#bradfordian

[bradfordaviation]

International #yogaday #yogdivas Take up the time to have some relaxation and forget all the struggles your going through. You take the step to guide and let other follow you. Together let's take this Day for #Yoga and benifit out physical and mental strength. #bradfordian #bradfordaviation #bradfordaviationacademy #imphal #Bengaluru #mysore #india #aviator #aviation #airline #army #navy #schools #colleges #education #schoollife #collegelife (at Bradford Aviation Academy) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQXr08clKbq/?utm_medium=tumblr

[rockandrollfool]

Pyskobilly - The Paron Saint of Nothing - Album Review

From the off let me declare a conflict of interest here. I was sold on this album just by reading the title. It reminds me of a line from ‘how soon is now’ (The Smiths).“I am the son and heir of nothing in particular” (1984). There was that glorious period in our lives when they and Morrissey could do very little wrong. Recent declarations by Mozzer render him obsolete, politically, these days. Though, his influence in terms of song writing reaches far beyond the discourse concerning his dodgy dealings with ‘For Britain’. Whilst The Patron Saint of Nothing may doff its cap in the general direction of The Smiths that is where all further comparison ends.

Psykobilly is the alter ego of one Willian Newton originating from the North East until the age of twenty five, he now resides in Gloucestershire. Not that you can hear any of the geographical locations within the sound or feel of the tracks. The album is more steeped in a variety of influences, both international and UK, therefore whilst there are some real 'heart on the sleeve moments' when considering musical reference points, he and the album are original in both substance and depth.

The album artwork, feel s slightly claustrophobic and the imagery leads one to believe that highways and travel will be central themes within the piece. A black and white picture of a road dragging the eye into a disappearing point is always going to score big. Throw in what looks like a massive storm cloud in the background and you get the sense of foreboding. The song titles compliment the mood, so imagine the shock and surprise of (Kerouac Said) Everything’s Fine (track one). It sounds like a combination of Roy Woods Wizzard, Danny Wilson, the former pop combo from Dundee that scored a massive hit with ‘Mary’s Prayer’ and Sheffield troubadour, Richard Hawley. The whole album had me listening for differing musical pointers and influences, and they are there. I found myself leaning into the speaker trying fathom who certain melodies and hooks remind me of? That is the sign of something special I think? Ultimately though you arrive at the conclusion that this, well this is none other than Psykobilly.

The song feels huge in terms of production. It has everything thrown at it, and yes that would include the kitchen sink, but what a glorious opener. Think ‘angel fingers’ by Wizzard with Lou Reed at the helm and you get the picture. It is massive and you will find yourself singing along. It is impossible not to. ‘Kerouac’ is both infectious and has magnetism by the bucket load. It has a tangible pop edge to it and when Shirley Manson of the band Garbage said “I love pop music, who doesn’t?” she could have been directly referencing ‘Kerouac’.

Newton claims on his Instagram page to be songwriter, guitarist and ‘reluctant vocalist’. This then plays out on the track ‘Imposter Syndrome’. There is something rather beautiful in the swooning melodies and backing vocal provided by Izzy Sorrell and ‘our Bill’. However the lead vocal feels restrained, like something is being held back. Honestly you want the vocal to lift and soar particularly given the theme of the track. This is not a criticism merely that more would have really upped the dynamic and extended the vocal delivery to make it more urgent and needy. I love urgent and needy by the way.

On ‘Ballad Of An Exile’ there are sonic references to Wizzard again and the track feels like something that Bradfordian Brit Popsters Ultrasound could have written and produced. It is utterly gorgeous. The themes of lovely and gorgeous absolutely play out on all the remaining songs to differing degrees and for very different reasons. The string section on ‘Sacred Veil’ is beautiful and sublime. You could lose yourself in the majesty of the soundscape. I definitely did.

Considering this is the second album from William it stands well, capturing a moment in the chronology of Psyksobilly and its development. It is so much more than that though as tracks like ‘Burying the dead’ and ‘Thrill U Kill U’ testify.

‘Thrill’ is an absolute departure from the other songs and it is magnificent. We revist the restrained nature of the vocal delivery as it feels like it is missing a ‘big shouty’ verse and the chorus equally needs a lift as I found myself hollering at the top of my voice in a sing along style.

