9. Floats
Floats
The procession at Wilsden Gala 1971 only attracted two decorated floats on lorries, although there were other vehicles and some walking tableaux. It occurred to some members that it might encourage others to join in next year and also generate publicity for the society if WVS entered its own float in next year’s Harden Gala.
1972 was the year of the great Tutankhamen exhibition at the British Museum and this was the inspiration for the most incredibly ambitious project. A long flatbed lorry was given sand and sea coloured sides, with Wilsden Village Society written in mock hieroglyphics. A pavilion and throne were built at the cab end to house Trevor Maltas as the young Pharoah. A mast and furled sail and a long rudder transformed the whole into a royal barge. A bevy of handmaidens, impressive semi-clad guards and even the jackal-headed god Anubis completed his crew. The costumes were magnificent, flowing white robes for the girls, much scantier coverings for the men, gold helmets, elaborate headdresses, great blue and gold jewelled collars and sashes, papyrus fans, all home made under the direction of Anne Lloyd from nothing more exotic than cardboard, paint, paperclips, glue and midget gem sweets. The handmaids were Counc. Emily Hall, Anne Lloyd, Sylvia Partridge, Lilian Howarth, Susan Pitchers and Kate Drake, the men Michael Lloyd, Gordon Bastow, Peter Booth and Marcus Catling, the god Tony Partridge. The float won a well deserved first prize at Harden Gala. The team decided all that work merited another outing and took it to Eldwick Gala the following month. Here they came second to Bingley Round Table’s Moon Buggy. This would have been a perfectly acceptable result had not one of the judges told them they could not have first prize because they had so obviously hired their costumes, an injustice that caused some indignation among the painters and gluers.
The following year they were at it again with spectacular and deceptively professional-looking props and costumes for Alice in Wonderland. This float had more outings, to Bingley Children’s Gala,(3rd prize) Harden Gala,(result not recorded) and Haworth Gala (1st prize). It featured Alice and the white rabbit of course, the mad hatter’s tea party, king, queen and knave of hearts, cook, duchess and baby, a caterpillar on a mushroom and some lively playing cards. The cast varied depending who was available on each date and would fit into the costume. They were dissuaded from calling the float Alice in Metroland by WVS chairman Ken Pitchers, who thought this would not help the society to get off on a good footing with the council under whose authority they were about to come.
In June 1975 Bradford’s first Lord Mayor’s Parade and Gala took place, with the theme Bradford’s World. WVS entered the float ‘Bradford’s Treasure Island’, and carried off the Bradford Metropolitan Trophy for the Most Outstanding Non-Commercial Entry. Blue sea rippled round the lorry, with a real boat on the back flying the Jolly Roger. On a small mound a stockade protected Squire Lil Moorhouse, Captain Bob Temperton and Jim lad (Neil Lloyd). The stockade also concealed a crate of beer which led to participants getting livelier as the day went on. One pirate who jumped off as the lorry passed a public house, in order to make use of the ‘gents’ discovered that catching up and jumping back on was not easy when wearing Scholls clogs. Ben Gunn (Ricky Alden) skulked about the island and Long John Colin Byers Silver led a motley pirate crew of Lindsay Moorhouse, Eric Hindley, Anne Lloyd, Ken Pitchers, Tony Caunt, Harry Midgley and Astrid Hansen. Long John Silver achieved his one-legged state by standing with one leg in a barrel. A passer by with a bandaged foot was startled to be greeted with a shout of “I started off like that.” The Lord Mayor’s ceremonial officer at this time was a Wilsden man and as the Civic party inspected the floats at the assembly point in City Road, he was the subject of a lot of jovial greetings, and speculation as to where he got his suit. Lord Mayor Doris Birdsall was heard to ask, “Do you know these people, John? ”
This was the year of Wilsden’s Treasure Island Gala, so the costumes did get another outing.
The society took part in the 1976 Lord Mayor’s Parade but did not repeat their success.
By now spare time was getting extremely well filled for active members of the society as the village hall occupied more and more time in addition to all the other social and planning issues.
There were plenty of other opportunities to satisfy the urge to dress up and be silly, as described under the activities of the social committee and the only other float put on by grown up members of the society was in 1977 when they took a small lorry to Harden Gala making use of Dr. Who costumes made for a WVS dance at the end of the previous year, justifying it as ‘Who’s Jubilee’.
In 1978 when Wilsden Gala theme was Storytime, they entered a children’s Storytime float in Bingley Children’s Gala, to support the Bingley event and promote their own. The lorry featured a huge book out of which came lots of traditional characters portrayed by Wilsden children. Red Riding Hood and the wolf, Cinderella, Bo-Peep and others of their kind were joined by the eight year old who would only go on if he could be Luke Skywalker, complete with light sabre. This was another third prize winner. Wilsden children won second prize at Bingley with their Big Top float in 1979, the year of Wilsden’s Big Top Gala.
Processions with floats gradually became smaller at many events. A general reduction in the number of local lorries and drivers available, together with rising fuel costs and questions of insurance all took their toll.
Introducing the Village Hall Committee
It will have become obvious that at a very early stage in the life of the society, some of the work of its committees began to overlap. The social committee was interested in the Mechanics Institute and its future particularly as it related to the youth club. The hon. solicitor was investigating the trustees and ownership situation. The planning committee was exploring all the options for a community centre, which included renovating the Mechanics, extending Royd House or looking at different sites for a possible new building. The very first news-sheet referred to these possibilities and the need there would soon be for considerable fund raising.
On September 30th 1971 there was a meeting of all the committees in the school specifically to consider the village hall question. This was a key meeting and will be covered in detail in the account of the building of Wilsden Village Hall. One important conclusion was that a committee should be formed to carry out a feasibility study, to report back within three months. A second meeting of all committees on December 16th 1971 considered their report and this is the date when the Village Hall committee, as a sub-committee of WVS was formed with Dr Verner Wheelock as chairman, Stan Boston as secretary and Ronnie Hamer as treasurer. The rules of the society were amended to make the hall committee’s treasurer assistant treasurer of the society. Lorraine Maltas, Ken Pitchers and Peter Hopkinson were first members of the committee, with Gerald Tyler as legal advisor.
This was immediately a very active and dynamic committee and by April 1972 it had become important to define areas of responsibility. At the general committee meeting Ken Pitchers said that now the hall committee was beginning to introduce social events it was time to think about who did what. Verner Wheelock agreed that a clash could arise as the prime responsibility of the hall committee was to raise money, which was not necessarily the aim of social committee events, but with good will on all sides there need be no serious problem. Ken Pitchers stressed that they were all one society and he hoped all events would bear the WVS label. As treasurer he was happy that most of the society’s surplus money should go to the hall fund after other commitments had been covered. There was so much happening that a diary was started, to be kept in Spring Mill House, so that all groups could put in the dates of their meetings and events, as well as putting them on the village notice board.
