Working In Piccadilly

A Memory of Bradford.

In 1944 I worked at 36 Piccadilly, an electrical wholesalers (next door to the invisible menders). My duties were to deliver accessories to the electrical shops round town. Each evening there were parcels to post, the nearest post office was in Darley Street. The shortest way was by way of through the back door of Woolworths or Marks and Spencer through the stores and out of the front into Darley Street (handy if it was raining). I lived in Lidget Green, I would go through Kirkgate Market and then Rawson Market, past the pie shop (made famous by J. B. Preistley) and into the Co-op Emporium, out at the bottom of Godwin Street to the Victoria cinema for the 37 trolley bus. I was in Bradford the night the bombs fell during the Second World War. My father was a firewatcher at Kay, Rhodes and Nixons on Sunbridge Road. As children my sister and I would stay with him and climb the five storeys of greasy wooden stairs to check the fire buckets. Pie Tom's in Kirkgate market was a firm favourite lunch-time meeting place for us young ones, I had a friend who worked at Issacks? (next to Silvio's), unfortunately he fell down the lift shaft and died. Can anyone relate to this episode?
Eric Brook, EricBrook1@btinternet.com