That said I quite unexpectedly was spinning and pirouetting in my tiny space and whilst Astaire might offer “it takes time to get a dance right, to create something memorable” what Bill has created is something in terms of melody and hook that has an ear worm quality to it and that you won’t forget. For the record I don’t really dance to songs. I had imbibed no illegal/legal substances to get me up from the chair. I simply couldn’t sit there listening as my feet were tapping and legs followed fairly quickly. I say dance, of course I mean a random series of movements that defy explanation. The experimentation with sound on this song really surprises the listener and it feels like a complete move in an opposite direction from the other songs on the album, sort of Kraftwerk meets Marc Bolan.

The album closer ‘You’re Not Coming Back From This’ evidences that Bill has no imposter syndrome. The vocals soar and drive in ways that suggest underneath the baritone delivery on the other songs there is a screaming rock God in attendance, he just needs unleashing. The song is the perfect ending and when Bill sings on the middle eight of the track ‘you’ve lost control so let it go, you’re in a hole so just stop digging, who you kidding LET IT GO” the sustain is so emotive and powerful, the note perfect, I collapsed exhausted from the emotional connection I felt and cried. You’ll find other tunes and songs here but you won’t find better. It is the stand out track on an album of stand outs.

So if you want something a little different then this might be the album for you. It has all the qualities and charisma that great pop music should have whilst at the same time not being formulaic or trite. It feels sincere and driven by a real desire to offer a very personal view into a world of the ‘other’ or ‘outsider.

Here is the other stuff you need to know, I think. The album was released on February 8th 2021 and was recorded at Caretaker Studios. The arrangements, production and knob twiddling are handled and crafted by the rather talented and clever Phil Sorrell. His ear for sound really compliments Psykobilly. Some folk subscribe to the idea that ‘less is more’ in terms of production. The overall lesson here is more can be rather lovely and beautiful in the right hands. This is a glorious testimony to finding the right person/people to work with and Psykobilly has found the right people to generate ideas, tunes and melodies to fill stadiums. I have every part of my anatomy crossed and hope the albums finds space and places to be heard as it has the potential to be massive. Buy this album you won’t regret it.

See the following links

https://en-gb.facebook.com/bill.newton.735?fref=nf

https://soundcloud.com/user-145952109

The Rock And Roll Fool - April 2021

[dylf]

i remember getting a detention in year 11, in front of the boy i liked, for saying "can't be asked" and because of of my bradfordian accent, the 'k' wasn't heard that well and she was from down south. she thought i said "can't be arsed" and. i didn't even know that was a thing.

[theopenbookwigtown]

The right kind of Hustle and Bustle.

Hi, I'm Lisa Holdsworth and I'm looking after the Open Book this week. I'm just finishing my first day in the shop and it really has been a lovely day. And productive!

I'm a TV scriptwriter back in the real world. I mainly write on other people's shows. Most recently I've worked on Ackley Bridge for C4 and Call the Midwife for the BBC. So, when I booked my bookshop week back in 2016, i knew I would want to spend my week writing something of my own.

Luckily, the stars have aligned and I've been asked to write a new play for a theatre company in Bradford. It's an adaptation of the autobiographical novel about the Bradfordian writer, Andrea Dunbar who wrote "Rita, Sue & Bob Too" and tragically died at the age of 29. The novel is "Black Teeth & Brilliant Smile" by the amazing Adelle Stripe. I highly reccomend it.

This week I am writing the first draft. Unlike some writers I don't work well in complete silence and isolation. I like a little bit of distraction to keep my brain ticking. At home I work with the radio playing and social media buzzing away.

But for this play, I need a different kind of hustle and bustle. And the Open Book is proving to be perfect. I've had a few customers today. I've even sold some books! I've made a window display of books about great people from Yorkshire and I've met a steady stream of Wigtown locals. Which has been truly lovely. Not least because I'm looking at a lovely pile of shortbread which someone very kindly delivered this afternoon. It's still warm!

So, thank you to everyone who has made me feel so welcome on my first day.

Pages written today: 9 (a good start!).

[pastedpast]

I'm currently living in Bradford, West Yorkshire and I been enjoying exploring the city. I had to take a photograph of this street sign, as it was the Christian name of my Bradfordian Grandad! Although as a member* of the Communist party he was certainly no Christian! I must refresh my memory on the British Communist party as I know there was a significant following in the 1930s and '40s. Many fought against General Franco in the Spanish Civil War, for instance. I managed to read about half of the David Aaronovitch memoir, "Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists", but was suffering from poor concentration at the time and had to abandon it.

