The Queen pub in Bridge Street closed for a while but is now open for business again. Let’s hope it stays that way.

To emerge from the back door of the T&A building and turn right towards its metal-shuttered door and windows was a depressing experience.

When I joined this newspaper 40 years ago, The Queen was bustling every lunchtime and teatime with people from the offices which thrived around it.

Then, they didn’t lunch on a sandwich at their desks as they do now and dash away from Bradford as fast as they could at the end of the day, eager to get to the relative civilisation of the suburbs. They’d take an hour (at least) for a lunch break that included a couple of drinks, and after work they might pop in for a leisurely pint or two before heading for home.

The Queen was in those days a hostelry of choice for workers from City Hall, solicitors from the courts, and Telegraph & Argus employees from all departments. For the journalists particularly, it was the hub of their social life.

Get-togethers, celebrations, birthday bashes, leaving parties…they were all marked at The Queen. But there didn’t need to be an excuse. People just met up for a laugh and a chat. It was our local, the place where good conversation was to be had, jokes could be swapped, problems unburdened and grumbles exchanged.

For some of us it was an extension of our workplace. As a young writer interviewing minor celebrities from the local music scene (or even occasionally national celebrities), the “office” was often a quiet corner table in The Queen, where no-one ever bothered you however famous the face sitting with you might be.

Earlier, when I was working as a T&A news sub-editor, one of the most enjoyable hours of the week would be spent propping up the bar early on Saturday afternoon, taking a break prior to subbing the Yorkshire Sports.

But then the world began to change. There was less time for lunch. Midday drinking began to be frowned upon. That mythical journalistic figure invented by Private Eye, Lunchtime O’Booze, became virtually extinct. Habits were broken. The T&A journalists, along with other hard-pressed office workers, largely abandoned The Queen.

When it closed its doors the other week it looked like being another permanent victim of the slide of the licensed trade – a sign of our times, a sad reminder of happy days long gone, setting the tone of the city for people arriving at the Interchange and walking down past its boarded-up façade.

But now it’s back. And long may it remain.