Documentary about Huddersfield narrated about his home town by James Mason. . SUBSCRIBE, new content uploaded regularly.
There’s no easy way to get to HS field you can take the train from King’s cross and chanted Wakefield or the Manchester train from hon get out at Stockport and change again to Staley bridge and then straight through on the trans Pena and Railway anyway it’s a complicated
Journey but contrary to popular belief it’s well worth it I was born in Huddersfield when I was young I had very little affection for this part of the country in fact when I finished my schooling I couldn’t wait to get away from the place and try my luck in London but recently for family reasons I’ve been returning here more and more
Frequently and in the process being more and more one overb my growing enthusiasm has made me as bad as any other sort of a convert I imagined that to the Casual traveler had us field this practically indistinguishable from half a dozen other nor industrial towns but when you
Really get to know it you find that it has a personality that’s quite unique very seductive it’s very elusive the character of this town and its people blunt uncompromising yes but there’s also a gentleness The rain falls gently under the Slate roofs the people seldom raise their voices in the streets only in working hours when they have to compete with the rattle of machinery and the men sing more from the belly than most All Those who think of culture in terms of art galleries and ballet and so on and justified in regarding London as the top culture repository in England but that’s not my notion of culture to me it’s the way people talk the way they build the way they tackle their lives their
Attitude to their work and what they do on their time off it shows itself in the texture of everything around you I found that Hadis field people themselves are surprisingly sensitive about the cloth cap image and the suggestion that they’re old-fashioned but it’s true things have evolved more slowly here and this has
Contributed to the Huddersfield Character A I know that I become absurdly sentimental about Huddersfield but I like these old chimneys I like the noise of the Machinery that goes with them I like the smell of the wool hutsfield has a reputation not necessarily to its discredit of keeping behind the times the mill Machinery that
They use hasn’t changed much in 100 years is and the principle of class making is practically the same as at the time of the Industrial Revolution If you ask people why Woolen textile settled for Huddersfield and the surrounding valleys they will say the soft water and there’s certainly no shortage of that but the real reason lies more in the character of the people themselves before the Industrial Revolution this was a totally rural community Huddersfield was a market town
And textiles were a cottage industry in the true sense of the word an adjunct of the farming of the land people had to struggle for a living here in some of the bleakest and most remote parts of England and when the winter snow would cut off The Villages for months at a
Time and the precious water which was so necessary for the cloth might well be frozen solid in the streams nevertheless hundreds of farmers and their tenants with the help of their wives and their families would be working all day long spinning the yarn weaving the cloth in
Farms and Cottages dotted all around on these Hills the industrial Revolution forced the cottage and Village Industries together into factories and Mills it mechanized many of the processes it created whole new supporting Industries and resulted in the vast sprawl which is now the heart of the world Woolen textile
Industry but many of the original Village qualities of both life and geography remain in fact hatsfield is not so much a town as a conglomeration of 40 or 50 districts and Villages tucked into the folds of the penines and Scattered along the tops of Hills geographically hutsfield retains an unique
Isolation it’s a sort of Urban Village and here like villagers everybody knows everybody else they’re self-sufficient their isolation is not only geographical but emotional they’ve grown up rooted in a practical and sentimental way of life a block is walking down the street stops upos at one of the doors knocks at it
Waits after a few minutes door opens young woman appears and immediately bursts into tears and closes the door in his face so our friend scratches his head a moment he says to himself hey y what’s going on here so finally decides to knock again after a moment or two door opens
Same young woman appears bursts into tears closes the door door again so after a few more minutes he knocks on the door a third time this time the door opens and a rather older woman who’s more in control of herself appears and says I’m sorry but our Dennis died this
Morning and our friend thinks and scratches his head again and finally says did he say out about a pot of Paint There are 130,000 people in the Huddersfield District but 70,000 more live in the surrounding Villages these compete against each other but close their ranks against Outsiders each has its own cricket team its own Brass Band and at the bottom of the road its own Mill yes I am very nice here the villagers
