Wilsden Village Society History

Village Hall Committee 3

By September the hall fund stood at £2000, to which WVS added another £500 from the society’s funds of £900. Dr Wheelock had discovered that there were no plans for a youth centre for our area before 1974 and no guarantee that even then it would be in Wilsden. To incorporate youth club facilities in the new hall would increase the cost but would ensure the village had a youth club and would improve the chance of getting 75% grants. The decision to add the youth club pushed the cost up to £45,000, giving the society a total of just over £11,000 to find. To get grant applications in before the great council reorganisation, fund raising now had to be stepped up. A sponsored metric walk in January 1973 made about £300 and was repeated in October as the Autumn Amble. This became a regular for several years, later opened up to other organisations to raise money for their own causes. The walks called on many WVS members to man five or six checkpoints, provide refreshments and transport back to base at certain points for those who could not complete the whole course, usually about 30km.

In March 1973, the village hall committee told the general committee of their plans to put on a really big event in July, much more ambitious than a village gala. It was to be something like a combined gala, fair and market, the highlight being an ‘It’s a Knockout’ competition organised on similar lines to the popular television series. It was to be held on the Aire Valley Riding Club field at Lee Lane. Market stalls could be rented for £5 by anyone with something to sell, for themselves or for charity and there were to be sideshows and refreshments. The whole thing was to be known as the Aire Faire. There was a good response to their publicity, with plenty of takers for stalls. Teams from local firms entered for the adult Knockout and schools were happy to take part in a junior version. Bingley Little Theatre offered Sir Prancelot, in replica Civil War armour, proceeds from guessing his weight to be divided between the hall fund and the theatre. A free bus service from Cottingley Bar to Lee Lane was arranged. Perhaps all would have been well if they had not chosen St. Swithin’s day, July 15th.

The deluge was torrential, the field a sea of mud – and still more than 1000 people came. As much as possible of the day went ahead, with a bit of rescheduling. The junior competition was held, overall winners Leaventhorpe Middle School, but by mutual consent most of the senior events were cancelled. Sir Prancelot decided against risking rusted joints but the beer tent did rather well as people packed into it as the only dry spot. It had been the wettest day for 22 years.

An extremely disheartened group of people took stock in the next few weeks. The great fund raiser looked as if it might have cost them part of the precious amount they had so far, and there were arguments about how and even whether to go on.

However by the end of the month they could at least see that there had been no financial loss and when all the bills were paid there was a profit of just over £100. Although the weather was beyond their control, other lessons had been learnt about managing something on such a scale.

Almost at once plans for Aire Faire 1974 began.

Meanwhile grant applications were pursued. The committee learnt that the West Riding County Council gave a youth centre high priority and would recommend the development of youth centre combined with village hall to Bradford Metropolitan District. The project was also described as first priority by Yorkshire Rural Communities Council. The application followed a tortuous path through committees, made more so by the imminent change in local authority structure. Although Bradford Metropolitan District Council did not take over until April 1974, the councillors were elected in May 1973 and began to set up their committees and panels. The West Riding County Council was still in existence and theoretically continuing to function. This meant some business having to be considered by them then passed on to the new body. The hall committee learned much later that the West Riding grants were normally for much smaller projects in dales villages and for them to have granted Wilsden’s earlier would have meant refusing several others.

However in November 1973 the West Riding Sports Committee approved the application to be passed on to Bradford Metropolitan District Education Committee. In February 1974 there was supposedly to be a decision within a month. Counc Mrs Hall, now the last Chairman of Bingley UDC, was doing all she could to move things along. The news in March was that the application had been transferred from Further Education to Recreation. In May the good news came – success by the slimmest of chances. Bradford intended building a community centre linked to a new school at Daisy Hill in Bradford. A grant from the Department of Education and Science of £22,250 was available to Bradford for that year but the school building was put back and the council had no other eligible project in hand. Thus the whole of that grant would come to Wilsden for a joint youth club and village hall with room for scouts and other uniformed youth organisations. Shortly after this announcement, Bradford indicated that further education and library facilities might be added if funds were available. A purpose built facility for a transportable library would be the first of its kind for Bradford and would occupy the committee room area of the hall two days a week, open from 1pm to 8pm on Tuesdays and Fridays. The village society was assured that the mobile library service would continue to serve the perimeter of the village and would stop outside the Butterfield Homes for the benefit of older residents.

However, that DES money depended on Bradford Council itself being willing to make a grant of £11,125. This in its turn would only be forthcoming if WVS first raised its own £11,125. At the beginning of May the fund stood at £9,000. Hall committee officers declared themselves confident that the rest would be raised and as a fall-back position they said they were near enough the target to borrow if necessary, rather than risk losing the grants.