I never met my Grandad, he died 20 years before I was born, but I would have loved to have known him because he was a truly brilliant, multi-talented man. He was a self-taught clock and watch maker, who also made his own musical instruments which he taught himself how to play. He made ornaments out of wood and brass, really amazing stuff, and was a great chess player, teaching his children to play from a young age. He could work out the correct days of any dates in the calendar in his head. He didn't have an easy life either. His mother died in childbirth when he was only three years old and his father died two years later. He was brought up by his step-mother who spent much of the money that had been left to him and his brother on herself and her own children.

More info about British Communism here.

* Correction: Apparently, my Grandad wasn't actually a member of the party, though he did have Communist beliefs and wore a Hammer & Sickle badge.

ALSO, I really must refresh my memory about British Communists' perception of Stalin.

[andreadewhurst]

Aww baby equine Bradfordian

[bradfordaviation]

" The protector and supporter all we need " - Happy Brother's Day #brothersday #brother #bro #sibblings #protector #supporter #bradfordian #bradfordaviation #bradfordaviationacademy #bangalore #imphal #mysore #india (at Bradford Aviation Academy) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPPkIJVlX-Z/?utm_medium=tumblr

[adambeyoncelowe]

Stereotyped as a city of industry and mills, Bradford’s long history of art and writing can easily be overlooked. Three Faces of Bradford refocuses our gaze, with an exclusive screening of three short films made between 1975 and 1980 from the BBC Arena archives. Highlighting artists David Hockney and David Oxtoby and playwright Andrea Dunbar, the documentaries capture their distinctive individual creativity yet also their shared Bradford roots. You can still watch responses from four Bradfordians noted for their contributions to the arts today: Bradford Community Broadcasting director Mary Dowson, artist Mick Manning, actor Kat Rose-Martin and scriptwriter Tajinder Singh Hayer. Read and listen to new poems from Yorkshire poets Adam Lowe and Rommi Smith and then try your hand at writing your local memoirs, with a masterclass from author Monique Roffey.

[juniperpublishersjcmah]