Meet and exchange the gossip of The Day news travels Down The Valleys quicker than the reporters of the Huddersfield examiner can set it up in print there’s a feeling of unity among these work people which has little to do with wages or conditions they’re of a kind they belong visitors are received
With surprising courtesy but Outsiders offering advice or sporting fancy qualifications impress no one what they’re doing here calls for an astonishing degree of skill oldfashioned though it may look there’s no better way of doing this job had has field is famous for its worsteds and to produce the fine yarn which distinguishes
Worsted from ordinary woolens the wool has to be sorted by hand it takes a seven-year apprenticeship to develop the touch the men on the machines need the same sensitive skill machines are intricate Beyond imagining but they’re just tools it takes years to acquire the seeming arrogance of the men and women
Who have mastered them these girls are Menders a 60- yard roll of cloth may take up to three weeks before it’s finished every knot must be removed every piece of yarn that’s too thick must be pulled apart and any thread that may have been broken in the
Looms must be sewn together again it takes four years before they can do their job without supervision a 4-year apprenticeship would deter most kids leaving school but not here they’re subtle people they’re not going anywhere true some of the lads move to engineering down the road but the Young Don’t Drift Away
Much from such skills Hadis field is done all right unemployment here is now less of a threat than elsewhere but the people working or not have one thing deeply ingrained hanging on to their money good afternoon good afternoon got five p in please Outsiders say we’re
Tight but we regard Thrift as one of our more noble characteristics it’s no accident that building societies and Savings Banks first started in this part of the world there you are thank you good afteron good afternoon and enough brass has rubbed off to make some Huddersfield folk very
Rich it was once said that there were more rolls-royces per head here than anywhere else in England though nowadays some of the grander Victorian Mansions less than a mile from the center are too expensive to keep up and there a fewer spectacularly wealthy families the present day Mill owners W have moved far
Away TR traditionally Huddersfield folk live in Huddersfield commuting is almost unheard of the rich are as much part and parcel of the town as anybody else they say there are two fishes in this Pond they’re AF freid where look there’s another one no matter how Grand they’ve always built their pleasure
Domes within a stone throw of the works and within a stone throw of each other they Mix A Lot very social it’s part of the Village Way of Life hello good to see you welcome how’s it going a degree of ostentation is not thought Unbecoming to the rich a social
Do will have all the trappings but they’re still had as field people as kids rich or poor they watch the same cricket matches listen to the same bands often started work at the same Mill are you here again just telling me about your holiday I’ve never left you a
Minute doesn’t tell you everything about my holiday next morning I thought her I won’t get up Hillary will get the children up she knows the ropes by now and um he he was a great we were very well I played for the 15 I kept in the
Second 15 got my second 15 colors played for the 15 but uh didn’t get my 15 colors when I he was chatting to me at the golf club one Saturday morning when he was well into his ages really yes and he said you know Ken I’ve he says I’ve
Often wondered why it is some men go bald and others don’t little bit overweight that I put this all down to Ed I that she’s taken after him to the daddy definit the wealthy usually send their kids away to Smart schools but oddly they seldom drift away either they’re
Drawn back inevitably to the more traditional world of their their parents J how does fielded isolation forces people to be interested almost exclusively in their own Pursuits make their own amusements to be doers rather than Watchers they’ll get together of an evening walk through any of the districts and you’ll hear them 1 2 of ship the SE Flag ship signal just a at the top of the page second bar the V should come on the second beat on the second beat okay shall we try that that’s it exactly right yes shall we do it samee ready 1 2 3 brief res of ship sailing the Seas the house where I was born is in a district called Marsh which I don’t think anyone would describe as being particularly distinguished except perhaps by the character of its inhabitants past and present down at that end my friend William make peace Lun lives that’s a name with which many
Of you are not yet familiar no doubt uh he lives on the right side of the street but the wrong end of it status wise because the further you proceed down in this direction the posher it gets so that in a quarter of a mile or so it
Becomes very Posh indeed Mill owner’s houses that sort of thing that semi detached house there constitutes the halfway mark and has a distinction of once having been occupied by the great Yorkshire cricketer Wilfred rhs and this is craft house which was my family’s home and where in fact I lived
Exclusively until I was about 22 or thereabouts the employees of the post office quite properly refer to it as number 20 Croft House Lane our family was extremely self-contained my father was a proper businessman he was a textile Merchant he was not a typical Hadfield businessman but he was completely integrated with
