Bradford Industrial Museum & Saltaire Village. May 2015.

This day out took us firstly to the little known Bradford Industrial Museum, created in redundant textile mills. You get the impression that the Council, having cut back by removing the working horses and their attendant costs, runs the Museum on a shoestring.  However, the content does show a range of Jowett cars and vans, Bradford’s motor manufacturing industry;  a whole floor devoted to its origins, the textile trade; printing presses; a power hall full of a wide ranging display of steam engines which once turned the machinery of Yorkshire industry.  For some, the hour and a half was not sufficient, but we moved on the short distance to Saltaire in time to make for somewhere to lunch.  A small group of us enjoyed the riverside pub, from where we watched the rain come down!  In no time it was sunny and everyone did their own thing – some strolled through the David Hockney Gallery or the book floor of the Mill itself; others covered a lot or a little, as the mood took them, of the fascinating village created by Titus Salt in the 18th century, to give his employees better conditions than they could have imagined possible, moving from the Bradford slums to virgin countryside.  A model village, with Church and Institute, but no public house!

Brian Ward.