Hive of industry

Cleckheaton’s landmark town hall – home to a 500-seat theatre – is a legacy of the success this pretty town has enjoyed over the years. The fact that 12,000 or so people traipsed along what was then a muddy track – now the main arterial route linking the town with the motorway network it serves – to witness the laying of the foundation stone in 1890 is indicative of the public spirit existing here.

Big names to come out of Cleckheaton include the late Roger Hargreaves, the man behind the Mr Men series of children’s books, who was born in the town. But long before Roger put pen to paper to create his colourful characters which continue to engage generations of children, Cleckheaton was making its name in the global marketplace.

The products it produced include Panther motorcycles – manufactured at the former Phelan & Moore factory in the town – and wire used for separating strands of wool, later put to use on the Humber Bridge and the supply of barbed wire during the wartime effort. The produce has given the town a strong global presence in the past, something Cleckheaton’s town centre manager, Keith Joplin, is hoping to replicate in future.

Keith’s affinity with Cleckheaton began when he set up his PR and marketing company here in the 1980s. Today he is involved in shaping the town’s future.

He believes Cleckheaton’s diversity, and heritage make it an attractive place to market to the world beyond the Spen Valley and is keen to encourage tourists – and businesses – to come here.

Keith is making the most of Cleckheaton’s attributes in the prospectus he is currently compiling, which is funded by the Spen Valley Area Committee.

‘Spen Valley – a great place, it’s easy to get to but harder to leave’ is the tag line Keith is using in the prospectus he hopes will encourage more businesses into the area.

“It’s really about saying to the outside world ‘come and see the Spen Valley’,” says Keith.

He believes that what makes Cleckheaton unique is the large number of independent traders operating along its compact network of streets.

Jean Clare recalls buying bits and bobs from Best’s secondhand shop as a child. Ironically, Jean is now selling secondhand stock as manager of the Kirkwood Hospice charity shop in Northgate – a lively main street boasting a mix of businesses offering everything from traditional trades such as bespoke carpentry, butchers and bakers to florists, financial services and fashion boutiques.

Jean loves the atmosphere and the buzz at the town’s popular farmers’ markets and the annual Folk Festival – an event that has made Cleckheaton well known on the folk circuit.

“It’s nice and compact and it’s a thriving town. It’s also a small, tight-knit community and everybody looks out for one another,” says Jean.

Cleckheaton is close to Bronte tourism sites – the Red House Museum in Gomersal and Oakwell Hall in Birstall appear in Charlotte Bronte’s novel Shirley, and Oakwell Hall was used as a location for a TV production of Wuthering Heights, broadcast last year.

Cleckheaton is also home to what is believed to be the largest Indian restaurant in the world. The Aakash’s interior decor has been sympathetically restored to reflect its past use as one of the town’s oldest religious establishments, Providence Chapel. The oldest church in the town, I am told, is Whitechapel.

“We have a great future but that’s because we have a great past,” says David Durrans, an officer of the Spen Valley Civic Society.

David, whose family was involved in Cleckheaton’s wire drawing process, recalls his great grandmother watching films at the Palace Cinema.

Cleckheaton had two cinemas at one time; The Palace and The Savoy which were adjacent to each other. The town’s indoor market stands on the site the Palace once occupied before it burned down.

For 15 years after the Savoy was demolished hoardings disguised the overgrowth behind where the popular entertainment venue once stood. Thanks to input from the Spen Valley Civic Society, grants were secured to create an open area, known as the Savoy Square, with pathways and benches where people can stroll along, sit and reflect on Cleckheaton’s interesting heritage and the town’s bustling atmosphere. A sculpture of a cine camera is a lasting reminder of the site’s past.

David recalls his great grandmother contributing to the First World War effort while watching a matinee at the Palace. “She’d go in there for the matinees with a ball of wool and needles – she was knitting for the Great War, for the boys in the trenches – and she would come out with a pair of socks!” he smiles.

Chatting within the confines of the Mayoral parlour at Cleckheaton Town Hall with all its pomp, from polished solid wood furniture to plush traditional carpet and wall-mounted framed photographs of past mayors, I’m intrigued by Keith and David’s anecdotes.