The life of the community he was busy he was always traveling and consequently he had much less influence on me when I was young than my mother had my mother was wonderful to us when we were children and she was a good wife and she was dedicated to all sorts of local
Charities but she went through life with one major frustration being well educated and of a artistic temperament she always was reaching for for a gracious way of life which was perhaps more than could be expected of Huddersfield her attitude in all directions both towards the disdain
For business and the rag tread and in the direction of artistic things rubbed off on me and during my teenage things got worse because not only did I see Huddersfield as a town devoted to business but a town devoted to business which was unemployed and depressed black dirty Everything’s changed now my own
Attitude has changed towards Huddersfield the house is empty the garden is clean and if I rub my hand against this tree I don’t expect to find it very dirty well the only thing that’s remained constant throughout has been the character of Huddersfield itself Huddersfield setting and the inward looking quality of its people
Have meant that moral values survive here longer than elsewhere unfashionable words like sober and industrious and God-fearing still mean Something This is the church that our family regularly attended when I was a kid and consequently this choir was my first exposure to huddersfield’s musical propensities I didn’t know whether it was a good choir or a bad choir it was just the choir just as the church was
Our our church and it wasn’t until centuries later when I was living as an expatriate in California that an old lady who lived in Hur sent me a recording of the choir that had just won the National Championship at the festival of Britain in 1951 it was this choir Holy Trinity
Church the phenomenal interest in music grew out of the non-conformist church which was the big thing in Huddersfield before the Industrial Revolution besides each Chapel was the Methodist or Baptist school and children who in other directions might have no education at all were taught to sing and play musical
Instruments as an act of worship many of them learned to read music long before they could write although nowadays most people belong to the Anglican Church the tradition of inciting children to an interest in music has never died yes that’s quite right right now we’re going to play it all together ready Could I have this one please Yes how much is this one 347 PBS the evening air reverberates if not always with harmonious sounds at least with enthusiasm But share noise making presently takes on a more established form and later when the kids mature the musical Spirit of Huddersfield will assert Itself [Applause] It’s a strong reliable sound in tune with this community solid and honest and settled and as I said seductive [Applause] There’s an ambiguous and perhaps rather Sinister word being banded around nowadays rationalization people say if we’re to survive we must streamline the business we must amalgamate with a huge corporation which will save a dying industry but in the past the people have put up with endless hardships the
Exploitation of child labor Pauling work conditions and Industrial relations sometimes equally appalling but they’ve always been United in a common struggle which they understand rationalization could perhaps be the beginning of De humanization ici’s new D producing complex is run almost entirely by computer it’s a 7 million pound plant
And employs only 10 men to operate it it works very well I’m told over at David Browns is the most advanced tractor assembly line in the world it looks much more what I imagined Detroit to be than haisfield mass production is the very antithesis of what hfield is all about tractors are
Spewed out from here by the Thousand but the knowing Huddersfield man will view the Acres of unsold ones with a Ry smile r way to do things is the old way the way they’ve done it for years in most of the local Industries and why should they change they’re doing all
Right well how many looms are we likely to get on that one well we’ve promised to put four on so that we should get them out for the end of June there’s 25 pieces we in your hands here well how are you doing well I mean we can’t hold
The wool prices cuz wool’s going up all the time at the moment huddersfield’s industrial scene is dominated by 200 strictly family businesses handed down through generations from father to son from son to nephew and so on it gives business a sense of continuity which elsewhere has practically disappeared
These have been a very regular line the boss’s son is as familiar a figure on the factory floor as he is in the family office he shares a tradition of service which works both ways you could call it despotic paternalistic or what you will but it’s the way they do things here you
Know where you are with it couple of pieces of color two here three of color three five of color five that pile of wool in the corner of Joe lum’s Mill has taken 12 years to aass an unimpressive Heap you might say but in fact you’re looking at the finest
