Room 3: Bradford and Visions of Childhood

What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world.
GK Chesterton Autobiography 1936

Richard grew up with his sisters and brother in the Manningham area of north Bradford, home to a number of German and other professional families. They lived near Manningham Lane skirting Lister Park, with the magnificent Cartwright Hall Art Gallery & Museum at its centre. He remembered with extraordinary clarity the scents, sights and daily rituals of this childhood in his memoir, and Lister Park is at the heart of his recollections. With its imposing gateways and promenades, its boating lake and bandstand, the park acted as a backdrop to the social calendar of Edwardian Bradford and became embedded in his visual memory. He observed the weekly performances of bands, the crowds in their Sunday best. He was fascinated in particular by the gigantic processions associated with the May Day and Whitsuntide walks…which seemed to bring something oriental to dull, smoky Bradford.