Suburban story

JB PRIESTLEY once said that, although Bradford was determinedly Yorkshire, its suburbs reached as far as Frankfurt and Leipzig.

Even Priestley, however, might be surprised at how far and how fast those frontiers are continuing to expand.

The waves of immigration that have come to define this remarkable Yorkshire suburb – including German Jews in the 19th century, refugees from Poland and the Baltic states after the Second World War, Pakistani mill workers in the 1960s and, latterly, a new generation of workers from Eastern Europe – tell a fascinating story, and it is only right that it has been captured and celebrated in a new publication from English Heritage, entitled Manningham: Character and Diversity in a Bradford Suburb.

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The story, however, as Bradfordians well know, is not entirely one of celebration. Indeed, it is one that charts the ebbs and flows of Britain's recent history, from the triumphs of the Industrial Revolution through the fall of the British Empire to the inner-city decay and ethnic strife of the late 20th century.

Throughout all this, Manningham's only constant characteristic has been its relentless pace of change, to the point where the suburb is now putting the riots of 2001 behind it and trying to adapt yet again to new social and economic realities.

This is a story well worth recording and studying, for it not only charts Britain's past, it also offers valuable lessons for its future.