Cancer and Wounds are Similar Cancer and wounds are a wet cell battery Go to Where you feel ill and meet the Phantom Head Go into a room at Bradford University and you soon feel ill. It is not the quietness because you can hear Professor Shepherd explaining that this is where they calibrate their electronic measuring instruments. Nor is it the gloom. There is enough light to see where to walk and the grey, pointed, plastic pyramids lining the roof, walls and floor are obvious enough to make this no ordinary place. Have you a headache? Are you loosing balance, or do you just want to be sick? Figure 1. Click here to view Large Figure 1 Click here to view Large Figure 2 You go out into the electronics laboratory of the engineering department and look down from this 1960s tower block on the city that used to be the centre of the world’s woollen industry. There is plenty of light through the big windows. Familiar sounds can be heard. The headache is going, and you wonder what hit you. The calibration room is more than an anechoic chamber. As well as blocking sound it blocks electro-magnetic fields Figure 2. Bradford University is where mobile telecommunications were invented. They understand electro-magnetic waves Figure 3. Click here to view Large Figure 3 Click here to view Large Figure 4 Prof Shepherd leads the way down the corridor to another, bigger laboratory where PhD students lean over their laptops and lift their heads with a smile when they see you. He introduces us to Professor Read Abd-Alhameed who opens the door of a large refrigerator. He takes out a phantom head. It looks like a human head. It may have been. There is a hole on the top. He also lifts out from the fridge a bottle labelled phantom brain. This is liquid brain. I don’t know whether it really is and am not ready to ask. Poured into the head through the open skull, the brain can then be tested for damage from a mobile phone clamped to its ear. Another problem caused by electric waves Figure 4. Doesn’t everyone use a smart phone? Is everyone in danger? Read explains that the maximum time for a phone call should be six minutes. Beyond that, the brain is being damaged and probably irreparably. He knows by measuring what happened to the phantom. Back in Professor Simon Shepherd’s office with a cup of Earl Grey tea in hand, normality is slowly returning. He explains that they consider cancer to be an electrical fault. In the first laboratory, they are measuring the permittivity of tissues and on a scale find cancer showing 9.6 and healthy cells 3.2 with nothing in between. Their instruments send signals into the body and measure the bounce-back. The technology is the same as 5G, the latest technique for mobile telephones. You suddenly realize that what works for transmitting data through air can work through other mediums. These photos of the computer screen show a 2mm tumour found in one billionth of a second by measuring permittivity. The blue lines of the graph are the input signal and the redline is the received signal-the bounce back from the tumour. The pictorial images identify the location of the tumour in the centre of the breast Figure 5. Click here to view Large Figure 5 Go to Cancer and Electricity I got to know the experts at Bradford University when I gave a lecture about Cell Sonic to their engineering department. Cell Sonic has been healing wounds for many years, especially non-healing diabetic ulcers. The recent breakthrough was curing cancer [1] and assumed it was the pressure pulses applied to the tumour that were killing cells [2]. That was the day, when I encountered electrical forces at work, that I realised there was more to this than pressure; electricity is fundamentally involved in the body and all living things. The document that guided Prof Shepherd was Dr Steve Halti wanger’s “Electrical Properties of Cancer Cells” [3]. I telephoned Dr Halti wanger in Texas and was glad I did because he opened up a new world for me. He put me in touch with more people who had insights into diseases that remained mysteries for conventionally educated doctors. The establishment view is that the body is made of biochemistry and can be corrected and maintained by biochemistry, in other words, pharmaceuticals. Then, who are the establishment? They are the pharmaceutical companies, Big Pharma, makers of medical drugs. Politicians seldom understand medicine so seek the views of experts who are provided by Big Pharma. Recommendations are made which just happen to increase drug sales. This is leading to scandals. In America, the opioid crisis has addicted millions of sufferers to pain killers. The costs are crippling without any hope of curing their disease. In the rest of the world, the costs of drugs are too high for poorer countries creating a them-and-us dichotomy that leads to friction. To talk of the body being electrical is heresy. And yet, Cell Sonic is curing without drugs and, moreover, succeeding where drugs have failed. What was happening in the anechoic chamber? The shielding built around the anechoic chamber blocked electro-magnetic fields (EMF) from anywhere and everywhere. By isolating the inside of the chamber, measuring instruments could be calibrated accurately in there without the interference of fields penetrating from outside. From where was the EMF coming? Outside the room felt normal. Inside, the body becomes ill. The EMF is an essential part of normality Go to Electro Sensitivity Some people are more sensitive to electricity than others. Those who are sensitive are finding modern life difficult and dangerous. Their mobile phone makes them ill. Electric lights, especially fluorescent tubes, causes headaches and dizziness. Wi Fi is everywhere now, and they suffer inside buildings [4,5]. The countryside can be just as fraught with powerful EMFs along the paths of pylons Figure 6. Click here to view Large Figure 6 Go to Before Life on Earth Let’s go back to the beginning, the formation of our planet, before life. Spinning in space, around the earth is the ionosphere above what is now the atmosphere. An electromagnetic field was generated in the ionosphere and it beamed onto earth. Life began in the presence of that EMF and life depended on it, all life, not just humans. Plants, fish, algae are all affected by and dependent on electrical forces. By a curious coincidence, the understanding and calculation of the EMF in the ionosphere came from a Bradfordian called Edward Appleton and the source of the EMF is now known as the Appleton Layer [6,7]. In 1952, the power of the forces was calculated by Otto Schuman [8,9] and is called the Schumann Resonances. The anechoic chamber in Bradford University was blocking the Resonance without which the body fails. It is 7.83 Hz Figure 7. Click here to view Large Figure 7 Go to Electromagnetic Energy A good website on this subject has been put together by Allen Eichler based on information assembled by his father, Harry Eichler. The easiest way to start is watch the four videos at http://electromagnetichealing.com/videos.html and note the dates. This is not new, and the men have since died. They were right and I came across them having already cured cancer with Cell Sonic. I was searching for an explanation. Dr