The Haworth 1940s weekend is a nightmare for us residents - Yorkshire Post Letters

I shudder to hear that the Haworth 1940s weekend has been ‘rescued’, and is to run again in 2024 under the management of newcomers Mr. Wignall and Miss Juma-Ware.

This event is in reality a complete and utter nightmare for Haworth residents, not so much for the disturbance and disruption of the main events, but more for the visitors it attracts, who, experience strongly suggests, are in the main drunken louts incapable of even the most basic of human decencies.

They avoid the overpriced designated parking areas, instead parking as near to the centre of events as possible, with absolutely no regard for road safety, residents or other visitors, head for the nearest pub, get drunk, and later relieve themselves in what they mistakenly believe to be discrete places, like private gardens, public streets and anywhere where a blade of grass or a wall may be found.

The publicans who encourage such drunkenness are motivated solely by avarice, trumpeting the specious argument that the profits from the ‘40s weekend have to sustain them through the year. If they are so desperately inept, it shows that they haven’t the wit to be trading in the first place.

Many of the other stallholders are just as bad, pedalling overpriced tat to the drunks who stagger past. Worst are the food vendors, who offer vastly overpriced rubbish without a care for the effect their discarded and often inedible offerings and wrappings will have on the local streets. And of course there are insufficient extra bins.

Add to this mix the ineptitude of the organisers, who make no attempt to either control or remedy the effect of the rabble, and you can clearly see why Haworth residents in the main fear and loathe this event.

Were we able, we would like some other more fortunate residents take a run for the hills over the weekend, but like the majority we must endure this paean to greed and its attendant post-event insincere apologies, given amid chuckles of glee at the profit accruing to the publicans, organisers and stallholders.

Haworth at its best?

No. The 1940s weekend is for Haworth ‘its darkest hour’.