Memories . . . and trains

From the moment I stepped off the Saltaire train and into Forster Square Station, Bradford, I knew this was going to be a day of memories. Unrecognisable as the same station from which, when I was a child, we used to catch a train to visit my grandma in Derby, but enough to bring back this and other memories. 

And so we wandered the streets of a city I have known all my life, knowing my way, despite so many changes. Little reminders of buildings and places I knew so well. A lovely chat with two Bradfordian ladies about how things used to be, a chat with a young man very enthusiastic about happenings in preparation for City of Culture 2025. It’s a sad place with much evidence of poverty and hopelessness, but  also so much new development and looking to the future. 

I could of course post many pictures, tell many stories, but I’m limiting it to two.

The Wool Exchange (see Extra)
This building, the foundation stone for which was laid  in 1864 by the then Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, shows Bradford at its height - the textile capital of the world - worstedopolis. Within these walls deals were made, yarn was bought. I like to think of my g. g. grandfather, who at this time was a Buyer for one of the big Bradford mills, wheeling and dealing in this place - now Waterstones - among the pillars (see 2nd Extra) where today I wandered looking at books.

Sunwin House
This trip is about my personal history, so my blip is not any of the wonderful historic buildings in Bradford, it’s an empty, fast declining old retail store. Sunwin House (named after the two roads Sunbridge Road and Godwin Street) was built in 1938 as a flagship of the Co-op. It is a grand, interwar modernist building which was once a multi-storey department store.  

And it was a big part of my life for several years. From the age of 16 I worked here as a Saturday girl (I was paid 21 shillings - if you worked at Woolworths you got 17/6, if at M&S 25 shillings). I worked in the holidays and continued the same during the time I was at college. I knew every inch of the place, including the impressive central art deco staircase which I loved, and most of the people. 

It was closed in 2005, sold to T J Hughes but has now been empty for 11 years. So sad to see it like this. It is a listed building so can’t be pulled down. I hope someone rescues it. 

Train from Saltaire to Bradford
Train from Bradford to Skipton - delicious meal  at the Aagrah
Train from Skipton to Saltaire.
Just love these trains!