Halti wanger told me that we had developed non-surgical electroporation. By searching for electroporation, I found Dr Nordenström. He had been the chairman of the Nobel Prize committee and the opinion of the reporter in the last of the four videos was that if Nordenström’s method is correct, his discovery is far ahead of any he has judged for a Nobel Prize. Alas, for Dr Bjorn Nordenström that acclaim never came in his lifetime, so he gave his patents to China where doctors proved on many thousands of cases that he was right. Big Pharma blocked his discovery allowing people outside China to die of cancer and be treated by drugs as they deteriorated. As cancer is not a bio-chemical problem, it cannot be cured bio-chemically. It is an electrical problem requiring an electrical correction. Harry Eichler lists the people over the centuries who regarded electricity as an integral part of the body. In the second video, Jorge Céspedes Curé [10] explains that the cancer cell is a wet cell battery. He was an exceptional physicist with medicine being only part of his work; “diseases are caused by electrodynamic imbalances at a cellular level Figure 8”. Click here to view Large Figure 8 Prof Curé shows that inside a cell it is electrically positive and outside it is negative. It works as a wet cell battery. Around the cell is a membrane across which are proteins. The electrical transmembrane potential in a normal cell is-70 millivolts (mv). When a cell divides (replicates), which is known as the mitotic phase, the potential is-15mv. Interestingly, cancer cells are all-15 mv and they are dividing continuously, in other words, uncontrollably proliferating. Jorge Céspedes-Curé tells of Dr Nordenström curing cancer with electroporation. A probe connected to the positive (+) electrical current was inserted in the centre of a tumour with another probe connected to the negative (-) current so that there was an electrical current passing from inside to outside the tumour [11] Figure 9. Click here to view Large Figure 9 White blood cells have a negative charge. An injury or a tumour has a positive charge and the immune system functions by drawing the negatively charged white cells into the positively charged area in the same way that a wet cell battery operates. As well as the white blood cells, a variety of ions including hydrogen and phosphate will be drawn to the positive centre. A closed loop circulating current and energy flow is accomplished by the transport of charged particles (ions and electrons), producing slowly varying electric currents in the human body, utilizing various conductive pathways of interstitial fluid, blood vessels, nerve fibre, muscle, etc. The healing currents are slowly varying with respect to time and are direct currents. This fact confirms that a Biologically Closed Electric Circuit is involved. A biologically open circuit cannot support direct current [12] Dr Nordenström [13] self-published a book entitled “Biologically Closed Electric Circuits” [14]. In years to come, this will be the text that should have been studied but it was too advanced for doctors with little knowledge of physics. Even today it is chemistry, not physics, which is a required subject for medical students entering university. In the 1980s, Nordenström used invasive electroporation [15]. It was difficult to be sure that one probe was inside a tumour and the other in the outside. When it worked, it worked well but the surgeon was poking probes into the body and uncertain if they were in the right place. It was Cell Sonic VIPP under my guidance that made the breakthrough in 2016 with non-surgical electroporation [16]. It is easy to use the Cell Sonic machine. Hold the shock head by hand and aim into the body at the tumour. If you are not accurate in aiming, it will not harm healthy cells and it can help to aim around the area where the tumour is believed to lie so that any stray cancer cells are intercepted. There will always be some single cells migrating because that is what they do. The shock head gives out an electro-magnetic field as well as a pressure pulse. Its duration is less than a nanosecond. The frequencies cover a wide range from high to low. It is believed that tumours have different responses to different frequencies. By good fortune, Cell Sonic’s method delivers a range of frequencies wide enough to attack all tumours. The rise time of the acoustic pulse is sudden by using electricity shorting across an electrode. This suddenness is also a likely benefit to the body cells by jerking them into a response. There is no continuous wave or steady passing of current. Just a sudden blast and then nothing until the action is repeated a quarter of a second later. It takes less than two minutes to treat a cancer tumour. There are no side effects and no drugs involved. Various methods are proposed [17] for tumour decay with EMF: 1. Autolysis at the positive tumour produces a significant decrease in pH which helps to kill the tumour. 2. An increase in acidity at the tumour damages red blood cells, inhibiting delivery of oxygen to the tumour. 3. The low pH at the tumour site indicates a positive charge relative to surrounding normal tissue. Cancer-fighting white blood cells, with a negative charge on their membrane surface, are attracted to the tumour site. 4. The electric field at the tumour draws water away from the tumour (electro-osmosis) stressing the tumour’s weak vascular system, restricting its blood supply and making it shrink. 5. Cathodic and anodic gas formation (hydrogen, chlorine and oxygen) increases the pressure in the tumour damaging its structure and blood supply Go to Wound healing Click here to view Large Figure 10 Curé s explanation that all diseases and infections have electrical causes throws light on Cell Sonic’s long-standing success with wound healing. Prof. Dr. J. Gutermuth and Dr. S. Baharlou of Vrije Universiteit Brussel declared in 2015 that Cell Sonic is the best of all methods for wound healing [18]. Professor Busch of Tübingen University found the same results in 2016 [19]. Subsequent success with cancer now appears to be unsurprising. Understanding a wound as a wet cell battery, the same as a tumour, with a positive core and negative charge externally explains the ionic transfers, role of oxygen flow and improved vascularization with charged white cells [20,21] Figure 10. Go to Conclusion Doctors ask for innovation but when presented with something new, they ask, “Who is already using it?” No doctor wants to be the first. Cell Sonic has been healing wounds since the company was founded over twenty years ago. The understanding that wounds and cancer behave in the same way explains the ability of Cell Sonic to stop the replication of mutating cells for that is what cancer is. Knowing also that the electrical properties of cells were explained fifty years ago and used to cure cancers is reassuring that Cell Sonic’s technology is not radically new but a big improvement on surgical electroporation. By avoiding the need to push probes into the body, Cell Sonic puts cancer treatments into the hands of all doctors, drastically reduces the cost and makes it safe for the patient and doctor. There are no side effects.

