IT is a truth universally acknowledged that Bradford folk aren’t exactly easy to impress.

I have been to many a show in the city where people have sat, arms folded, staring defiantly at the stage, as if to say: “Go on then, entertain me.” I once winced as a famous singer made a grand entrance at St George’s Hall, arms wide open to greet rapturous applause...and there was silence from the audience. “She ‘asn’t sung owt yet,” muttered a man behind me.

Bradfordians tend to be equally unfazed whenever a film crew turns up in the district - something that happens practically every week. We’ve had a Harry Potter star and a Hollywood veteran in the city centre in recent weeks, with barely an eyelid batted among passers-by.

Bradford, the world’s first UNESCO City of Film, is a hotbed for location shoots, with everything from Peaky Blinders to Funny Cow filmed here over the past year or so. City Hall, Bradford College, the Mirror Pool, Dalton Mills, Saltaire and Little Germany are regular film and TV sets and it’s not unusual to see people in period costume surrounded by cameras, lights and piles of cabling.

Big-name productions such as ITV’s global hit Victoria, BBC Christmas highlight Poirot and Keira Knightley’s new movie Official Secrets are great for Bradford’s profile and for local business too, with cast and crew using local hotels, apartments, restaurants and other facilities, sometimes staying here for months.

As well as Victorian architecture and diverse landscapes, offering rolling hills, cobbled streets and urban vistas, Bradford has another asset for film-makers - the public just let them get on with it.

Unlike other cities with attractive film locations, like London, Liverpool and York, there aren’t hordes of tourists in Bradford, getting in the way and snapping pictures of everything. Bradford folk are used to seeing the lights, camera and action of big budget drama sets, and don’t act like starstruck schoolgirls in the presence of people in puffer jackets, clutching clipboards and talking into wireless microphones.

Try telling that to the Downton Abbey film crew. Walking up a street in Little Germany last week, I came across a young chap (in a puffer jacket, with clipboard and wireless mic) shoo-ing a car away. I just wanted to find out about the filming taking place, but it was soon clear that our photographer and I weren’t welcome. Skulking about like naughty kids, we agreed it wouldn’t have killed them to allow us a quick chat and a picture on set. We wouldn’t have given anything away. And since I saw no more than four people in Little Germany, I doubt there was a risk of the Great Unwashed turning up. John Malkovich, Game of Thrones star Kit Harington and Bollywood megastar Akshay Kumar have all managed to walk around Bradford without being mobbed...

I’ve visited several film sets over the years. When Bronte drama To Walk Invisible was shot in Haworth, reporters were invited to meet Sally Wainwright and the cast, including Jonathan Pryce. They couldn’t have been nicer. The same applies to Kay Mellor, who has shown me around her TV sets. I once visited a Peaky Blinders set and Cillian Murphy broke off from filming for a chat. The makers of Funny Cow and An Inspector Calls were delightful while filming in Saltaire.

The Downton people will, of course, lap up the publicity when their film comes out. It’s a shame they couldn’t have been more gracious while filming here, instead of treating us like ‘downstairs staff’.

* Trick or treat... I'd rather have a turnip

HALLOWEEN seems to go on for longer every year. When I was a kid it was just one night, All Hallows' Eve, and involved traipsing up the street in a homemade witch's hat.

Now it lasts about a week, and is a huge industry churning out costumes, party food, even soft furnishings (seriously - who buys Halloween cushions?). I blame Americans, whose weird Halloween obsession has turned a spooky seasonal ritual into a tacky fancy dress parade. And their wretched pumpkins! How I miss the autumnal sound, and smell, of a candle hissing inside a carved turnip.

* Two frightened lads who didn't make it to the Front

IN November 2016 I went to France with Bradford World War 1 Group, visiting windswept cemeteries where local men lay buried. We unveiled a memorial to the Bradford Pals, overlooking battlefields where so many perished.

I'll never forget how moved I was to see names of Bradford men on gravestones, particularly those of Herbert Crimmins and Arthur Wild, two lads ravaged with shellshock who, on the eve of the first day of the Somme battle, took a drink at an estaminet and later fell asleep in a field, missing the march to the front. They were swiftly executed for desertion.

A century on, we placed poppy wreaths on their graves, bristling with the injustice of their treatment. Today I bought a poppy and thought of those two frightened lads.