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.