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Open Country

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Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

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Open Country: Football and fairies around Bradford

Football and fairies around Bradford

04/01/2018

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, Football and fairies around Bradford

Helen Mark finds football and fairy stories in the landscape around Bradford.

Countryside magazine. Helen Mark finds fairy stories and forgotten legends of football in the landscape around Bradford.

Helen Mark uncovers fantastic fairy stories and forgotten football legends in the landscape around Bradford. She also visits UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 'model' village of Saltaire, with Salts Mill at its centre, now home to David Hockney's extraordinary series of paintings 'The Arrival of Spring'.

Helen meets archaeologist Jason Wood, who has excavated the former football ground of Bradford Park Avenue, along with memories of footballing legends, including the star goalie who was regularly showered with safety pins after an embarrassing incident with the elastic in his football shorts. Sure enough, the dig turned up nappy pins around the goal mouth. 

She has her photo taken at Cottingley Beck, where the Cottingley fairies caused a sensation in the early twentieth century, when two young girls took photographs of the fairies they saw at the bottom of the garden. News of the fairies travelled all over the world and the story has never quite been laid to rest. And early example of the transmission of fake news?

Helen meets Zoe Silver, whose father Jonathan bought Salts Mill after it closed in 1986, to find out how her family continues to protect the extraordinary original vision of Titus Salt, who built the mill and the village of Saltaire in 1953. Artist David Hockney was born in Bradford and was a close friend of Jonathan Silver, which is why so many of his paintings, including landscapes of the local countryside, are on show at Salts Mill.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.

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