Pile of wool in the world of such incredible quality that it would be quite uneconomic to weave it into cloth at least that’s what they say so it stays there for visitors to admire and for the management to play with during their lunch hour I bet they have none of
This nonsense at ici’s computerized plant down the road the idos syncratic nature of Huddersfield life breeds a special sort of giant men from the common mold with a bit added such men enjoy the appropriate perquisites of success and rank as considerable citizens Robert Hansen is one of them
B in spite of his age over 80 he goes to work most mornings seen off by his housekeeper it’s a characteristic of such men that they do not lightly abandon their Enterprises while they still have the strength and cunning to continue them Robert Hansen built up one of the
Largest transport firms in the country starting work at 13 driving a three-horse team and later taking over from his father a comparatively small business and with very little formal education no I didn’t like going to school I didn’t like the regimentation and being sat at the desk bir singing
Outside and I was inside I claustrophobia or something but one thing my father was very keen on which stood me in good stad and that was mental arithmetic at the age of 26 he took sole charge of the business which was then valued at 450
L with 14 to 15 OES plus those three Furniture vs that’s what we had in tackled beside the harness the war and the sheets and that kind of thing and we kept expanding and extending on because we always used to buy and sell a lot of
Horses and then we got into the motor business and we widened our sphere of Life hours didn’t count you know 5:00 in the morning till 9 or 10:00 at night well that that’s as it came and your men would do the same then we started going
To Birmingham then we we bought a place in in London with about 300 machines and then we went up to Glasgow bought a place there and bought a place in Birmingham another in Edinburgh and one in leth and we kept buying by the end of the second world
War Robert Hansen had 30 depos for his lores and coaches all over the country although the Hol business has been nationalized the vehicles still bear the family name coach service however remains his own we’ve been a family a business family all our lives we’ve had people have either stayed with us a year
Two years three and four years or they’ve come and settled down here you see but the average time is 29 years this serve does this is the list for your staff party Mr Hanson you’ll see that there are 70 persons on that list I think most of them will accept and Mr
And Mrs White are hoping to get over from Canada yes he’s H crime over do you know I don’t know if you’ll be in England in August Mr hon maybe should did Robert Hansen represents perfectly everything Hadfield stands for he’s competitive enjoys his success but he still retains
The interest of the Carter that he once was he’s an Enthusiast for show jumping and has never lost his passion for horses we read a lot and he go up into the field in the these mares and Fs would come and you play about with them
Until they’d be like a dog they follow you anywhere you know if I had no horses today I’d be a go crackers I still have some but there something about the friendship you have I don’t know what you call it what you like another family firm that thrust its
Way into the national scene after starting in Huddersfield was David Browns Precision Engineering started here to where the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to provide machines for the Mills it has now overtaken textiles as a main employer of Labor David Browns was one of the largest privately owned firms in
Britain Taylor Made gearing is its speciality and for this the highest engineering qualifications are required of 70% of the workforce have we checked all the thermac couples now Peter yeah that was the last one Jeff right come and check the floor in the primary wheel less well known another successful family engineering
Firm come in good morning Mr Frank good morning Mr erest I’ve just been looking through your report Brook merss are electrical engineers a firm handed down by the late founder to his two sons Frank Brooke is the businessman the force behind the organization he is addressed by his
Employers as Mr Frank and we also had a film show is this the 200 box are you doing here this is the 200 Mr Jack his brother Jack Brooke is the engineer he is addressed as Mr Jack how long do you think it’ll be before it
Finishes well it’s on the last C now Mr you’re on the last together they manage the business on traditional Family Lines which for Mr Jack means getting away from his desk as often as possible for a walk on the factory floor it gives him an excuse to talk to the men and fundle
The Machinery out just a minute can you tell me where that uh land is fine boring equipment’s got to this is it Mr in fact Brook Motors has ceased to be a family firm to the brother’s regret they allowed themselves to be taken over only because neither of their sons in exception to the Huddersfield rule wanted to go into the business working there take that one back now when this
Gets a bit further this Jack Brook lives and sleeps engineering at home as well as at the works if he failed with his son he sets his granddaughters off on the right lines shinefield men are intensely competitive both in their business and their pastimes practically everybody in
