Do you recall wartime camps?

LEGEND has it that only one German bomb fell on Mirfield during World War Two.

I spent my adolescence in Mirfield and remember trying to locate the crater, which was allegedly in a field in Lower Hopton.

The bomb was not, apparently, aimed at Mirfield, though a direct hit on the rail yard or station would have been seriously disrupting.

It was a jettisoned bomb, thrown out to lighten the load on the way back to the Fatherland.

It killed a cow.

Traces of the last war are all around us, but perhaps it requires a practised eye to spot them.

Take just one instance: there's an old brewery in New Mill that was built in 1859 and operated until the turn of the century.

Its splendid stone entrance arch, still in existence, announced its location and purpose in life.

This was deemed a danger to national security during the war, so the masons were called in to chip it off.

Sadly, this wouldn't have fooled a single invading German.

You can still read it, even in 2006.

This is a rather rambling introduction to today's topic, which is Prisoner Of War Camps In Huddersfield.

Geoffrey Hill of 2, Woodedge Avenue, Dalton (phone 01484 302733) is keen to locate the sites of the camps.

I can personally help him with two.

The one at Stirley Hill in the shadow of Castle Hill is on private farmland, but as far as I know its concrete footings are still in situ.

This housed Italians, who were often employed as agricultural labour by the local farms.

One night a week they trooped - if that is the right word - to the cinema in Newsome, where their distinctive green and khaki prison uniforms identified them.

Italians were also housed at Crosland Road, Oakes, which survived into the 1960s before the Goldington estate finally swallowed it.

I know this is because the gang of youngsters I hung around with used to use the abandoned concrete and brick huts for war games and conducting highly dangerous experiments with fireworks.

The third Huddersfield PoW camp was for captured Germans and was at Fieldhouse Lane, Leeds Road.

Prisoners from here worked at British Dyes, later ICI, across the road until the last lot were repatriated in 1949.

I don't know if anything of this camp survives.

If anybody has direct memories of these camps, could they contact Mr Hill?

He's particularly interested in stories of fraternisation with the locals.