My eldest son is doing
his Duke of Edinburgh voluntary service in the Oxfam Bookshop in
Holmfirth. I went to pick him up a few
weeks ago and spotted a book with a plain blue cover with the embossed words
‘Huddersfield – Official Handbook’. I had a scan
through it and saw it was produced by Huddersfield Borough Council and on the
inside cover was written “With the compliments of , Mayor
of Huddersfield, 1960-61, Alderman Norman Day ”. I bought it on the spot for £39 but even a scan
through told me it was a real find. It was published as the modern age was
beginning and the second world war was still a fairly recent memory for most
people. It was a very different place and every now and again someone of
certain age will say wistfully to me “why can’t we go back to the old
Huddersfield Borough Council”. Well what I had purchased was a snapshot (as
opposed to a moving picture) of that 'Nirvana'.
.
Huddersfield - Official Handbook' is a treasure trove
for Council geeks and particularly a Huddersfield Councillor. Inside there is a
fairly detailed history of the Huddersfield area from pre-history to the
present day. There are maps showing the Huddersfield area and Town Centre prior
to the ring road going in (it was being planned at the time). There are pages
of information about the Huddersfield Borough Council and the
services they provided. Some things are different but much is the same. There
are photographs of the recently completed Salendine Nook Secondary School
looking pristine before it deteriorated in the 70s when I attended and the
concrete started falling away from the metal window frames.
What I found
particularly fascinating was all the adverts in it. Some from companies that
survive to this day, some that I can remember and others that by most people are
long forgotten from over half a century ago. There are adverts about how to get
yourself set up with gas heating and smokeless coal to comply with the Clean
Air Act and where you can purchase radios with the new fangled stereo or ‘3D
sound’. There is a photo of an unnamed Huddersfield’s oldest resident of 103.
This chap is sitting there with a smile looking healthy and hearty with a pint
of bitter and holding his pipe and he must first have been born in Huddersfield
I guess around the 1858 mark. There is a large section on the manufacturing and
textile industry of Huddersfield and interestingly it is also translated into
German and French. I guess this was to stimulate trade with that place called
Europe across the sea. There are the names and addresses of all the Councillors
and key figures from the time most of whom I never knew or met with the odd
exception such as Tom Cliffe who was a Councillor I came across in the distant
past.
You really get a sense
looking through this time capsule of Huddersfield of the span of years and how it
continues and has its own life beyond that of the lifetime of those of us who
reside within it. We all experience change in the local environment around us
and sometimes its for the better and sometimes definitely not. My own personal bug bear is how the Burns
Tavern with its long wooden bar got demolished to become Burger King.
‘Huddersfield – Official Handbook’ is now a prized possession and it would be interesting to do something
similar for someone else to discover 50 years hence. Things are however so very
different. The information in this book is probably not stored or accessed
easily anywhere digitally. A lot of the same information today could be source
from a number of websites. Huddersfield as an administrative area is gone and we
have the not very much loved Kirklees Council so the point of doing it might be
lost. We can’t recreate the past nor should we attempt to do so. Like those
before us we just have to do our best to make a better future and much as I
enjoy having a ‘proper gander’ at ‘Huddersfield – Official Handbook’ it is in its own
way propaganda showing our town 52 years ago in the best possible light. Still
absolutely fascinating all the same.
