The article in these columns about the 1931 Bradford Pageant prompted Harry Leslie Smith to write from Canada.

Born in Barnsley in 1923, he came to Bradford with his family when he was eight when the Pageant took place in Peel Park.

He writes: “At the time, I lived with my parents and my sister in St Andrew’s Villas. We had taken a room there when the Great Depression and poor health had left my dad redundant and at the mercy of the dole. Obviously, my family couldn’t afford to attend the Pageant as they relied upon the wages I earned as a beer barrow boy. So at the time of these events, I remember a different Bradford.

“I saw a city where many of its inhabitants were overcome by poverty, near starvation, deplorable housing and indifference by the ruling class to the plight of their fellow human beings.

“That 30,000 people took part in some way in this pageant and overlooked the great squalor that plagued Bradford doesn't make me nostalgic for the past but angry at how much human potential was wasted during that dark decade and the war which followed the Great Depression.”

After serving in the RAF for four years as a wireless operator, ending up in Germany at the time of the unconditional surrender in May 1945, Harry emigrated to Canada where for the next 50 years he worked in the oriental carpet business.

Since retiring he has devoted himself to chronicling his life and times in a series of memoirs.