The town’s name is said to be derived from a small group of dwellings on a heath. According to Keith, the earliest settlements are understood to date back to Roman times.

“It was said there was a Roman fort at Snelsins. There were some finds of Roman occupation there which suggests they were at least passing through here,” explains David.

David was born in Highfield Terrace close to the town’s sweet factory in South Parade. Lion Confectionery has since been bought out, but the big cat remains the trademark of the traditional treats produced here, such as Midget Gems and Poor Bens. David recalls at one time a chemical works, said to boast the tallest chimney in the town, which stood on the opposite side of the road to the sweet factory. “You walked on one side and you’d get a smell of sulphur and the lovely smell of Midget Gems on the other,” he recalls.

But life hasn’t always been sweet in the town’s workplaces. Cleckheaton was the scene of industrial anarchy when the Luddites attempted to break the new machinery they believed threatened their jobs at Cartwright’s Mill, Rawfolds, in 1812.

“That caused a big change in how people viewed the working man. A lot of people’s livelihoods were taken as a result of the Industrial Revolution and that kicked it all off, and it happened here in the Spen Valley,” says David.

The Plug Riots at St Peg Lane in 1842 were so-called when workers, disgruntled with wages and working conditions, pulled two of the three boiler plugs which operated the machinery.

In 1892, tragedy struck the town when the 150ft chimney at Marsh Mills collapsed through the roof of the four-storey building, killing 15 people. A plaque was unveiled at the Dewsbury Road site, where the Marsh pub now stands, a century after the disaster occurred.

One of the town’s largest employers is the BBA Group which still has a presence in the town providing aviation and automotive services.

Gladys Kell is one of many employees who spent their working lives there. Gladys still meets up with the girls she started working with when she joined the inspection department in St Peg Mill at the age of 14.

Gladys recalls her application to the Land Army being rejected on the grounds that the work she was doing – sewing the joins in the bands for cigarette machines – was a more essential service for the forces.

She continued to work for BBA until marrying her beloved late husband, Cyril, who also worked for the company inspecting brake lining materials.

Gladys had a 20-year career break to bring up their two daughters who she fondly recalls taking on the open top tram to see Heckmondwike’s Christmas lights which inspired Blackpool’s famous illuminations.

Despite growing up in Heckmondwike, Gladys’s allegiance has always been to Cleckheaton where she has lived since she was a little girl. She grew up in Moorend, although the house where she lived has since been demolished and replaced by modern housing – one of the many changes Cleckheaton has seen.

Like many towns where industry has been diminished, Cleckheaton has survived the test of time. Diversity of enterprise has given it a real selling point. No longer is it cloaked in smoke from the mills, making it a pretty and appealing place to live and visit.

Gladys has lived through many changes but when we recently met I was delighted to see that at 84 she is still as effervescent as ever. Her colourful outfits and trademark hats – more than 80 occupy two wardrobes in her Cleckheaton home – and her determination to get things done in the local community, have made her a popular figure in the town.

When she finally returned to BBA after her girls had grown up, Gladys juggled the job with serving the community. She was a councillor for 11 years and a former Deputy Mayor on the former Spenborough Council before it became Kirklees under local Government re-organisation in 1972. She remains a local magistrate, although she no longer serves on the bench, and has been on the BBA committee since she retired.

She proudly tells me she is the only member of the Cleckheaton Ladies Luncheon Club who still wears a hat and she was never seen without her trademark headwear while firmly, but fairly, handing out punishment at Dewsbury Magistrates court.

She has even spent time behind bars! It was a fundraising idea Gladys came up with for Kirkwood Hospice. She is a founder committee member of the Huddersfield hospice and proudly showed me a poem she penned about her brief prison experience which appeared in a local newspaper.

Gladys is a seasoned traveller, having travelled on the Orient Express 38 times and flown on Concorde three times before it was de-commissioned. But wherever Gladys has been in the world, she tells me there’s no place like Cleckheaton.

“It’s a special place,” she beams. “Wherever I’ve been in the world, there is no place like home.”