Tom Jones and my wise father taught me to treasure our building sights - Christa Ackroyd

Buildings, history and age.. I have officially reached the age when buildings excite me.

When I was younger I yawned at my father’s attempts to interest me in the finer elements of architecture.

I was more of an ‘ants in your pants’ kind of a child and could never understand how he could spend hours gazing at a spire, a stone carving or even a scenic painting.

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I liked stories and places, events and happenings. Even history, which I loved, only came to life because of the people that made it.

Tom Jones at The Piece Hall (Pic: Cuffe and Taylor/The Piece Hall)Tom Jones at The Piece Hall (Pic: Cuffe and Taylor/The Piece Hall)
Tom Jones at The Piece Hall (Pic: Cuffe and Taylor/The Piece Hall)

Bricks and mortar, stones and monuments left me somewhat cold, no matter how beautiful or inspiring they were to him and to others. I was often, much to my shame, prone to exclaim to my father that buildings were boring.

Forgive me, I was young and foolish and could only look at my life in one direction, the future. But I loved my father and he loved photography and in particular capturing buildings.

And so I spent hours walking around villages, towns and cities with me tagging along beside him, he with his precious camera around his neck (which if I remember rightly cost as much as our family car) and me carrying his bag of lenses and the all important light metre.

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No instant click and shoot for my Dad. To take a photograph would take him what seemed like hours. The all important angle, the light just right, the composition perfect.

We would wait for the sun to reappear from behind the clouds or the passer-by to pass by without interruption and as a result he amassed a huge collection of photographs of the West Riding, Bradford in particular, that captured the changing landscape.

If a building was to be pulled down he photographed it before, during and after, while often bemoaning the town planner’s decision to erase part of the past for some new, less inspiring structure.

He had boxes and boxes of slides all perfectly labelled in great detail and some of such importance that when he passed away the local museum down the road became the custodians of much of his work.

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The monolithic iron roofed structure that was Kirkgate Market, where I got my first Saturday job selling knickers, big knickers in fact on one of the many stalls run by Baxendall’s, was a particular loss to him and to thousands like him.

When the campaign to save it collapsed I went with him to commit the demolition to his collection with reverence. And I remember him shaking his head at what he considered a monumental mistake and an almost criminal dereliction of duty to preserve our architectural heritage.

He told me of Swan Arcade, a grand Victorian office and shopping structure, where woollen cloth was bought and sold and where my grandfather worked alongside JB Priestley, which had gone the same way yet, according to him, should have stood for centuries as a monument to wool and textiles and the wealth and city built on it. Yet still I didn’t get it.

With the naivety of teenage years I declared I actually liked some of the modern buildings that had replaced those lost to the bulldozers, simply because they contained my favourite shops, Chelsea Girl, C&A and the avant-garde Gear Cellar, where high fashion met affordability and where I spent all of my knicker-selling wages.

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Buildings were only there for people to enjoy doing things inside them was my view. My father shook his head and declared that if knew me I would eventually learn. And I did.

Though it was a building a few miles away in Halifax that changed my perspective. As a rookie reporter for my first newspaper, The Halifax Evening Courier, I was among a group who were tasked with covering what was termed in journalism exams as ‘local government’. In other words council meetings. And boy was much of it boring.

On occasions a 6pm meeting would last well into the night, which meant the decisions that were made would have to be typed up until the early hours of the morning by we, the reporters, tasked with recording them.

It was laborious and dull. Apart from one story. What to do with an old building in what was once the heart of the town, now used as a dump for rotting fruit and veg for the market? Such was the debate that I decided to see for my 19 year old self what the fuss was all about.

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As I entered its fine West Gate, I got it. No, I felt it, because yes it was the feeling my father had so often spoken about, as well as a visual feast for the eyes.

I experienced in that moment all that he had told me, that buildings reflect the aspirations and the lives of the people who build them. They are a reminder of the past that if we lose them is forgotten for ever.

That one building I saw for the first time remains the single most important structure in Yorkshire. For me at least. It changed my ‘live for the moment’ attitude to life for ever. And the decision to keep it was only passed by one vote.

The Piece Hall has singularly been responsible for putting Halifax back on the map. It is the only surviving complete Cloth Hall in the country. And we nearly tore it down.

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I have always said the Italianate style courtyard of 315 rooms where local cottage weavers came from their villages to sell their cloth to merchants who travelled from right across Europe to buy, is the building which changed my views on architecture.

It literally took my breath away, as it does now each and every time I visit. I thank the Lord that, while Bradford was pulling down its architectural gems, Halifax dithered, until at last the good burghers of the town were persuaded it just might be worth saving.

Yes I know there was debate about retaining the cobbles which were replaced with smooth sandstone, but they even got that right with the second reincarnation of this building less than a decade ago.

Cobbles are slippery and uneven, even though they are a reminder of their purpose to create sure and steady surfaces for the packhorses which transported the cloth of a bygone era.

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But they would have been dangerous and detrimental to the purpose for my visit once more to the Piece Hall this week when 6,000 of us danced and sang the night away under the open skies to Tom Jones at just one of a series of music concerts in what must surely be the most historic and stunning venue this country has to offer.

If Tom, who was superb by the way, showed us that age is no barrier, then watching the sun go down on an ancient building beautifully repurposed for the modern age tells me one thing; Dad you were right.

Buildings can never be boring. Every stone, every walkway tells us something about the past that is worth preserving. Those built with beauty as well as purpose can and must be saved.

The Piece Hall was only active in the endeavours for which it was built for 30 years. That thousands now marvel at its place both in history and in the here and now illustrates perfectly what my father used to tell me.

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If you want to know about the past look at the buildings where people lived and worked. Cherish them and they will find a new purpose and soul.

Those who fought to save the Piece Hall and those who work so diligently now in keeping it alive for future generations, I salute you.

Buildings are where the past, the present and the future collide. And to my father, thank you for your perseverance and your stories. You were, as always, absolutely correct in your patient discussions about architecture. What a wise man you were.

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