For more Open access journals please visit our site: Juniper Publishers  

For more articles please click on Journal of Complementary Medicine & Alternative Healthcare

[shoppingfordeals]

The Bradfordian Summer Autumn Term 1956 (Unknown - 1956) (ID:57302) $11.05

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=2&toolid=10039&campid=5337702801&item=382543270639&vectorid=229466 The Bradfordian Summer Autumn Term 1956 (Unknown – 1956) …

[harryfeatgaga]

Omg I can't believe there was another Bradfordian on your blog. Hi bitch xxxx also it's funny how everyone in this city is basically inbred. I have two random connections to zayns family dhdjjdjd

OKDNJFHUJIFNBHJ WILD

[paulharness12345]

Bradford grammar school old Bradfordians association dinner

Bradford grammar school old Bradfordians association dinner

Coverage of the Bradford grammar school Old Bradfordians association annual dinner. Adrian Moorhouse was there & remembered me as I’m also an old Bradfordian. The dinner was in the Price hall (which I remember for school assembly & exams).

Bradford grammar school Coverage of the Bradford grammar school Old Bradfordians association annual dinner. Adrian Moorhouse was there & remembered me as I'm also an old Bradfordian. The dinner was in the Price hall (which I remember for school assembly & exams).

[usanewsgoogle]

'We're all competing for the same jobs': life in Britain's youngest city | Cities

‘We’re all competing for the same jobs’: life in Britain’s youngest city | Cities

The 30% of Bradfordians below 20 face an ideal storm of issues, from youth unemployment to racial stress. But lots of them insist it’s not all doom and gloom

City Hall in Bradford, West Yorkshire, the UK city with the youngest common age. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

When it involves grim city statistics in Britain,…

[richardclark]

Hello to Bradfordians from Cosmopolitan Mechanical Services Inc. It is time to make your Bradford home cooler in summers than ever before and warmer in winters than it ever was. Cosmopolitan Mechanical Services is here to be your reliable heating and cooling retailer, your professional installer and your trusted maintenance and repair tech.

http://www.cosmopolitanmechanical.com/heating-and-cooling-bradford.html

[bradfordaviation]

View this post on Instagram

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Day Against Child Labour! #bradfordaviation #bradfordian #academy #aviation #aviator #childlabour #againstchildlabour #bengaluru #mysuru #imphal (at Bradford Aviation Academy) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQArdgmBPId/?utm_medium=tumblr

[mavwrekmarketing]

Image copyright Bradford UNESCO City of Film

Image caption Rita, Sue and Bob Too depicted life on a Bradford estate in a darkly comic tale

Billed as “Thatcher’s Britain with her knickers down”, British film comedy Rita, Sue and Bob Too was an unexpected hit when it was released 30 years ago. This darkly comic tale of two sexually confident working-class Bradford teenagers might have charmed the critics – but many closer to home failed to see the joke.

Originally written for the stage in 1982 by Andrea Dunbar, the story depicted life on the deprived Buttershaw estate where she grew up – and did not flinch from its portrayal of alcoholism, violence, poverty and a feckless benefit culture.

The film featured teenage babysitters Rita (Siobhan Finneran) and Sue (Michelle Holmes), who both partially escaped from their lives on the estate by having an affair with married man Bob (George Costigan) who lived in a detached house in a smarter part of city.

