This rather unusual informal view of pupils and teachers at Silsden County Primary School in the 1930s was supplied by Mr David Wright, whose mother Mary appears as one of the little girls sat on the playground.

Several Union Jacks, limply held by children on the upper level, suggest that this may have been a special occasion - perhaps the Royal Jubilee of 1935 or the Coronation of 1937, or more probably an Empire Day - but Mrs Wright cannot remember.

Empire Day, officially each May 24, Queen Victoria's birthday, survived into the middle of the twentieth century and provided an occasion for schoolchildren to take part in pageants, listen to speeches on loyalty and heroes, and sing songs with titles like "What Can I Do for England?"

Although now demonstrably unfashionable, it remains difficult to quibble with a custom which encouraged awareness of "the duties of citizenship, responsibility, unselfishness and obedience to all lawful government."