Brighouse Bird Fanciers Association
Over the last 30 years I have given slide and lecture presentations the length and breadth of the county. Gradually over the last twenty years as a far greater number of people have been retiring earlier the number of these young retirees joining many of the local groups I am invited to has not really materialised. The vast majority of the groups I visit say their numbers are in decline or they are just managing to hold their own.
I know of a number of these groups that have had to close down owing to the shortage of members not wishing to take a position on the committee or any other top table role. It makes you think just how many of these groups will still exist in say another 20 years.
But let us take a look even further back to look at what our grandfathers or great grandfathers did for their leisure time. Yes, many did play sport in both official team event s or just a few lads chucking a couple of jerseys down for goals on the ‘rec’. Or chalk drawing some wickets on the end of the garages on Stoney Lane Estate, as we used to do behind the Stoney Lane shops in Beech Grove.
But what did the non sporting types do for leisure? – There was always the Brighouse Lark Singing Association. This curious pastime sprang up in the late nineteenth century and the history books tell us it had many supporters. Just how you trained a lark to sing or what was the judging criteria to declare an eventual winner, I just cannot imagine.
Meetings were held in local pubs – the Lark singing Association used to meet at the New Inn on Bradford Road. One of the largest of these competitions was held at the New Inn when 18 competing birds took part.
Along with The Delvers Arms at Southowram and the Sun Inn at Rastrick these were the three main venues for these competitions.
Along with The Delvers Arms at Southowram and the Sun Inn at Rastrick these were the three main venues for these competitions.
Back in the 1930s another bird event that had a thriving membership was the Brighouse and District Cage Bird Society.
In the society’s early days it used to meet in the Black Swan however, some members felt the venue was not acceptable because it seemed to be attracting too many new members who just wanted to have a drink or two.
In this photograph taken just before the Second World War are a group of club members showing off their prize cage birds at their new meeting room at the Wheelers Club in Huddersfield Road. These birds clearly thrived on the sound of music because next door to the meeting room was where Brighouse and Rastrick Band used to hold their rehearsals. The who’s who showing off to the camera is: (left to right): Arthur Burton, the Yorkshire Union Secretary; Craven Whiteley, secretary of the Brighouse society; Jim Fox; Bob Forbes; John Bentley; Tommy Stevenson, who usually judged the budgie sections and Fred Waddington.
The interest in our feathered friends still remains today but as interests and pastimes have changed and perhaps become more sophisticated the interest as with many other organisations is not quite the same as it once was.