I WAS born in Huddersfield, but left in 1962, finally emigrating to Canada in 1967, but I still like to keep in touch with events in the town through the email pages of the Examiner.
As I always had a keen interest in the Huddersfield trolleybuses as a young boy I was thrilled to see yet another collection of photographs of these magnificent vehicles!
Some of the latest photographs and captions evoked a multitude of memories from my early life – the one of Trinity Street and New North Road particularly so as my mind wandered back up towards Halifax where I worked for several years.
On the right, just past the hoardings, was the railway yard where my friend Malcolm Pearson lived in a railway home.
Further up was the old Huddersfield College where I received my secondary education.
Heading up Trinity Street was Halfords cycle shop, where, in 1946, my parents purchased a cycle for me as a gift for passing the exams to get to the college.
(This must have been prior to Wiley’s?) On Trinity Street was Denham’s leather Goods store. Alfred Denham was my step-grandfather and long after his death I spent much time with my grandmother on Greenhead Road.
She, with my grandfather opened Fox’s Academy of Dancing at 87 Trinity Street in 1926.
My uncle Jack Fox and his wife Kathleen ran it during my dancing years and I have many memories of the Saturday morning children’s classes and the Saturday evening dances.
Just above and across from Fox’s was a general store where my best friend Wally Hill lived with his parents.
Then there was Greenhead Park – a wonderful place for us kids to play!
Trinity Street led to Marsh where I lived a couple of times and then to Oakes and the photo of a trolleybus at Wellington Mills took me back to Oakes Primary School and the old pre war trolleys used at the end of their lives on the school service.
Going back into town the photo of two buses waiting in the rain to set off up Trinity Street reminded of rainy winter rush hours and the trolley pole across the entrance signifying a full bus!
Behind those two buses is, I think, The Swan Inn where the White Eagles jazz band played on a Friday evening in a room over the bar.
Reference in another photograph is of a car showroom ‘long gone’.
I remember it being built or modernised after the war and collecting Triumph cars from there for R A Walkden Ltd in Milnsbridge when I was their car salesman.
Another photo is of John William Street and in the distance is the Lion Building where I worked for John Mollett Ltd, selling fireplaces prior to my conscription to the RAF in 1954.
Thank you for evoking a whole world of mostly very happy memories for me.
The town has changed, but when I Google different parts of the town, there is a lot of ‘old’ Huddersfield left!
Rodney Senior
New Brunswick, Canada
Colin’s nose advice
COLIN Vause wrote an interesting letter entitled ‘the way to breathe’ (Examiner, October 26), raising an interesting point that runners use their mouths through which to breathe.
As he points out, the primary functions of the nose is to act as a filter of airborne particulates and as a means of warming air before it gets to the lungs.
If I could add two more important functions for the nose.
It’s something to blow when you have a cold and somewhere to balance your glasses when reading the Examiner.
Speaking as both a cyclist and a runner I believe I cannot do either without gulping large quantities of air through my mouth, swallowing insects in the process.
So, Colin, you must have an enviable nose if you can cycle around Huddersfield's hilly terrain with your mouth closed.
Uncle Grumpy
Golcar
Spending priorities
IN its proposal for capital spending in Kirklees 2013/18 £3m is for road improvements at Longroyd Bridge.
Considering the £50,000-£100,000 already spent on the Longroyd Lane/Manchester Road/St Thomas Road junction (work which is still not finished), what work is scheduled for this junction?
Bridge strengthening, road resurfacing or extending the bus lane?
Another £4.5m is for regenerating work on Pioneer House, Dewsbury.
When bought by Kirklees Council in March 2011 this work was estimated to cost £1.5m – some estimating?
In November 2011 Kirklees Council revealed plans to create a customer service centre in Huddersfield. This was estimated to cost £1.5m and now these costs have risen to £1.8m. Do Kirklees Council need a new estimator?
The future spending figure for the new sports centre, £30 million from 2013 onwards, makes no mention of the money spent on the 2012 roadworks, now in progress, or the revenue lost by the reduction in car parking spaces.
In a previous letter to The Examiner I mentioned the empty and derelict St Luke’s Hospital site being used to build a new school.
A new school on this still vacant available site, served by a good bus service would help to alleviate the pressure on Mount Pleasant, Crosland Moor, Lindley, Birkby and Springwood schools.
With Kirklees Council committing so much money to the future, what plans are in place for the empty Co-op building on New Street also owned by Kirklees Council?
MG
Crosland Moor
A dangerous job
IN ADDITION to all those who were injured or lost their lives fighting at the front we should not forget all the young women working in munitions who contributed and sacrificed as much for victory as the troops.
Countless young women working in munitions were not only injured or killed by the well documented explosions in munitions factories but by exposure to TNT which caused toxic liver overload, aplastic anaemia (destruction of the bone marrow) with the resulting leukaemia and other serious and often fatal effects.
Lists with names and addresses of some of the young women who died through exposure to TNT are now being posted on the internet. These young women have been the forgotten casualties of war.
TNT is a haemotoxin, a genotoxin and carcinogen and I know of women who worked in munitions in World War Two who suffered serious anaemia conditions of the bone marrow as a result.
The genetic damage they sustained has passed on to their children and the following generation so the adverse physical effects of war work are still manifest in younger people today.
Edward Priestley
Brighouse
Our rainbow roads
JACOB’S coat of many colours or Woodhead road at Berry Brow?
Are there any more different colours or patterns the council could put on a road at the moment with the trees in Autumn colour – it is a sight to behold.
Reds, white stripes, yellow bollards and dragon’s teeth.
The new bollards that light up are tremendous but I wonder where the new old ugly ones went to and how much they have cost us the taxpayer in wasted money which could have been spent on potholes..
Back to the new road colour scheme. I have browsed a nearly new Highway code book to see what they all means and most of them do not appear.
When they first put the red patches down I thought the Queen was coming but, no, we now have 30s and 40s on top.
How we managed to survive to a ripe age of 68 I do not know as at one time the road was void of all encumbrances and you drove with care and consideration but now it’s a sight to see and distract you from driving.
Holly Townend
Wooldale
