Lost City

JB Priestley arrives in Bradford

As the steam train slowly draws into Bradford Forster Square station, it seems to be the sort of gloomy day anyone who's ever lived in West Yorkshire will know all too well. The gloom is emphasised, of course, by the fact all this is viewed in grainy black and white courtesy of the film camera closely following these events. A group of what we assume are journalists - clutching huge old-fashioned cameras, notebooks and pens at the ready - clamour around the carriage door as a familiar-looking man in a heavy raincoat and hat steps out, laden with baggage. It is, of course, our 'hero' - Bradford's very own JB Priestley. Renowned for such masterpieces as An Inspector Calls, The Good Companions and Lost Empires, he's one of the city's most famous sons. The lad has, as they say, done good. So why is he back in Bradford after 40 years, ask the gathered gentlemen and ladies of the press?: "I've lost touch with it," he answers. "You might say that, to me, it's a lost city and perhaps I've come here to find it." So begins Priestley's return visit to Bradford in 1958 - a city which he admits he hardly recognises from his childhood years.

Mavis: Priestley's on-screen companion

Accompanied by local journalist Mavis Dean, Priestley's return is certainly tinged with melancholy from the start. We soon see him sitting in his room at the Midland Hotel, 'phoning up his old pals...and getting nowhere fast. "Mr Mothergill is dead," he utters to Mavis at one point as he replaces the receiver after yet another fruitless call. He sadly reminds Mavis that many of his generation were cut down on the First World War battlefields of Europe: "Half the young men who were boys when I was a boy in this town were killed in one morning in 1916." And with that mournful thought, it's time to get out there into the Bradford of 1958...

Up market: "Pleasant memories"

Following scenes of smoke-blackened terraces and belching chimneys, we see the odd couple have arrived back in Bradford city centre - at Swan Arcade, to be precise. The Arcade was once home to the wool office where Priestley first worked - but, he says, things are different since his day: "It's changed completely. All these shops full of feminine frippery weren't there 40 years ago. Everything was sombre, dignified and masculine. There were tailors and wine and spirit merchants, not all this stuff. Now, of course, it's all this feminine frippery because they make money out of that." What, we have to ask, would JB make of Bradford city centre today? He also reminds us, though, that he's certainly not looking through rose-tinted spectacles - his job certainly wasn't his life: "We used to sit on high stools like the clerks in Dickens. I used to handle a thing called 'The Big Book' - or pretend to - and then in the desk below were all the library books I had. It's a tribute to my personality that they had me working there at all. I must have been one of the worst wool clerks that ever existed. I had to go out a good deal on various odd jobs and I must have lingered and loitered longer than any wool clerk...But the one thing that was good about it was that when you were out, when at half-past-one on a Saturday afternoon you closed that office door, you had a wonderful sense of freedom. It's something I've never had since..."

Pie and peas at the market in Bradford!

As the good people of Bradford chomp on their pie and peas - shown in plenty of gory detail - our hero and his companion are transported to the bandstand at Lister Park. He describes a scene which from a 21st century perspective seems like a very long time ago: "We used to go to Lister Park every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the summer and listen to the military band concerts. They had the very best bands and people took a great interest in these bands. It was rather a nice scene, there, towards dusk, with the illuminated bandstand, the red uniforms, the brass instruments gleaming, smoke rising from thousands of pipes and cigarettes...Then all round the people who were sitting, there was a great processional parade of young men and girls, the girls arm-in-arm giggling, the young men looking at them and the girls pretending not to look back at the young men. Ah, that's a long time ago. I don't suppose they do that anymore." And he's probably right..!

A typical shot of Bradford in Lost City

Nearing journey's end now and Priestley and Mavis find themselves in a place where JB once again feels a little more at home - the theatre. Unfortunately, this theatre - again unnamed - is on its way out. Once upon a time, he says, Bradford was throbbing with activity, creative and otherwise, but he fears that's no longer the case. He has his own ideas why: "It was the coming of the motor car that made such a difference to Bradford. When I was young, all the rich manufacturers, wool merchants, lived in or near the city. Then, when the motor cars came, they moved out to Harrogate, Ilkley and Grassington. It made a great difference to the social life of the city and finally, I think, to its entertainment. I'm told, I don't know if it's true, that in a few years there will probably be no live professional entertainment in Bradford at all. Yet, when I was young there were two theatres and two music halls."

JB and Mavis say goodbye

And with that, Priestley's journey around Bradford with Mavis at his side is almost over. Back at Forster Square Station with the reporters clustering around him once again, he admits that he hasn't found what he was looking for in his old home city but still feels a connection with the place: "Perhaps it was some essential link between Bradford and me. I've always said I owe a lot to the Bradford I knew before the First War...The War came which brought the brass but took a lot of the young men out of the city forever. Then Bradford became just another English industrial city: not good enough for the people in it. The people have kept their character, their warmth, their friendliness...It [Bradford] is not as good as it once promised to be. It's not bad but it's not good enough for the real Bradfordians."