Huttersfield is involved in some game or sport and they take them very seriously my dad was a terrific fan of the game which has come to be known as rugby league of which incidentally Huddersfield is virtually the birthplace it seems that at one time a certain number of uh Northern
Rugby clubs decided that the time had come for a spot of professionalism so they split away from the southern clubs and after a while they further decided to improve the rules the team that we watched was the Champions at the time they were known as the team of all the talents they were
Led by a very glamorous figure called Harold Wagstaff but I seem to remember that our favorite was a Blog called doue Clark he was a coal Merchant in everyday life and he was a great bulldozer of a man we loved him hfield town were Champions then too but I wasn’t such a
Keen soccer fan then as I am now you may be sure that no matter what the game is in Huddersfield it will always be played at the highest pitch of [Applause] Competitiveness well sto the intensely competitive Villages fight it out in what’s called League cricket today honley is playing on their home ground we stopped stopped you very it’s some in The Valleys there are as many as a 100 clubs this one seems to be a relatively peaceful event but it
Can be very rough at times especially among the Supporters never made a stroke to be cross get there no less intense are the passions aroused by Crown green bowling of this we have 64 clubs that how many Tom how many right in the 1860s a popular local sport was clog fighting the two contestants would take off all the
Clothes until they were Stark naked except for the clogs on their feet and they would face each other and put their hands on each other’s shoulders and on the word go they would start kicking each other on their chins and legs as hard as they could until one of them was obliged
To cry enough each Village had its champion and the players Believe It or Not were willing volunteers such was the competitor SP it in those days today’s competitive businessmen meet for a game of snooker and to swap the hot news of the day at the Huddersfield and bur Club the talk
Hasn’t changed much since my father was a member it’s a pleasure to knock on your door and see that gorgeous little thing in Long soings your most beautiful reception is in Valley without doubt absolutely terrific I think so anyway CH came in the other day and he said uh
What can she Ty until I I don’t know don’t tell some I started I think when I was close on 67 and I was 85 last week if you’d like me to show you when to do Franklin Broadhead has been entertaining the members for years you never had any
Twinges in your back no well not that I remember must have I might have had earlier on you’ll perform at the drop of a hat you see I should have joined up in the first world war with a W have me they rejected me five times yeah so what
Would you do and I’m like this now he was unfit unfit so you see what you do you see you were asking me can I come up like that of course you see I can come up without any trouble that is difficult yeah yeah yeah and then what I was going to do
Before was s this see you right that’s Aston I don’t know how I managed to here personal eccentricities are not disc Ed and the same applies here though the regulars are surprisingly conservative no let’s sit down to no let down TOS go today go today are they well that’s
Marvelous but as far as the doctors they’re going to about 440 a week now and they still want more and they still want Less hours but look at it this way if three bloody gangs working you one playing card what do they again the same one as themy working is
It same they playing cards for eight hours a day not that particular team but they swap over there is no passion more indigenous to Huddersfield than its music it draws together the people from every Walk of Life more people are involved in music here than any other town in Britain of
An evening Hadfield and its valleys can must six performing Church choirs 16 registered brass bands one chamber music Society one magical Society three light opera societies three Coral societies one women’s choir three male voice chirs one Youth Orchestra and two symphony orchestras people in the South expect the best music only from professionals
These are all amateurs with the possible exception of the conductors and chorus Masters and and the people here expect them to be the best and they are by D of hard work and deep involvement the con Valley Male Voice Choir was known to be the best in Britain and the haresfield coral Society
Is still as good as any in the [Applause] world right ladies and gentlemen we’ll start four bars before the beginning four bars the second line of Page Three Ready this is the hfield coral Society in [Applause] rehearsal [Applause] [Applause] one bar before letter M with the trumpet down the road the hutsfield Phil harmonic [Applause] Now please four balls before end where we’ve just stopped [Applause] Thank you look May the King live for keep the tone alive may get the m to explode onto the or at least to be singing on the a already May the King live get through to The Vow immediately the little the you must have a precise the on the semiquaver everybody got