It was an incendiary mixture.

Image copyright Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection

Image caption The film was thought to reinforce negative stereotypes by some viewers

Tony Earnshaw, author of Made in Yorkshire, a study of filmmaking in the county, was one of the many who reacted badly to the Alan Clarke-directed film when he first saw it as a teenager.

The city was attempting to repair a poor public image – and the film was seen by many as reinforcing negative stereotypes.

“I didn’t like it at the time, I wasn’t mature enough to appreciate it,” the author said. “I am a working-class lad and I was angry about how it misrepresented Yorkshire. I thought its makers were laughing at us.”

Such apparent sensitivity needs to be set against the backdrop of the time.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption The city of Bradford had taken a battering before the film was released

Bradford’s image had taken a battering in the 1980s: it had lost traditional industries and jobs, there were fierce arguments about race and education, and the city suffered one of the worst British stadium tragedies when 56 football fans perished in the 1985 Valley Parade fire.

And then, of course, there was Bradford’s most notorious son, Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, whose murderous campaign was finally halted by his chance arrest in 1981.

The city had tried to lift collective spirits with Bradford’s Bouncing Back, a feel-good marketing campaign launched in 1986, featuring a special poster by Bradford Grammar School alumnus David Hockney.

Into this mix came the 1987 film, described by that doyen of film critics Roger Ebert as “a bleak, sardonic comedy about the violation of a taboo”.

Image copyright Alamy

Image caption The play and film made Dunbar and the estate the focus of often unwelcome publicity

Image copyright Alamy

Image caption Michelle Holmes (Sue) said the film was ‘a snapshot of an age’

Adelle Stripe, who has written a novel based on Dunbar’s short life – the playwright died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 29 in 1990 – said the film “really poured oil on the fire”.

“She [Dunbar] wrote her first play when she was 15 years old, she’d never been to the theatre, and this is what is remarkable about her: she dramatised what was happening in her life at the time, and was encouraged by her teachers at Buttershaw Upper School.”

Dunbar was asked whether the play was based on personal experiences by the BBC in 1987.

“Parts of it was, parts wasn’t – but you see things happening on an estate anyway,” she said.

“But if you grow up on an estate, live there, you know everybody and I don’t find it shocking to write about it.”

Image caption Andrea Dunbar was interviewed by the BBC in 1987 about the film

The play and film made Dunbar and the estate the focus of often unwelcome publicity, Ms Stripe says.

“She got a lot of negative press. Press cuttings of the time always mention she was an unmarried mother with three children. Not a big deal for us in 2017 but she took a lot of flak for it then.

“She liked having a drink… because you’re working class and live on a council estate it therefore becomes a stick to beat her with. It was double standards, really.”

David Wilson, who is the director of Bradford’s City of Film programme, points out Bradford has undergone huge changes since the 1980s.

“Buttershaw is a different place now, some of the buildings and the low-rise flats on the estate have gone,” he said.

“We have moved on and often changed beyond all recognition.

“But you can look back with a nostalgic view on the film, which was a social commentary that did not skirt some difficult issues.”

Image copyright Alamy

Image caption The Buttershaw estate has been regenerated in recent years

Mr Wilson believes Rita, Sue and Bob Too has many parallels with another film, the 1959 northern kitchen-sink drama Room at the Top. There were calls for that movie to be banned and it was given an X-rated certificate. Now it is widely praised as a classic British film, he said.

He has recently rewatched Rita, Sue and Bob Too and was struck by the nostalgic fashions, furniture and architecture.

Most importantly for him “it inspired another generation of filmmakers and, creatively, it has not hindered Bradford at all”.

This is a view that would most likely be shared by many Bradfordians, even those who were uneasy about the film on its release.

Tony Earnshaw, certainly, says he feels very differently about Rita, Sue and Bob Too than he did as a teenager.

“I’ve come to realise it is a very accurate portrait of life,” he said.

“There’s a joie de vivre; the characters are not trying to escape from their lives, they are happy and don’t aspire to anything more.

“It’s a celebration of a certain strata of society. It occupies its own space in time.”

Michelle Holmes, who played Sue, recalls the making of the film fondly.

“We had a brilliant, brilliant time, seven weeks of absolute fun,” she said.

“It is crazy: who would have thought every single day somebody says something to me about the film? That’s what I find incredible about it.

“Now it is a snapshot of an age and it seems to have more resonance.”

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