Bradford UK City of Culture 2025: A love letter to my birthplace - Christa Ackroyd

I told her that which I have told many people since. If you can’t be proud of the city which raised you then you can’t be proud of yourself. And this week I was so, so proud of Bradford and it’s successful bid to become City of Culture 2025.

So forgive me if this week’s column is nothing more than a love letter to the place I grew up in and the place that made me who I am. Yes it’s chippy, yes it has its detractors, and yes it certainly has made mistakes along the way. But then haven’t we all?

What makes Bradford different is its tenacity and its pride in its diverse citizens and cultures. Where else could I have learned to pleat a sari aged nine? Where else could I have joined with Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Latvians to celebrate customs and cultures from across the globe? Where else would I have learned the Bradford mantra of never give up, never give in?

As with all love affairs, we have fallen out at times along the way. I will never forgive the good burghers of the city for tearing down Kirkgate market or for a decade forcing us to endure a gaping hole in its centre while a shopping centre was put on hold. But at its heart Bradford is a place I am always proud to say I come from. And always will.

Within seconds of the exciting news this week I said as much on my Facebook page. The response was overwhelmingly supportive with one exception. “Bradford is a dump”, said one responder. “And I thought you had left.” For the avoidance of doubt, yes I no longer live in Bradford. I have moved a whopping six miles away.

But do I go back? All the time. Do I think it’s a dump? No I don’t. And do I think it has endless possibilities after this massive vote of confidence? Absolutely. This will be the rebirth of Bradford. And yet another reason to be proud to be a Bradfordian, of which there are many.

Firstly it’s past. Out of the mills came the greatest example of social change this country ever witnessed. The Labour Party was founded during the strike at Manningham Mills when Keir Hardie came to address the workers. Out of the poverty of the mills came education for all and an end to child labour through pioneering politicians Forster and Oastler whose statues commemorate their achievements in the city to this day.

The campaign for free school meals was led from Bradford by New Yorker Margaret McMillan who believed, rightly, that hungry children would never learn.

And as recently as 2006, Born in Bradford saw the launch of groundbreaking studies into children’s health which track the wellbeing of ten thousand youngsters from birth to adulthood.

The health of the city has always been a major concern and a challenge to which it has risen. It was Bradford‘s War in Cancer that funded pioneering working into chemotherapy which saved my mother’s life.

Sir Titus Salt could never have believed his model village built in the countryside a few miles away from the overwhelming smog and crowded living conditions of one of Britain’s most influential industrial cities could one day received UNESCO world heritage status as one of the most important historical sites in the world.

Nor can there ever have been built grander warehousing as can be found in Little Germany or a more elaborate Town Hall as graces the well used, oft derided, but award winning city park.

Artistically Bradford is second to none. From the Brontës to David Hockney, JB Priestley to John Braine, its famous sons and daughters have challenged and changed the arts the world over. It is home to the National Media Museum and is UNESCO’s first city of film.

The Alhambra is considered the finest example of a Laidler theatre in the land. And the campaign to save the adjacent Odeon Cinema was not only successful but will see a state-of-the-art entertainment space open very soon.

Bradford welcomes 13 million visitors every year. It is Britain’s youngest city in terms of the age of its population and more than 80 languages are spoken. Yet all share a common bond that Bradford remains a city of aspiration and of possibilities. Out of diversity comes inclusion. Out of adversity comes determination. Hence the absolute passion which the bid writers fought to become the UK City of Culture. And won.

There are many things I am proud of in my long association with Bradford. I am proud to have been part of the World Curry Festival and the friends I made there. I am proud to have been asked to tell the story of three Bradford sisters who took on the world and won on our annual Brontë tour under the umbrella of Bradford’s relatively new and inspiring Literature Festival. I am proud to have been given honorary doctorates for services to the city from both the university and the college.

But above all I am proud that amidst the doom and gloom of post-pandemic Britain a city where so many face a cost of living crisis, thousands of people from all races, all backgrounds came out to celebrate the successful bid this week, standing as one, with joy and anticipation of what is to come. Bradfordians have always been proud of their past.

They have too often had reason to bemoan its present but now, seeing the faces of those who celebrated this week, they got a glimpse of the future. A new younger generation who will continue to defy the odds and reinvent the city, as so many of their forefathers have done before. Bradford this is your time. I know you will meet the challenge head on.

It’s in your DNA, as it is in mine. I wish my father, a man who adored the city he too was raised in, was here to see this magical moment. He would have simply said Bradford you deserve it. Now go and prove the doubters wrong.