Kate Kennedy, whose name cropped up on this page a few weeks ago, was a familiar and feared character around Bradford in the 1950s.

Bryan Owram, now of Esholt, recalls a startling encounter with her in the summer of 1956.

"I fear that hindsight and the passage of time can often lend a spurious gloss to characters who like Kate were often no more than an infernal nuisance," he writes.

"I clearly remember a beautiful, sunny Saturday evening when I stopped my car at the obligatory halt sign at the junction of Church Bank and Forster Square. The driving side window was open and Kate, appearing from nowhere like a pantomime demon, reached in, clutched my sleeve, and demanded (rather than asked for ), a 'tosheroon' (or half-crown, 12 pence in today's currency ).

"She had a reputation for inflicting damage on the vehicles of the non-forthcoming, but I was equally determined that she wouldn't succeed and I let in the clutch to pull away. With amazing agility for one so obviously 'tanked up' she hurled herself across the car's bonnet and gripped the base of the windscreen wipers, one in each hand. I slowed again and told her to get off.

'Not till you drop the tosh in, mate', was her reply.

"I drove off again around Forster Square at a speed which would have enabled her to drop off without risk of injury. The only result was that she took advantage of my low speed to haul herself up and she now laid full length along my bonnet, a screenwiper in each hand, grinning insanely at me through the windscreen with an expression of indescribable ferocity "I regret to say that in those far-off days I had something of a short fuse myself and (quite improperly, of course) I immediately rammed my foot to the floor and roared off up Cheapside and into John Street at a speed I had better not mention even 50-odd years later. I eventually braked hard at the junction of Westgate and a now ashen-faced Ms Kennedy gratefully detached herself and vanished towards the sanctuary of the nearby Boy and Barrel without, I am delighted to report, any financial contribution from yours truly."

Phil Boase had encounters with Kate on his way home from Bradford Dolphins on a Saturday evening, "usually in front of Timms and Dyarson's china shop in the area in front of the town hall steps," he writes.

He continues: "Almost invariably she would be clean and tidy and well behaved until she saw something that took her goodwill away and she would curse and swear and on more than one occasion that I witnessed she spat at people, usually courting couples who had the temerity to cross her path!"

Mrs W Smith, writing from Allerton, recalls: "In the 1950s I was pushing my twin daughters in their pram along Sunbridge Road by the Metropole public house when suddenly this old woman staggered across the road, peered into the pram, remarked what bonny babies they were and thrust a 6d piece into their hands. Knowing she had very little money I said, 'You can't give them that, Kate,' to which she replied, 'I can do what I b-----y well like.' So I thanked her and went on my way. You didn't argue with Kate.

"She used to entertain the many people waiting for the bus outside the New Inn with her dancing (skirt in the air) and antics before the police moved her on with a kindly 'Come on, Kate'. After your reader's memory of Kate on the bus and the way she looked at his daughter I got the impression that she was very fond of children, and that is the memory of Kate I like to keep."

When Kate died, in 1959, the Telegraph & Argus reported the matter in a manner that befitted a local celebrity. From the style in which it's penned I would guess that the writer was the late Peter Holdsworth, the T&A's theatre critic for many years.

He wrote: "Kate Kennedy, one of Bradford's most notorious characters, died in The Park nursing home today. Aged 73, Kate appeared in court nearly as often as the prosecuting solicitorEver since the 1920s she had been a frequent resident at The Park but as her age advanced so did the period she spent there "As much a part of Bradford as the Wool Exchange, Kate found that usually it was her liking for liquor that led her into trouble. On one occasion a bus conductor told the magistrate that Kate 'was merry and began dancing on the floor of the bus'. She put her arms around him from behind as he was collecting fares but when he got her back to her seat and asked for her fare she handed him a £1 note. The conductor later found that his takings were deficient by £1. Said Kate in court: 'I thought findings were keepings'. She said she had found the note on the floor of the bus.

"On one occasion the court heard that a Leeds woman had found a house, furnished it free of charge, paid six weeks' rent in advance and told Kate she could occupy it. The case was adjourned for six weeks, the chairman commenting: 'At last there has come to you a piece of great good fortune., A friend is willing to help you.' "But the taste of liquor was just too irresistible to this effervescent character and it was not long before she was back in front of the local justices.

"She was one of those few personalities who invariably attract a crowd. If she led the law a dance then she at least provided passers-by with comic relief. Had she forsaken the bottle for the variety stage, who knows, she may have had an impact on the world of entertainment."