Colin Philpott, the former head of Bradford’s National Media Museum, has this week had published his first book, which draws on his 24 years in journalism to chart some of the major news events of the last century and exploring their impact on their locations.

Entitled A Place in History, the sumptuous hardback book takes a major event and revisits it, looking at how the legacy of the incident affected the people and the places in the longer term.

Before taking over the Media Museum for eight years, a post he stepped down from earlier this year, Mr Philpott was a journalist with the BBC for 24 years and wrote the book as a reaction to today's fast-paced news coverage.

He tackles major events such as the shootings in Hungerford and Dunblane, the plane crash in Lockerbie, and industrial disasters such as Aberfan in Wales and Abbeystead in Lancashire – the latter an explosion at a water pumping station in 1984 that claimed 16 lives and injured many more.

Although the book covers the entire country, there are three major local pieces which make it into the book, and here we reproduce exclusive extracts from them – the legacy of the Jowett car factory in Bradford, the wartime role of what is now Leeds-Bradford International Airport, and the home of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe.

A Place in History by Colin Philpott is published in hardback, price £14.99, by Ammonite and is available now from all good outlets.

Jowett Car Factory, Bradford

A retail park on the outskirts of Bradford encapsulates one aspect of the change in the British economy in the second half of the 20th century.

Like many other sites all over Britain, a place where things were made is now a place where things are sold. The site of a former car factory has become a retail park.

Of course, as many economists will tell you, we still make things and there is a view that it doesn’t matter whether we make things as long as we can sell things. Nevertheless, there’s a romance associated with the manufacturing industry, particularly when the product involved has achieved a cult following.

One such product is the Jowett car in its various models. Jowett had begun as a company elsewhere in Bradford in 1901, founded by the brothers Benjamin and William Jowett.

They were among the early pioneers of car manufacturing in Britain, with their emphasis being on the production of light, affordable cars. The company moved to the Springfield Works site in Idle in 1919 and, for the next 35 years, it produced cars and vans there, including many that have become collectors’ items since.

Many models of cars and vans were made at the factory. Among them, the Kestrel, the Ken, the Jupiter and the Javelin still evoke fond memories among car enthusiasts.

After the Second World War the company was sold, but by the mid-1950s it was in financial difficulties. Jowett stopped making cars at the Idle factory in 1954, but continued in business for a while, making aircraft parts and spare parts for Jowett vehicles, at a site elsewhere in Yorkshire.

However, the Idle site was sold to International Harvester, who made tractors there until the early 1980s. The factory was demolished in 1983 and the site is now a large retail park dominated by a Morrison’s supermarket and a drive-in McDonald’s.

Avro Aircraft Factory, Yeadon

Today it is an anonymous looking industrial estate alongside Leeds-Bradford Airport.

Between 1939 and 1946 it was an industrial production centre contributing to the war effort on a gargantuan scale.

Leeds and Bradford Municipal Aerodrome had opened in October 1931 and regular flights linking it with London and Newcastle were established. When war broke out in 1939, Avro built what was called a ‘shadow factory’ alongside the aerodrome to contribute to the aircraft production needed for the war effort.

The factory, which covered a million-and-a-half square feet in area, was said to be the largest single factory unit in Europe. An elaborate camouflaging operation took place, masterminded by people who had previously worked in the film industry.

The camouflage consisted of grass covering the roof of the factory, replicating the original field pattern, with imitation farm buildings, stone walls and a duck pond in the area around the factory.

It worked because the factory was never detected by enemy bombers and remained untouched throughout the war. At the height of its operation, more than 17,500 people, mostly conscripts, worked there.

Gracie Fields was among the well-known wartime entertainers who visited the factory to entertain the workers. More than 5,000 at a time crammed into the works canteen for concerts.

Throughout the course of the war, Avro Yeadon produced almost 700 Lancaster bombers, 4,500 Ansons and several other types of aircraft. The airfield resumed civilian flights in 1947 and subsequently developed into Leeds-Bradford International Airport.

The Avro factory was closed in 1946, but the site is now the Leeds-Bradford Airport Industrial Estate. A plaque commemorating the role of Avro Yeadon is displayed inside the airport’s terminal building. It is still remarkable to imagine, as you drive along the A658 past the industrial estate, that this was once a secret factory that contributed so much to Britain’s war effort.

House of the Yorkshire Ripper, Heaton

Perhaps strangely, it is the home of Peter Sutcliffe, the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, rather than the places where he committed the murders, that holds a macabre, but undeniable fascination.

Sutcliffe moved into 6 Garden Lane in the Bradford suburb of Heaton in November 1977 with his wife Sonia. His killing spree had already begun. Sutcliffe’s first known victim was Wilma McCann, whom he attacked in Leeds in October 1975.

As Sutcliffe continued his murderous activities, it was to this ordinary family house in a comfortable part of Bradford that he would return.

Neighbours have spoken since of suspecting him after seeing him burning clothes on bonfires in the garden. Sutcliffe was eventually to be convicted of 13 murders between 1975 and 1980. He also attacked seven other women who survived.

It is believed that other unsolved murders and attacks may also have been the work of Sutcliffe, who claimed that he heard voices from God telling him to attack women. Most, but not all, of his victims were working as prostitutes.

The Yorkshire Ripper case was a major news story not just in Britain, but around the world in the late 1970s. The case caused widespread fear among women across the North of England for a period of several years. The police had interviewed Sutcliffe on numerous occasions as a suspect, but had failed to link him to the crimes until he was arrested in Sheffield in January 1981 and confessed under questioning.

Sutcliffe was sentenced to 20 terms of life imprisonment in 1981. He has been told that he will never be freed from prison. Sonia Sutcliffe continued to live in the marital home in Bradford for many years.

She moved out when she remarried after divorcing Sutcliffe, and her mother lived there for a time, before her death. In 2005, Sonia Sutcliffe moved back in and, at the time of writing, was living there as something of a recluse.

The property is still jointly owned by the couple.