We were recently sent this brilliant photograph of taxis in Huddersfield by Huddersfield man Rodney Senior who now lives in Canada.

The taxis were parked just outside the gates to Greenhead Park and Rodney thinks the photograph was taken just before the war in 1938 or 1939.

The photograph made Sylvia Chivers’ day as the taxis belonged to her family.

Sylvia (nee Longley) said: “All of these taxis belonged to my father, Joseph Henry Longley, and were garaged in Viaduct Street, Huddersfield. My name is Sylvia, named after the taxi firm, Silverline Taxis. I think (only think) that Silverline’s proud boast was 6p per mile.

“What I know about the taxi business is only what I heard the adults talking about. It was registered at 112 Northgate, where I was born. The garage was across the road. Arnold Moore had that property for his business selling Lambrettas and Vespas. The pub on the corner was the Fox and Grapes and the licensee was Harry Widdup. My grandad (so I was led to believe) was the proprietor of the Majestic Cinema in Viaduct Street and my dad was the projectionist and my mother one of the usherettes. That is where they met.

“My father was exempt from going in the armed forces. He drove coaches at one point, going through Coventry during the blitz and he also worked for Thomas Broadbent engineers in Aspley.”

She added: “My father had a newsagent shop at the bottom of Beaumont Street/Fitzwilliam Street and Leeds Road between 1947 and 1951 and I used to watch the crowds going down to the old Leeds Road Football Ground.

“We used to have to wait for the results to be printed before the Examiners were delivered and then we could deliver them to my dad`s customers.”

Sylvia, who was born in 1941, is now 76 and lives in Scotland.

She attended Beaumont Street School and recalls attending Fox’s dancing academy when she was 12 or 12, adding: “Unfortunately for me I did not have a partner and had to dance with a chair. My older brothers made so much fun of me that I did not last long and never actually learned to ballroom dance, one of my big regrets in life.”

Sylvia later went to Fartown Secondary Modern School and then to Huddersfield Technical College and ended up working in the office of Hanson Haulage, near the ICI before moving away from Huddersfield.