Youth House - Where to Begin?

History is like a bookshop the most tantalising tome is the one just out of reach on the top shelf.

History too tantalises with that period just before our personal memories . . . . between the last chapter of the textbook and the start of our own impressions.

Throughout this long story there have been many pivotal points such as the move from domestic manufacturing to the factory system of production; the move from water power to steam; from packhorse to canal and rail; from the ‘one continuing village’ which so fascinated Daniel Defoe to the tightly packed valley towns . . . . . . but more so than the ‘determining decades’ of the 40s, 50s and early 60s which were so vital in shaping the world as we see it today. Not quite yet history . . . .but only marginally within the consciousness of most people alive today, this can be the reference period from which to look back to the factors which made it what it was . . .and forward to the new and emerging world of the future.

Mirroring the events of 150 years previously when mechanisation destroyed the lives and livelihoods of a generation of handloom weavers, events of the 1945 – 1965 period were equally traumatic in Hebden Bridge and the Calder Valley.

- a period of great social upheaval and political turbulence – a period of great change for local people as traditional industries began to die, prompting massive out-migration – a period of population flux with significant immigration…

…first by East Europeans displaced by the war’s damaging aftermath – the Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians etc unable to go home.

…second, the influx of those from further afield, largely from Pakistan, from Kashmir and the Punjab, attracted here by the promise of employment that was all too soon to disappear – but who nevertheless, set up their communities in our midst and, as with the indigenous people, had to adapt to new circumstances.

…a period when the whole valley led by the town of Hebden Bridge had to begin to re-invent itself, to re-appraise local resources to support a new future – a future built upon the area’s dramatic landscape, its vital heritage and their close interdependence.

…a period prompting the much more recent influx of yet another new population with differing lifestyles and demands

…all contributing to the continuing diversity and dynamism of the valley, its story and its heritage.