Christmas in Halifax: Looking Back column with Alan Burnett

Halifax folk have always welcomed a celebration and an opportunity to trim up trees and string coloured lights across crowded streets.

Whether it is grand Christmas concerts, or shops full of Christmas treats, you can turn the page back and find numerous examples of people lighting up their lives just a little at this special time of the year.

Here are a few such memories from my own collection.

Image 1 is an old picture postcard from the early years of the last century shows the unmistakeable Halifax Parish Church (now Halifax Minster) complete with a seasonal covering of snow.

It dates from the days when most photographs were in black and white, and the colours on these early postcards were added later, by hand, before they were printed in bulk.

One might question the wisdom of such embellishments when the subject matter was a famously soot-black building covered in the whitest of snow!

Image 2 is an announcement in the Halifax Guardian of December 23, 1843 and tells local folk of the great Christmas treat in store for them at the theatre that year - none other than ‘the seven original Lancashire Bell Ringers’.

Being ‘musical entertainment of a strictly moral nature, Halifax people of all denominations, however fastidious’, are assured that they can pay a visit without compromising their religious principles.

Sixty year later and in Image 3, the excitement of Christmas promises a little more, for the children of the town at least.

They, along with their parents, are invited to ‘Hitchen’s Xmas Show’ to view the wonderful new toys on display there.

These include not only mechanical trains (from 6d to 20/-), but even the very latest mechanical motor cars, not to mention an almost futuristic toy flying machine.

Image 4 is the first of two of my own photographs from the 1960s, reminding us that whilst the decorations might not have been as polished and professional as they are these days, Christmas was still a time for a little festive cheer.

Back in those days, the town’s Christmas tree was up in Bull Green and was far more likely to get covered in petrol fumes rather than snowflakes.

Image 5, the second of my photos - again from the 1960s - shows a busy Borough Market, with the addition of the occasional coloured lightbulb whose colour was lost once it was captured on black and white film.

You can still just about make out a seasonal Santa, somewhat cruelly hanging from the market rafters.

And so we come to present times, in Image 6, with trees ancient and modern and lights hanging from every lamp-post.

There are ice skating rinks and Christmas Tree Festivals and, even in these difficult times, a lot of fun for everyone – however fastidious! Happy Christmas.