1. Beginnings
How it all started
The notice of a public meeting to be held on Tuesday January 27th 1970 may be regarded as Wilsden Village Society’s first document but it might be helpful to look at what led to that meeting being called.
On the evening of March 25th 1969 two couples who had lived in Wilsden for a few years reflected on how they were enjoying living there, but sorry that they were not more involved with village life. This was partly because they were all working in Bradford, fitting in housework in the evenings and generally following a different pattern of shopping and being about in the village from people who were in Wilsden during the day. They realised too that much of their social life was still angled towards the places they had come from and that this was typical of many of the newer residents.
Creating community
The Mechanics Institute, once a hub of village life, now stood gloomy and almost deserted, apart from a metal worker who rented part of the ground floor. They thought how good it would be to have a place like this where people could drop in and find out about all the various activities, somewhere that could be used by all ages and sections of the community at times that suited them, somewhere particularly that would encourage newcomers to look to Wilsden for more of their requirements and counter the tendency to just eat and sleep here but assume one had to go out for everything else.
Saving the village
The other area of concern was the amount of demolition taking place. These newcomers had come to Wilsden because they liked the look of it, its separateness from neighbouring towns and its feeling of being a place in its own right. Old cottages of no particular merit in themselves contributed to the overall impression of Main Street and an alarming number of gaps were beginning to appear, some of the sites being left as dangerous eyesores. Other villages had become suburbs and the conviction grew among the little group that this village was worth fighting for, not a place of duck ponds and roses round the door, but nevertheless offering something important to the quality of life.
Local government
There was a sense of some urgency, with local government reorganisation scheduled for 1974 which would mean bigger and more remote departments to deal with and much less elected representation. Even on a council as small as Bingley Urban District Council, councillors for any one village could easily be outvoted when it came to allocating priorities or getting support for local ideas.
Over the next few weeks those four people talked to others, and found ready echoes of their thoughts both among recent residents and those whose roots went back many generations. All three local councillors for the Wilsden ward of Bingley UDC were enthused – Maurice Calvert (Ind.), Emily Hall (Con.) and Gerald Tyler (Con.) The notion of more local say in local affairs was contrary to the general trend of the 1960s and early 70s, with the exception of the Skeffington Report ‘People and Planning’. Counc. Tyler was already interested in what this report had to say about local involvement in planning and was wondering how its recommendations could be implemented in Wilsden.
Invitation to a meeting
The outcome of all these conversations was the decision to sound out opinions more widely. In October 1969, Counc. Tyler wrote on behalf of all three councillors to officers of communal organisations in the village. He invited them to a meeting in the reading room at Royd House on 4th November, enclosing this short statement on the topic to be discussed.