Saved the king and made the King live right And huah [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] Hallelujah bis I can see one or two of you singing with a o vowel instead of an a vowel s use the A and the mouth across and you’ll get a far better effect basis what did you just do your right I’ll give you and right and right And you’re singing it very well but you look so solemn oh you know you got faces set somewh could you make it kind of could your eyes sparkle could it be brilliant and bright and it’ll come out in the tone could you do Alto lead us in
You can do that better too May the King live try straight right better hallelujah [Applause] Hallelujah We still don’t really quite get it right do we not only the trombones but this cendo so ingrained is music in Huddersfield life that there are more concerts given in the town hall than there are football matches in leads and the house is always full The I lived for 16 years in California during that time one of my few contacts with this part of the world was a series of letters that I started to receive from an old lady called Mrs Samford whom I’d never met and these were very often accompanied by large cartons of
Beautiful Lantern slides and colored picture postcards which I studied with the greatest relish as a way of appeasing my then growing sense of nostalgia this old lady lived in home fth which is an old village on the outskirts of Huddersfield her desire seemed to be to infect someone like
Myself with her own enthusiasm about the pioneering achievement ments of her father who was a gentleman called Bamford what most impressed her perhaps was his early experiments in the field of Motion Pictures indeed if the rest of the country had been ready for him this little village might have ended up as
The Hub of the British Motion Picture industry it was not until much later that I connected his name with a firm of picture postard Publishers which still exists and prospers amazingly 90% of the Saucy postcards you buy on blackpool’s Golden Mile originate in this little village the postcards which Mrs Sanford
Used to send me were entirely different from the modern product the lantern slides were usually based on a sort of dramatizations of moral homes with titles like other angels in heaven who are blind like me these were then translated into postcard form and after that came the serialization of the popular and
Sentimental songs of the period these went down particularly well in World War I and immediately prior to it and I found them Irresistible till the when be Going how does field people view with cautious tolerance the artists who live among them earlier I mentioned my friend Wilfred make piece lamb he’s an inventor or sculptor or something anyway he makes small cycles that do things again it’s your dad inside Richard dad inside
The thing is you see I look on my bicycles as being satirical but around you know around others field because of a tradition of model makers they look at my stuff and they don’t think I satirical bicycle or anything like that they they say oh it’s it’s a bike the
Fellow makes bikes you know and it’s acceptable um you see when you get something like for example down in the the town they’ve got one of Henry Mo’s Fallen Warriors which is sort of M shapes and things and reclining it’s got this sort of feel of
It falling you see somebody told me that the de chap say well I’ve been through two world wars and I’ve never seen a warrior falling like that it’s took me a while to build up the various things I used to make these bicycles with you know and uh I don’t think there’s
Anywhere else where you could uh get people knocking on the door with a with a bank full of fishbed leads you know from a mud gar s yeah you know I mean how long would you have to live in London before they do that I think you’d
Have to live all your life and it is dearer than fresh sumon you know Peter Brooke is more serious not that wol Lan isn’t serious but Peter’s a realist to me everything that he paints evokes every sentimental memory that I have of this part of the country not
Just the Mills but the broken down houses and the lonely Farms up on the penin I like the roads better around here straight and more dramatic I like these odd Telegraph PS and wires the walls are good as well those boundary walls with the toping stones about 18 in higher
Than the level of the top stop the Sheep breaking back out to Ling time and come on come on this is the area that I was born into James when I get time I come up here any time of the year here snow Mist TI
Go I once wrote a short poem about this and I tried to put it down in as few words as possible and all I can work out is that I was born around here and my people saw these buildings and maybe help to build them for all I know
Because they found this land then when I come up here I feel as I’m walking the same room roads and same pass and seeing the same things that they saw but I can’t think of any other place that means more to me than this this is it
When I’m away from England I like to have Peter’s pictures around me and when there are no figures in them my imagination fills in the missing occupants the people who are rooted here the people who reject as new fangled what others call progress who cherish as solid virtue as what others no longer
Longer believe him it’s a good life I like it I’m glad to have been part of [Applause] It the of Glor Hallelujah [Applause] hallelu oh
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My home Town .