With the West Yorkshire city promoting its new visitor guide, novelist and native Andrew Martin presents his personal selection of Bradford's delightsAccording to a poll conducted by Travelodge last year, Bradford is the most unattractive city in Britain. In response, the West Yorkshire city last week launched a new visitor guide and online brochure, wheeling out attractions such as the Bront�s, David Hockney, JB Priestley and curry to counter the negative image.Now I had my first ever snog at Bradford ice rink on Little Horton Lane, and I will not hear a word said against the place. In those days (mid-1970s), I lived within easy reach of both Leeds and Bradford, and the former always seemed dark and intensely urban, whereas there was a golden glow about the mellow sandstone of Bradford, and from most angles you could see the hills rising beyond the ends of the streets.Bradford seemed the most Yorkshire of towns, which, being a Yorkshireman, I mean as a compliment. It had the most mills, and the most places likely to serve you a teacake, or fish and chips for half the price you'd pay anywhere else. (Today, at The In Plaice, on the corner of Sunbridge Road, opposite the lovely Victorian Gothic town hall, it's �3.99, including bread and butter and cup of tea.) Bradford also had the strongest Yorkshire accents, whether the speakers be white or Asian. I recall sitting in one of the many excellent curry houses and hearing someone say, "I love yer chicken tikka gravy Iqbal, but I want it on t' meat", by which I think the speaker meant beef. But the point is that the request came from a table of both white and Asian men, and the speaker could have been of either persuasion.Today, the Leeds boom has somewhat embarrassed Bradford. If Leeds is a brash businessman reading a company report in pinstripe suit and pointy shoes, Bradford is a soulful-looking public sector employee, wearing an anorak and reading a battered paperback. But Bradford will always have the hills and also ? it seems ? the mills, albeit adapted to other uses than worsted manufacture. They circle the town like fantastical castles, or benign ghosts. Yes, some of the beautiful buildings in the centre were knocked down in the 1970s, much to Priestley's disgust, but there's a higher concentration of Victorian monumentalism here than in most towns, especially in the district of Little Germany, in the centre, where it co-exists with youthful, artistic enterprises (for example, the revived Bradford Playhouse), and some buildings have been converted into loft-style apartments.Bradford retains its pungent Yorkshire tone, and its Ice Arena, still accessed by a fascinatingly grungy 1970s staircase, leading to the great icy revelation of the rink itself, as if you'd found Alaska at the top of the stairs. I still feel an erotic charge when I look at the words "Ice Skating" on the brutalist block that surmounts it, but that's enough of that.Let's consider some of the city's attractions from a more objective angle.Best restaurantKarachi is the most famous curry house in Bradford, and one of the oldest, having been founded in 1953. (Guardian reviewer Matthew Norman found his meal "so blisteringly good that basic good manners demanded it be shovelled in with bare hands"). It occupies an end terrace at 15-17 Neal Street, but you can find it by the smell, or by the souped-up Mondeos parked outside. The walls feature salmon-coloured faux-classical plastering; the ceiling has been artificially lowered by means of polyester tiles, now pretty grubby, and the waiters sport shell suits, trainers and five o'clock shadows ... So it's just as well that the curries are superb, that they come with two free chapattis, the whole meal costing little more than a fiver. The waiters, incidentally, are charming, and if you're a regular (and you're a man), they call you "Captain".Best pubThere's nothing new about the New Beehive Inn (169-171 Westgate), which is well worth the 10-minute walk from the centre of town. It's an Edwardian pub with an unspoilt, spartan interior, moodily lit. It also serves a fine selection of real ales, yet there's nothing prissy or curatorial in the way it's run. You can go down the road, buy a curry, eat it in the public bar, then chuck any combustible remains on the huge coal fire ? at least, that's what the bloke sitting opposite me did, and the landlord didn't bat an eye.Best walkI presume that even those polled by Travelodge would concede that the Bradford Metropolitan District ? which includes Howarth, and the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway ? contains some of the best countryside in Britain. But we are confining ourselves to the city, and here the best option is a guided tour by Yarn Spinners Tours (yarnspinnerstours.co.uk). With luck your guide will be Rubina Khan, a fount of historical information, both orthodox and less so (she'll tell you where you're most likely to see the ghost of JB Priestley), and up-to-date town gossip. When she points at some cavernous old mill or warehouse and proclaims, "I think it's wonderful, but then I think everything in Bradford's wonderful" you are inclined to believe her ? and to agree.Best museumOld Bradford is represented by the Bradford Industrial Museum (bradfordmuseums.org/venues/industrialmuseum), which occupies an old mill just off the ring road and is full of steadily clunking steam engines and the stirring smell of hot oil. New Bradford is embodied in the National Media Museum (nationalmediamuseum.org.uk) on Princes Way in the centre, which has three cinema screens, and a facility called TV Heaven, where you can watch old TV programmes from a vast archive, for free ? watched over by a full-size replica of a 1975 dalek.? The 17th Bradford International Film Festival, hosted by the National Media Museum, runs from 16-27 March: see nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/nmem/biff/11/index.asp.) For more information see visitbradford.com. ? The Midland Hotel, Forster Square, Bradford (01274 735 735, peelhotels.co.uk), has doubles from �70 a night.Andrew Martin travelled from London to Bradford by rail with East Coast Trains (08457 225225, eastcoast.co.uk). Advance returns, booked online, cost from �20.Andrew Martin's latest novel is The Last Train to Scarborough, Faber & Faber, �12.99. United KingdomBradfordYorkshireFood and drinkAndrew Martinguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
No comments:
Post a Comment