8. Gala Committee
Gala Committee 1
Following on the success of the children’s carnival, a gala committee was formed to make the 1971 event something altogether more ambitious. It met for the first time on March 19th 1971 in the New Inn. Wilsden Gala had a long history but had lapsed in 1955. Gala chairman Ronnie Hamer and his team booked the school field for Saturday September 18th to put on the first Wilsden Gala for 16 years. It certainly was ambitious, and something of an act of faith with a big range of traditional attractions. These included a tug of war, fancy dress competitions, coconut shy, slippery pole, balloon race, judo display, roundabout, fortune telling, bowl a pig, donkey rides and many stalls, including one to sell copies of the Plan for Wilsden and encourage more people to join the society. The members of this first WVS gala committee were starting from scratch, deciding what attractions might be popular and how they could be achieved, what could be borrowed or hired, what they must make themselves. Early minutes record Mrs Hall and Mrs Harrison making bunting to supplement that borrowed from the council. Lilian Moorhouse arranged to borrow long bamboo poles to support the bunting from the carpet department at Brown Muff’s department store. Mrs Lloyd collected wood from demolition sites around the village, to be converted into stalls and games by a men’s working party. In an attempt to get a celebrity opener, Mrs Moorhouse wrote to Jimmy Saville, offering in return to work for him at Leeds General Infirmary. She got no reply (in retrospect rather fortunate) and the committee chose instead to invite the chairman of Bingley Council, Coun. A.G.Raistrick, to crown the queen and declare the gala open.
In addition to 16 stalls and games run by the village society, nine other village organisations took part. Among them, the Motor Club put on a Scalectrix racing game and had a rally car on display. The Working Men’s Club took charge of bowl a pig and a darts game. The school ran a competition to design a logo for the village society. The youth club chose Paula Smith to be gala queen and the primary school chose her attendants. Paula had her own dress that she wished to wear, but her cloak and outfits for her attendants were made by committee members from material donated by Peter Booth. Admission was by programme, costing 5p, children free. The procession from Ling Bob to the field was led by Shipley Pipe Band with the Spartan Jazz Band also taking part on a lorry. Both bands played on the field during the afternoon. Fire regulations were taken care of by inviting the fire brigade to put an engine in the procession, then park on Tweedy Street, on the understanding that they might have to leave suddenly if called out.
The social committee organised a dance in the school in the evening.
What a relief it was when the gala was attended by a crowd of about 2,500 and made a profit for the society of over £300. This was by far the biggest single fund-raiser to date, and a great help as the society’s plans became more ambitious.
The second gala was arranged for September 16th 1972. The committee now knew how much organisation and planning was involved. They prepared detailed plans of the school field and the layout of all the stalls, and lists of jobs to be undertaken before gala day, on the day, and the following morning.
Donkeys proved one of that year’s headaches. Those used in 1971 were not available, but there were some in a field belonging to Mr. James Kunz of Gaisby Hall. He said the committee were welcome to borrow them, but, mysteriously, he doubted if they would be suitable. Mrs Lloyd and Mrs Moorhouse were deputed to check out these animals for ‘ridability’ preferably by trying them out. They were probably relieved to find there was only one, which they could declare unsuitable without further investigation. Fortunately someone heard about Mr. Warren in Batley, whose donkeys could be hired for £1 each, hirer to arrange transport. Thus it was that the Friday evening instructions included “Donald Waite to collect six donkeys from Batley and put them in Mr. Drake’s field.”
Saturday morning listed roundabout from Eldwick, tables from various churches and the youth club, other equipment from Providence Mill garage and many storage points all over the village. Ken Pitchers discovered that the three substantial market stalls borrowed from Bradford council in 1971 were no longer wanted by the council and managed to buy them for the village society for £10. These were among the many pieces of village society property housed at Providence Mill. Also on Saturday morning the donkeys had to be conveyed to the school field, together with saddles, bridles, tethering rail and drinking trough. Job lists for Saturday evening and Sunday morning covered the return of all these gathered items and a final tidy up at the school.
This time, the new chairman of Bingley Council, Counc. T.F.Shaw, crowned Margaret Walton as gala queen. Her throne stood in front of a large white banner bearing the society’s new WVS logo in green. The design was the winning entry in the previous year’s competition for Wilsden school children. This gala included many of the same attractions as the year before. The Booth and Moore families lent caravans, one as an administrative base and for the WVS treasurer, one for a repeat of Miss Sheila Johnson’s performance as a gypsy fortune teller 10p for a simple reading, 15p with crystal ball (lent by Mrs. Nan Harrison).
The tug of war was popular again, with local teams from the Ling Bob, the Station, the New Inn and the Conservative Club and one from the Oddfellows’ Arms at Greengates. The landlord of the New Inn, Roy Clemence, donated nine gallons of beer, four gallons as first prize, one gallon as second prize and four gallons to keep the Spartan Jazz Band lubricated. The Motor Club’s contribution this time was to set up stocks, which must have been fairly authentic as there is a note of their request for soft tomatoes.
In 1973 the gala was given a theme for the first time. Stall holders as well as children were encouraged to dress appropriately for the Merrie England Gala on September 15th. Mrs Lloyd produced sketches of suitable costumes to encourage all helpers to dress up. The field was arranged as ye olde streets – Pudding Lane and The Shambles. The noisier games such as crockery breaking and football were situated in an area designated Bedlam. Counc. Emily Hall, chairman of Bingley Council, appeared in splendid period costume herself, and had made those for the gala queen Diane Driver and her attendants. Almost all the helpers came as variations on wenches or yokels, with WVS member Bob Temperton as a particularly fine pieman in authentic smock. In working out the field layout, the committee decided to have much less emphasis on arena displays to encourage people to spend more time around the stalls. The pieman and a number of pretty lavender sellers wandered about the field selling their wares. There were a roundabout and swings and the Motor Club provided a very popular ducking stool. This was the first gala at which a gambling game involving a mouse was used. The mouse was placed in the middle of a space surrounded by numbered boxes, the winner being the holder of the number the mouse ran into. In a subsequent year the society was reprimanded for exposing the mouse to a frightening situation, but a relay of school mice were used, brought by a teacher (not from Wilsden School) and he maintained they were well accustomed to noisy children. There were also later protests that the donkeys would be frightened by the Gavioli organ, although it was never positioned anywhere near them and they showed no signs of distress.
1973 did unfortunately generate its own complaint. Bowling for Pig had produced a winner whose husband threatened with the Trades Description Act when the prize was not a whole pig but a leg of pork, just as it had been the previous year without any problem.
