Bradford City Fire Disaster - 28th Anniversary

A memorial service was held in Centenary Square this morning marking the 28th anniversary of the Bradford City fire disaster.  Fifty six people lost their lives and many more were injured in a fire that engulfed the grandstand at Bradford City Football Club during a match against Lincoln City in 1985.  Wreaths were laid at the Bradford Fire Memorial by the Lord Mayors of Bradford and Lincoln, the Fire Service, relatives of the bereaved and representatives of Bradford City AFC.

Bradford Fire Disaster Memorial Service

On this day in 1985 fifty six people lost their lives in a fire at Valley Parade, the home of Bradford City football club, many more were injured.  Today a memorial service was held at the Bradford Fire Disaster sculpture in Centenary Square.  I attended the service last year and took few pictures, this year I took more pictures, but to be honest it felt intrusive, even though there were other photographers and a TV crew there, it just felt, well, intrusive.

First World War Memorial

The First World War Memorial in Bradford was designed by local architect Walter Williamson and built from locally quarried stone. The monument was unveiled on the 1st July 1922, the 6th anniversary of the first day of the battle of the Somme when the Bradford Pals Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment suffered massive losses. Both the bronze figure on this side of the monument and the figure of the sailor on the other side caused some controversy because of their fixed bayonets and aggressive stances. The bayonets were eventually removed and are temporarily replaced on Remembrance Day.

Bradford Pals Commemoration Service

A service was held today to commemorate the sacrifice made by 'The Bradford Pals' on the first of July 1916 at the battle of the Somme. More than seventeen hundred men from the Bradford area were killed in the first hour of the battle, a battle which dragged on until November of that year without making any significant progress. The 'Pals' were soldiers that had volunteered together, trained together and had then been formed into battalions of soldiers from the same locality.
The picture was taken at this mornings service near the Bradford Pals Memorial Stone.

Wayside Shrine

If you leave the centre of Bradford via Westgate and White Abbey Road, after five or ten minutes walking you will come to this shrine. The inscription beneath the shrine reads:-

To the memory of the 186 soldiers and sailors of this parish sacrificed in the Great War 1914-1919 and to obtain the suffrage of your prayers for their souls eternal repose, this wayside shrine has been erected.

I'm embarrassed to say that my knowledge of the events of the First World War is a little sketchy and the dates 1914-1919 instead of 1914-1918 puzzled me a little. The answer is that the ceasefire was in 1918, but the war was not officially over until the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919.