We’ve had a nice letter from David Oyston, from Bingley, who recently found an intriguing cutting from a 1929 Yorkshire Observer.

The cutting was of a story about a science and religion lecture, but it’s the story on the other side of the cutting that David is more interested in.

It’s about an ‘almost human’ robot called Eric who came to Olympia Hall in Bradford. The reporter had ‘interviewed’ Eric, who was “clad in massive steel armour” and was “mechanically as nearly human as it is possible to imagine”.

Asked for his opinion of Bradford, Eric said: “I like your city, but I don’t like your cobbled streets.”

Eric’s inventor was full of enthusiasm about the robot’s future uses, but, as David writes, the cutting is “tantalisingly incomplete.”

He wonders if any readers can shed light on Eric and his visit to the city.

“Where was Olympia Hall and what was the event? And just what was Eric?” asks David.