.

Bradford Local Studies Library welcomes visitors to use the Local Studies and Archives collections for study and research.

We are now open as normal to the general public, although you are advised to phone up and check opening hours as these can be affected by circumstances beyond our control

Researchers can still make an appointment in advance of their visit.

To make an appointment, please contact the library by email or telephone to book a session.

Requests for items from the collections required for use on your visit made in advance will enable library staff to have the items ready for your visit.

Please note that we require at least 72 hours’ notice for Archives.

On booking your appointment via telephone or email, our team of library staff will help to search the catalogues to identify appropriate items as required.

Yorkshire Day Weekend event with the Yorkshire Society and the Yorkshire Dialect Society

Keighley Local Studies Library
Saturday 30^th July
10.30am – 4.30pm
Admission £5 (See ticket details below)

The Yorkshire Dialect Society is kicking off a weekend of activities for Yorkshire Day in Keighley with something unique and special about Yorkshire people – how we talk! The way we speak is unique and helps define us – it’s part of what makes us Yorkshire!

Speakers will include Ian Stevenson on The Story behind Yorkshire Dialect; Rod Dimbleby, Chairman of YDS, on the prolific 19th century Halifax dialect poet and storyteller John Hartley of Clock Almanac fame; and Eric Scaife on Tyke Talk – readings and recitations of dialect poems and prose.

There will also be an exhibition of books and pamphlets by the noted Keighley librarian, historian, writer and dialect poet, the late Ian Dewhirst who sadly died in 2019.

Yorkshire Dialect was, and hopefully still is, the language of the ordinary people of Yorkshire.  So come along to Keighley Library for a day of celebration of this wonderful living part of our Yorkshire heritage.

Tickets can be bought through Eventbrite at:

https://theyorkshiresociety.org/event/celebrating-the-yorkshire-dialect/embed/#?secret=00X7XGsgBD#?secret=fH7QaWdtYE

Keighley Local Studies Library
Tel: 01535 618215
E: keighleylocalstudies@bradford.gov.uk

Bradford District is delighted to be one of 15 locations across the UK taking part in Storytrails, a one-of-a-kind experience where untold stories from the past are brought to life using augmented and virtual reality and the voices of the local community.

As the UK’s largest immersive storytelling project, it will change the way we tell stories about ourselves, animating public spaces across the UK.

Come down to Bradford Library on Friday 22^nd and Saturday 23^rd July to discover a range of exciting augmented and virtual reality experiences for all the family to enjoy.

Explore untold stories and forgotten histories from Bradford and District through a virtual map made up of 3D models and audio recordings of people from local communities from across the Bradford District.

Or try out cutting-edge virtual reality headsets to see history come to life before your very eyes.

Back outside, take part in immersive StoryTrails walking tours, where a free app will guide you around key historical places in the City, bringing history to life before your very eyes.

Events take place between Friday 22^nd July at 11.00am – 19.00pm and on Saturday 23^rd July 10.00am – 18.00pm.

StoryTrails is part of ‘UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK’, a ground-breaking UK-wide celebration of creativity in 2022.

To find out more about StoryTrails, visit www.story-trails.com