IN Bradford, you can walk past someone in the street and not give them a second thought, yet the story of how they arrived here could fill a book.

The district has a rich cultural tapestry, and this year sees some significant anniversaries. This June is the 70th anniversary of the ‘Windrush generation’; the first wave of post-war West Indian immigrants travelling from Jamaica to London in 1948, and in Bradford a series of events will mark it, including a concert in City Park, a service in Centenary Square and a Civic Reception for key people in African and Caribbean communities. Bradford Literature Festival partners with Speaking Volumes to explore the legacy of Caribbean culture, and Bradford City of Sanctuary is also planning events.

Many of those first post-war immigrants were employed in the NHS, public sector and key industries helping to re-build Britain. There was work a-plenty in Bradford’s mills and factories.

This year is also the 70th anniversary of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain and its Bradford branch. In June a community garden party takes place in Bradford, involving people from various communities in the city, including Polish and Estonian, and in September a gala concert will feature Ukrainian dancing and choral singing.

“Now we’re lucky enough to jump on a ‘plane to visit. They didn’t get chance to return to their homeland,” said organiser Peter Chymera, whose grandparents came to Bradford as refugees in 1947.

I once interviewed an elderly Ukrainian woman who, as a child, survived the Holodomor, the mass famine in Soviet Ukraine of 1932–33 which killed around seven million people. Hiding with her family, she lived on berries and the kindness of strangers. As a teenager she was sent to a forced labour camp in Berlin, ripped from her family by Nazi soldiers on a railway platform and bundled into a cattle-truck. She made a dramatic escape, with the man who became her husband, and the couple settled in Bradford after the war. To anyone walking past her in the street, she was just another old lady - yet her life story was remarkable.

As intolerance and division continues to rage, now is the time to celebrate those who endured what many of us can’t even imagine to make Bradford their home.

* Maverick TV cops in world of disbelief

“NOBODY’S called Thyme, and even if they were, they wouldn’t meet someone called Rosemary.” That was my problem with TV’s Rosemary and Thyme, a daft crime drama about a pair of gardening detectives forever unearthing bodies in lavender bushes, or peering through fuchsia at suspicious goings-on.

Now there’s to be a second series of BBC1’s Shakespeare & Hathaway, about an unlikely crime-fighting partnership - a hardboiled private investigator and his rookie sidekick - set in, you guessed it, Stratford-upon-Avon.

The nation’s insatiable appetite for crime dramas, and it seems the more contrived the better. Particularly tiresome is ITV’s Marcella, which has a central character so Scandi-Noir it hurts. Marcella isn't just a detective - she's a maverick detective. We know this because she stomps around in an over-sized Army coat and chunky knit jumpers resembling hand-me-downs from The Killing’s Sarah Lund. Along with most TV female detectives, she has a “hectic home life”.

Marcella is unlikeable and unlikely. But I guess if she and other TV cops were credible they wouldn’t be worth watching. Crime dramas, even smug, gritty ones, tend to require a generous suspension of disbelief from the humble viewer.

* Family meals are food for thought - and literacy skills

THE food of childhood stays with us. My mouth still waters at the memory of my grandad's cheese and onion pie, and my gran's ginger shortbread.

Now Bradford children are invited to share family recipes in a competition, and 50 will end up in a cookbook. Recipes can be passed down, or a new dish a family has created together.

It's part of the Bradford Stories campaign, led by the National Literacy Trust which says children who eat as a family are more confident communicators than those who don't. An interest in food also engages reluctant readers in choosing recipes and following instructions.

Catching up other at the dinner table is a valuable aspect of family life, and, it seems, crucial for literacy skills too.

* Pat's reign of terror to continue on cobbles?

"HE'LL turn up at Christmas, lurking in the ginnel," I predicted, when Pat Phelan disappeared into the icy sea in Corrie's dramatic double-bill last Friday.

But by Monday the seemingly indestructible villain cropped up in a B&B, presumably after sailing to Ireland with his fake passport. A watery grave was too good for Phelan; after such a long, dark saga I'd feel cheated if he wasn't brought to justice. Hopefully he'll lie low for a few months though, while the writers give other Weatherfield residents a chance to flourish.