Social Committee 3
Social Committee 3
December 1972 saw the first of many fancy dress dances at which ingenuity knew no bounds. Over the years the village was invaded by Peter Pan and associates including the crocodile, a batch of liquorice allsorts, Doddy and the Diddymen, Prime Minister Ted Heath and Morning Cloud, Chancellor Dennis Healey accompanied by the lame pound, Dr. Who and company complete with Cyberman, Dalek, Alpha Centauri and the president of the Time Lords, and many other weird and wonderful beings. The dance attended by twelve Greek gods got off to a bad start when they all arrived late. Five of the six wives confessed to five domestic scenes when the gods put on their very short tunics and, to a man, declared they were NOT GOING OUT LIKE THAT. The sixth was Zeus, secure in full length draperies. When these dances were held in the village hall, it became customary for some of the groups to meet in the New Inn before walking up to the hall. A visitor from another part of Bradford once commented to a Wilsden friend that yes, he did know the New Inn. He once called in for a quiet drink when two white-coated scientists came in, carrying a baby in a large test tube. The bar man served them and no one batted an eyelid.
Sport was one aspect of village life the Society was not greatly involved with until they were able to provide squash courts in 1980, but Wilsden already had flourishing cricket, football and bowls clubs. The social committee tried to form a tennis club in 1971 but did not last long, with only one court and no club room or changing facilities. Cricket fared better, with matches courtesy of Wilsden or Harden cricket clubs. On various occasions the village society played Wilsden Cricket Club and the vicar’s teams, while WVS ladies took on Wilsden Cricket Club ladies and Harden WI ladies.
The social committee catered at many village society events, providing soup and drinks at checkpoints on sponsored walks, tea and gateaux at the laying of the village hall foundation stone and refreshments at the opening of the hall. They catered at Aire Faires (major fund raising events for the village hall, to be described in that section of the story) until handing over to a commercial caterer, and even then they provided sandwiches for teams and helpers.
Because so many of the village society’s activities involved a lot of effort by volunteers, they decided to arrange one event a year which did not make work for any of them, other than the booking arrangements. The first Committee Dinner was held on October 3rd 1970 at the New Inn, Burnt Yates at a cost of £2 per head including transport (paid by participants, never subsidised from society funds). This helped to develop friendships among members, many of whom had not known each other before that first public meeting. It was a great success which was repeated and continued at other venues, including the Plough at Wigglesworth, the Mayfair at Idle, Paradise Farm, the Barge at Skipton, Lapwater Hall and theLaithe at Ogden. One of the strangest was Sutcliffe’s, a gloomy old house at Slack. Even members of a pre-booked party had to ring the bell at the locked front door and be peered at suspiciously before being admitted. It was an unlicensed ‘BYO’ venue and the glasses provided were of varied shape and size, as was the seating, ranging from armchairs to piano stool. Suspecting that dusting was cursory below eye-level and non-existent above, a tall customer placed a piece of cheese on a high shelf – and found it there a year later.
There were social evenings for members at Ling Bob or St. Ives where trendy chicken or scampi and chips were served. The committee also organised family walks around Wilsden and summer coach trips into the dales, visiting Ingleton, Grassington and Malham, with high tea in one of the villages. A visit to York was so popular that both the scouts’ coach and a minibus were filled. An unusual visit to Clarke Hall near Wakefield was restricted to thirty people. This venue was used as an experience of living history for school children and the society was fortunate to be able to book one of the rare evening visits. The party were encouraged to dress in 17th century style and were shown round and given the story of the house before enjoying a supper of broth, bread, apple pie and beer in the kitchen.
Other outings saw members visiting a mill in Lothersdale where they could see a working waterwheel and be tempted by bargain fabrics before having supper at the Hare and Hounds, Peter Black’s Historic Car Collection, then housed in Keighley, and Newby Hall. Heptonstall History Trail was interesting but also influenced the society’s decision not to produce something similar for Wilsden when they realised the extent to which they were staring into people’s homes.
There was a visit to the pantomime at the Library Theatre in Bradford and to a Christmas play by the Q20 Theatre Group at Cliffe Castle in Keighley. When the village hall was opened the society put on some events there, talks by Ian Dewhirst on local history, Sydney Fisher on wine making, and two performances by the Yorkshire travelling theatre company, the Laikers.
In January 1979 Moonflower, a travelling theatre company from Lancaster, brought an evening of music and drama. The main item was ‘Eight Songs for a Mad King’ by Peter Maxwell Davies, an ambitious offering for a village hall. It did not attract a big audience but did win high praise from the company for the quality of the acoustics for music.
A variety concert, ‘The World’s a Stage’ was a sell-out. Margaret Healey-Murray organised this for WVS funds, using some Wilsden people and several of her friends who were well known in local show business. When Mrs Healey-Murray let it be known that the show would include satirical material based on the society’s activities, members bought tickets to find out just what she was going to say about them! Wilsden’s own new drama group, the Townfield Players, put on some very good and popular productions until a family of key performers and enthusiasts left the village and the group disbanded.
A report from the social committee at the general committee meeting in June 1980 gives an idea of their on-going range of activity. Already planned and booked for the rest of the year were the gala dance, a housebound outing, a cookery demonstration, senior citizens’ concert and a fancy dress dance. Suggestions for another committee dinner were being considered. It is no wonder their report concluded with the statement that they were not a ‘tea and buns’ committee and if other committees planned events they should see to their own refreshments. After ten years of meeting sometimes as often as once a month, in February1981 they announced their decision to meet only when the need arose. They had already booked for the year two outings for the housebound, the senior citizens’ party and a fancy dress dance. They would meet again in June to arrange the gala supper. There were now so many other activities going on in the village, and the village hall so well used, that there was no longer the same need to put on social events. The hall was funded by a combination of the grants agreed with the council and letting fees. The squash courts finances were being handled by their own committee and this project was in any case intended to generate income for the village society. Other activities still had some need of money but everyone hoped that the years of endless large scale fund raising were now behind them.
