Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

When I reached G Block, I overheard an old man talking to a police officer by the stairwell. “I can smell something burning under my seat, but I just can’t put my finger on it,” he said. Although his words were unusual enough to echo in my ears, I walked on. As I sat back down, I remember checking the time on the clock in the corner of the Midland Road terrace and Bradford End. It was 3.40pm.

I was just about to open my cola when the tiniest trail of mysterious white smoke began to rise from the front of our seating section. “What’s that?” one supporter asked. Nobody had any idea, and bafflement grew as the smoke did.

“Piss on it, piss on it, piss on it!” those on the paddock on our left started to chant. “What a pity I’ve just been – I could have put that out!” I announced, to wry smiles all round.

Over the next minute or so the small white cloud of smoke slowly expanded.

“Bradford’s burning, fetch the engines … fire fire, fire fire. Bradford’s burning …” sang the paddock.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

It is curious that the Wikipedia entry for the song is entitled “Scotland’s burning,” when I think even in Scotland people know it as “London’s burning.”

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Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Association football (6) W/G ·
• Bradford City A.F.C. (1) W/G ·
• Bradford City stadium fire (1) W/G ·
• 📌Bradford (73) W/G ·
• English Football League (2) W/G ·
• Fire (14) W/G ·
• Folk music (10) W/G ·
• Lincoln City F.C. (1) W/G ·
• Lincoln (1) W/G ·
• Music (26) W/G ·
• Scotland’s Burning (1) W/G ·
• Song (20) W/G ·
• Valley Parade (1) W/G ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (150) W/G ·
• Wood (2) W/G ·

All tags.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

It is curious that the Wikipedia entry for the song is entitled “Scotland’s burning,” when I think even in Scotland people know it as “London’s burning.”

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Similar

1 December 1851: John (65) and Betty (73) of Wibsey are at long last united in a “funny wedding” at Bradford

29 February 1824: Prophet John Wroe is baptised on the Leap Day in the Aire near Apperley Bridge before an audience of 30,000

8 June 1561: A York official explains why textile manufacturing has left his city for the West Riding

18 April 1906: Easter trippers to Shipley Glen cause fires on Ilkley Moor, imperilling grouse shooting later in the year

5 September 1860: Friends of Elizabeth Mitchell (14), murdered by a fellow-servant at Upton (Pontefract), bear her to her grave at South Kirkby

18 July 1973: London-based folk-rock band Steeleye Span (lead singer Maddy Prior) play a Yorkshire-influenced support set for Jethro Tull at the LA Forum

30 October 1981: Joanne, Michelle and Carl go caking in their Sheffield villages

20 April 1835: A teetotallers’ tea-party at the first, great, Wilsden Temperance Festival

15 December 1888: Leeds’s most popular wassailing song, according to Frank Kidson

15 December 1888: Frank Kidson longs for Leeds’s musical Christmasses past

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

How much is Kitson influenced by the description of the village band in Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree, published 16 years before?

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