While some folk are preoccupied with multi-million pound futuristic developments for the city centre, Bingley artist John Broadley is busy painting the past.

Prints of two of his paintings, Kirkgate Market and Saturday Post, are now available to the public. They show Bradford as it used to be before the 'improvements' of the late 1950s and early 1960s - many of which are now being demolished.

In the painting Saturday Post, for example, Victorian-style street lights are still visible and the stone setts in the roadway have not been covered with blacktop.

The postman wheeling his bicycle is no longer a reality - nor are two deliveries on a Saturday.

John Broadley, born in St Luke's Hospital in Bradford in 1942, remembers bumping up his pocket money for Christmas by working as an auxiliary postie on Saturdays.

"We used to sort the mail in the morning at the Drill Hall in Bingley and then go out and deliver them round the Crownest area. We'd call back at lunchtime, by which time there was another lot to be delivered, " he says.

"One old lady usually popped out with a small tipple of seasonal cheer.

Then at the end of the day many of the regular postmen and helpers met in Bingley's long-gone C&D milk bar for a well-earned Woodbine, hot drinks and tales of the day.

"Angry dogs waiting behind the letter boxes wreaked havoc on the deliveries and an unwary postmen's fingers too if they got the chance."

Educated at Fulneck School, Pudsey, John went on to study fine art, illustration and graphic design at Bradford Regional College of Art in the early 1960s.

He has memories of the young David Hockney at the college going about in an old army jacket and discarding work from his easel in a corner of the fine art room.

"Everybody knew he was going to be something special.

He just had an aura about him, " he recalls.

John's other painting celebrates the life and majestic Victorian ironwork of Kirkgate Market, built in 1878 and demolished in 1973 amid scenes of extraordinary public protests.

What ordinary people wanted seemed to count for as little then as it does now.

"The market shows the cavernous structure in the 1960s on a typical busy trading day. A small girl has lost the arm of her favourite bear; the tall lady walking toward her is her mum who has found the arm and will doubtless sew it securely back in place later, " John explains.

"Enjoying a gust of warm air blowing from the grilles in the floor after coming in on a rainy day, savouring the aroma of bacon and eggs sizzling in the cafes or tucking into the famous pie and peas at Pie Herberts were all part of a very special atmosphere."

John rejects the suggestion that the paintings are a personal response to the more nebulous of the new regeneration plans for Bradford.

"I am a bit of a traditionalist and like to look at old places that have been pulled down. Bradford's been ruined by what they did in the 1960s, " he adds.

Prints of both paintings can be bought from Horizon Gallery at 137 Main Street, Bingley, or Ar tform Gallery, 97 Main Street, Bingley.