Helena Fairfax

Last month I began a series on books set in Yorkshire, starting off in the quaint Yorkshire town of Saltburn-by-the-Sea. This month’s literary location couldn’t be more different, but reflects the enormous diversity to be found in this county.

Bradford was once the centre of a vast woollen industry, leaving a legacy of formidable, and beautiful, old Victorian mill buildings.

At the heart of industry and of post-industrial decline, some say Bradford is the city that put the grit into gritty. I must admit that before moving near Bradford nearly fifteen years ago I’d bought into its reputation.

Bradford author Saima Mir sums up Bradford wonderfully in this article, calling it ‘a beautiful and misunderstood city…a place of breathtaking views, amazing architecture, and people full of kindness and grit.’

It was brilliant to have Bradford, this ‘misunderstood city’, chosen as this year’s UK City of Culture. Hopefully people’s views of the city will change, as mine have done since moving nearer.

As for books and literature, is there a Waterstones in the country that’s more stunning than the one in Bradford centre?

 This bookshop is in the beautiful former Victorian Wool Exchange. Note how readers are looked down on by a rather fierce statue of Richard Cobden, politician and campaigner for Free Trade.

If you arrive in Bradford at Forster Square railway station, one of the first buildings you’ll see is the fabulous Midland Hotel.

Bradford has a long history of theatre; the Alhambra and St George’s Hall are still thriving theatres today. In 1905, Sir Henry Irving, one of the most famous actors of the time, died on the opulent staircase in the Midland, after appearing in the nearby Theatre Royal. He was attended by his manager Bram Stoker, author of Dracula.

The story of Stoker and Irving’s touching, deep and tempestuous friendship is the subject of Joseph O’Connor’s moving novel Shadowplay. The book starts with the pair on the train to Bradford, and then flashes back to show us their fascinating history together at the Lyceum Theatre.

At the Midland Hotel, Stoker’s suitcase can be seen on a porter’s trolley full of luggage in the tiled Victorian passageway at the rear of the hotel, as though bound for the station. (There are photos of his luggage and the rooms in the hotel, including the fabulous French Ballroom, on this ghostly website.)

And if you’re all shopped out at Waterstones, the hotel also does a brilliant afternoon tea!

One of Bradford’s most famous literary figures is J.B. Priestley (1894–1984). An Inspector Calls is a play that still resonates today, with its message of inequality and poverty in the death of a working-class woman.

One of my favourite plays of Priestley’s, though, is the comedy When We Are Married. It’s beautifully plotted and is a grand depiction of the Yorkshire folk of his day. I was glad to see this excellent BBC production is free to stream on YouTube. Well worth a watch!

For the purposes of this post, I’m sticking rigidly to books set in Bradford City (which I’ve listed below). I can’t pass by, though, without mentioning the Brontë sisters, who lived in Haworth, in the district of Bradford, and who must surely be the region’s most famous literary figures.

The moors around Bradford City provide a wonderful escape from the city, as they did for the Brontës from the confines of their home. In their novels the moors make for a wild and free space, one of the greatest settings in literature.

(For those who’d like more about the Brontës, please see my earlier previous post.)

Before my list of novels set in Bradford, I have to mention the brilliant Bradford Literature Festival. I’ve been to lots of lit fests, and this is my favourite of all. I love the diversity and how books, culture and education are made accessible and relevant to all. From heavyweight political discussions to talks by Mills & Boon authors on how to write a sex scene, there is something for everyone.

As an example, it’s through BLF that I discovered the excellent Turkish TV series Diriliş Ertuğrul (Resurrection: Ertugrul), about the rise of the Ottoman Empire. It’s a brilliant and nail-biting piece of storytelling, structured with genius precision over hundreds of episodes (one episode in the middle had my jaw drop as everything came together), as well as being historically accurate, and has opened my mind to a piece of history and culture I knew nothing about. If you love a swashbuckling tale in The Three Musketeers style (and who doesn’t?), this is for you!

Bradford is one of the most diverse cities in the UK, so in true Bradford style, we go from Turkey back to Yorkshire, and to books set in this vibrant city.

The Khan, by Saima Mir

Be twice as good as men and four times as good as white men.
Jia Khan has always lived like this.
Successful London lawyer Jia Khan is a long way from the Northern streets she knew as a child, where her father, Akbar Khan, led the Pakistani community and ran the local organised crime syndicate.
Often his Jirga rule – the old way – was violent and bloody, but it was always justice of a kind.
Now, with her father murdered, Jia must return to take his place. Justice needs to be restored, and Jia is about to discover that justice always comes at a cost.

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, by Jon McGregor

On a street in a town in the North of England [said by the author to be based on Bradford], ordinary people are going through the motions of their everyday existence – street cricket, barbecues, painting windows… A young man is in love with a neighbour who does not even know his name. An old couple make their way up to the nearby bus stop.

But then a terrible event shatters the quiet of the early summer evening. That this remarkable and horrific event is only poignant to those who saw it, not even meriting a mention on the local news, means that those who witness it will be altered for ever.

Last Request, by Liz Mistry

When human remains are discovered under Bradford’s derelict Odeon car park, DS Nikita Parekh and her team are immediately called to the scene.

Distracted by keeping her young nephew out of trouble, Nikki is relieved when the investigation is transferred to the Cold Case Unit, and she can finally focus on her family.

But after the identity of the victim is revealed, she’s soon drawn back into the case. The dead man is a direct link to her painful past.

As the body count begins to rise, Nikki must do everything she can to stop the killer in their tracks before anyone else gets hurt – even if it means digging up secrets she had long kept hidden…

Streets of Darkness, by A.A. Dhand

The sky over Bradford is heavy with foreboding. It always is. But this morning it has reason to be – this morning a body has been found. And it’s not just any body.
Detective Harry Virdee should be at home with his wife. Impending fatherhood should be all he can think about but he’s been suspended from work just as the biggest case of the year lands on what would have been his desk. He can’t keep himself away.

Determined to restore his reputation, Harry is obliged to take to the shadows in search of notorious ex-convict and prime suspect, Lucas Dwight. But as the motivations of the murder threaten to tip an already unstable city into riotous anarchy, Harry finds his preconceptions turned on their head as he discovers what it’s like to be on the other side of the law…

Bright Day, by JB Priestley

Disillusioned writer Gregory Dawson is holed up in a Cornish hotel writing a script he must finish. A chance encounter in the bar with people he once knew from Bruddersford [a fictionalised Bradford] triggers memories of the doomed world of his youth before the slaughter of The First World War and forces him to remember his time within a close-knit Yorkshire community, his days spent with the Alington family and his first, tentative steps towards becoming an author.

Caught up in this lost world, he realises that to have any chance of a bright future he must first exorcise the ghosts of his past and come to terms with a tragedy that has haunted him for decades.

Room at the Top, by John Braine

Joe Lampton, demobilised at the end of the Second World War, is starting in a new job as an accountant with the Municipal Treasury in the Yorkshire market town of Warley [a fictionalised Bradford]. He is 25 years old and working-class. The ruthlessly ambitious Joe Lampton rises swiftly from the petty bureaucracy of local government into the world of inherited wealth, fast cars, and glamorous women. But betrayal and tragedy strike as the original ‘angry young man’ of the fifties pursues his goals.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s stop on the Yorkshire literary tour. Next month will be a vastly different location again – and I’m looking forward!

If you have any recommendations for books set in Bradford that you’d like to see on this list, or any Yorkshire locations you’d like to visit on the literary tour, please let me know. I’d love to hear from you!