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.