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The HAZ Zone
So Bradford, we need to hear from you!
What’s your personal connection to the city centre, town as we call it – what does it mean to you?
Did you used to come shopping with your mam and grandma, or your mates?
Be it at Brown Muff or Carters sports shop, or maybe got your haircut at Mario’s?
Have you gathered outside City Hall to remember events, or bring attention to important issues?
Did you see your favourite band playing at Sunbridge Wells, or rocked out at The Underground?
Telleeegrraaaaafffff!!!!
Mick Martin
My first memories of Bradford city centre are to do with touch, smell, a sort of smoky diesel damp! The mills were still working full throttle and the chimneys spewing smoke and soot hell for leather so town was jet black buildings, blue Bradford Corporation buses and endless queues outside the town hall to get on them at teatime when the place was packed. On every corner a toothless nicotine coloured gentleman would roar 'Telleeegrraaaaafffff!!!!' and the copies, delivered with military efficiency by a fleet of yellow T&A vans hurtling all over the district would literally fly off the pile.
My favourite shop was Carters sports shop, which for a small kid was just a magical wonderland to step into. It was filled literally floor to ceiling with things you could only dream of, leather footballs, cricket bats, golf clubs (not that I played golf then or now) all manner of toys, games, kits and paraphernalia. It even had a cafe at the top that my mother would never let us go to. Speaking of cafes my sister had a Saturday job at Halfords Cafe which was literally opposite the town hall on Tyrrell or maybe Bridge St and we would always pause by the door to wave to her.
In later years I'd go to town on Friday or Saturday nights, but tended to to frequent spots outside of the actual HAZ zone, apart from the Spinks Bar, which was always rather cool in that it was in a cellar under the Wool Exchange and had a rather more sophisticated air about it that other drinking haunts in town perhaps lacked.
Look up - there’s a boar!
Rosie’s Story
When I first moved to Bradford, with the company that I used to co-run called the Brick Box. We had this unit we can see at the moment, which was part of the block that housed Brown Muffs. And then we did a project on Darley Street. It was called the Wild Woods because we did a bit of research and we looked into the history of the name Darley comes from a deer glade the city was actually lots and lots of trees. There's this history of a horrible boar rampaging around Bradford, and then it was killed. There's multiple versions of the story, but one version is the that the person who killed the boar inherited Bradford.
So we did that project in 2016 and 2017.
Our friend Dusty said, oh, I've got an old boar, a huge model of one that was used on a Bradford Festival float a long time ago. So we got it out and we put it in the corner in the Marks and Spencer space. And we told stories by there. We had bands perform, we had film screenings, all sorts of things. So 2017, when we had to move out of Marks and Spencer's
We were like, what do we do with this massive boar's head? So we met a guy who owned a couple of units and one was the old pie shop on Ivegate. And next door, it was next to a pub called the Old Crown. And so we took over what used to be the pie shop and we called it the Brick Box Rooms. And then we took a meanwhile tenancy of the pub next door. We were like, well, wouldn't it be cool to put this Boar on the roof of the Old Crown?
Cause the thing is in Bradford City Centre, there's so much amazing heritage. When you look up particularly, you know, they see all the beautiful, gorgeous, golden York stone buildings and everything's carved and looking gorgeous. And imagine if all these, you got people to look up more. So we put… we had a name for her - Babs. She's called Babs for Barbara. Babs the Boar. So we hoisted her up.
And there she is sitting on the top of the Old Crown. And to this day, she sits there with her trotters proudly peeping over the top presiding over all the antics of Ivegate.
So if you ever walked through and look up and there's a Boar peeping at you - Babs - give her a wave!
