Bradford Eye

The Young Tradition

This set of pictures were taken at the Ukranian Club Clifton Villas just off Manningham Lane. The building is still there, but now sadly, empty!

I still go down to Clifton Villas with my friend Kim, well known around the Bradford area, but it's the Estonian and Latvian Club I drop into nowadays, a lovely little hideaway from the noise and bustle of the main road (Manningham Lane) and the clubs are very grand indeed, being built by the great and the good of Bradford at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.

I'm still a fan of the Young Tradition of whom I regarded as the finest exponent then and now of true pure English folk music, listening to their records on a regular basis. No instruments except the finest one God gave, the voice! They took you on a journey back to what England was century's previously, with their Sea Shanty's, English country music with a political edge and yet simple songs telling storys' of everyday folk, and yes there may have been a farmers daughter that found herself in an uncomfortable position after some daliance with a passing soldier, and why not, the songs reflected the times and certainly don't deserve to be mocked. The year was 1968 when I brought my camera (I think it was a Voigtlander C with a 50mm f2.8 Color Lanthar lens, I couldn't afford the Skopar lens) to the club in the vain hope of being able to take pictures of my folk heroe's. I went in with friends (I think Terry, David) to be met at the bar by a number of stern Ukranian men all it seemed to me to be dressed in second world war demob suits. I don't think many of them could speak the best of English and looked at us with our sixties clothes with wonder. I remember there weren't alot of people, which I thought at the time to be very sad, given that they were well regarded in folk circles, Pete Bellamy being compared to the Mick Jagger of the folk world, anyway what a night, Bellamy's unique sharp voice cutting through the noise coming from the bar with Heather Wood raising that loud that could never be confused with any other language but an English school mistress voice and the soft gentle voice of Royston Wood (no relation) coming up from behind. A wonderful night and as young as I was (17) more than up for appreciating this fine group of singers. Sadly Pete Bellamy and Royston Wood are no longer tramping this earth and I believe Heather Wood to be in the USA. They weren't together long but there legacy is left behind to be found in old and proper record shops that stock large amounts of vinyl from every era, I for myself have a good collection of their vinyl and there are CD's and downloads to be had. Give them a listen, I promise you're not being ill advised.

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