Tony Cunnane's Early Years

One of my great pleasures in the mid 1940s was to take the three-minute walk on Sunday afternoons from our house across Denby Dale Road to the bandstand in the park to listen to the brass band concerts. The bandstand was superbly located facing a large grassy hill where, on sunny summer Sundays, large crowds could congregate for a picnic with the accompaniment of good music. Directly in front of the stage was a cleared area set out with a couple of hundred or so deck chairs. On a fine day most of the seats filled up early on. The entrance to the seating area was through two small gaps in the fence either side of the stage area. There was someone on duty at the gates to sell you the programme - which was usually nothing more than a typed and duplicated sheet of paper with the name of the band, its conductor and a list of the music they were planning to play and it cost a mere couple of pence or so.

Most of the bands had their own, almost certainly pre-war, immaculate braided uniforms and decorated music stands. The musical standards were extremely high - especially the instrumental soloists. Many of the audience were devotees of brass band music and listened critically to the performances; others, possibly the majority, were there just to enjoy good music in congenial surroundings.

As a family we went there almost every Sunday but I don't remember ever going into the seating area. There were a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, my parents did not wish, or could not afford, to fork out a shilling or so for the four of us to have the privilege of sitting down in a deck chair to listen. Secondly, and possibly a more important reason, having paid to go into the enclosure my parents would have felt duty bound to remain there until the end of the concert. That would have delighted me but I was the only member of the family who thought so. Having said that, the sound and view was just as good standing by the outside of the fence. After listening to the band we often walked through the park, past the bowling greens and tennis courts, past the duck pond and into the magnificent rose garden. I used to love wandering under the trellises that that held masses of beautiful roses in the season. In those days I couldn't reach the roof. The seats were always occupied all day at wekends with other folk wandering around waiting to grab a seat as soon as someone moved off.

I can't now remember the names of the bands I definitely listened to but I do know that over the course of the late 1940s band seasons all the best-known Yorkshire brass and silver bands performed there, including the Black Dyke Mills (National Brass Band Champions 1947-49 and 1951), Brighouse and Rastrick (National Brass Band Champions 1946), the Wakefield CWS, and bands from many of the large collieries in the area, such as Carlton Main Frickley (from South Elmsall).

Soon after the war the ice cream vendors came back onto the scene and they tended to wander amongst the crowds selling their sixpenny ice cream sandwiches and tupenny and threepenny cornets. There were two local manufacturers, Massarellas and Lumbs. Our family thought that Lumbs' ice cream was better than Massarellas but it was a personal preference. Late onto the scene was Walls which strangely we didn't like because we deemed it too creamy and too sickly. In the first years after the war our palates were still attuned to the wartime diet - which certainly didn't include cream! Something I am sure we didn't think about at the time: the complete ice cream with cornets, wafers and sandwich biscuits was edible and so there was no litter left behind - not that anyone left any kind of litter in those post-war years.

Sadly, when I visited the bandstand in March 2008, I found it in a disgraceful state with large amounts of graffiti. I first put this page in my web site just after that visit, my first since about 1947. It wrote then that it seemed such a shame that the Council couldn't renovate the bandstand. Surely there would be many local bands and groups who would play there if they could. Failing that, the Council should demolish the building instead of leaving such an eyesore. I cannot claim the credit but the Wakefield Express dated 20 June 2008 announced that the bandstand had won a new lease of life and was to be renovated and band concerts would resume.

Other parts of the once-splendid park still need attention. For example, the condition of the beautiful flower gardens and the duck pond area is generating a lot of irate letters in the Wakefield Express because the Council have apparently stated that they are not going to pay for their upkeep. At various points along the many pathways within the park there are small refuges which we kids called 'Old Men's Shelters' because they always seemed to be occupied by pipe-smoking elderly gentlemen passing the time in pleasant conversation. We always gave them a wide berth. because our parents always told us not to talk to them but would never explain why. These shelters are now in a disgusting state, heavily graffitied and vandalised. If they are not going to be maintained properly, they should be demolished

There were two quick and easy ways into the park from our house in Cotton Street, both was were only about 100 metres from the end of our street. One was via the main gates opposite St James' Church, just by the public telephone box, the horse trough and the water fountain. We kids regularly refreshed ourselves from the water fountain. Working horses transitting along Denby Dale Road often stopped at the horse trough for rest and refereshment. The second way in was from Park Avenue, a narrow avenue off Denby Dale Road between Cotton Street and Avondale Street. In the 1940s Park Avenue was unfinished and without a proper surface. It was only about 200 yards long and on a slight up gradient. At the top a narrow entrance led to the splendid arena, the location for fairgrounds every summer after the war. The top of Park Avenue also provided splendid views of the City skyline. Park Avenue continued down the other side of the hill and eventually joined up with Lakefield Lane and then Westgate, the main road out of Wakefield towards the Horbury and Dewsbury. I rarely ventured down that side of Park Avenue - it was Lawefield Lane School territory.

One day, it was before the end of the war so I was less than 10 years old, I almost had a very nasty accident when cycling down Park Avenue. I can't remember why I was coming down the avenue on my bike - cycling inside the park was supposed to be forbidden. Anyway, I remember coming down the avenue at high speed and without thinking I rode straight onto Denby Dale Road in a screaming right hand turn. A car coming from Wakefield narrowly missed me and screeched to a halt. I fell off my bike and badly grazed my knees and elbows. The car driver, who was probably also suffering from shock, gave me a right telling off. He asked for my name and address and said he would speak to my parents. Whether he did or not I never discovered but I never did anything so stupid again.


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....including the Black Dyke Mills (National Brass Band Champions 1947-49 and 1951), Brighouse and Rastrick (National Brass Band Champions 1946), the Wakefield CWS, and bands from many of the large collieries in the area, such as Carlton Main Frickley (from South Elmsall).

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