My beloved Trouser Town – by Mrs Thatcher’s pugnacious aide

LIFE in Hebden Bridge before the Second World War was idyllic.

I was born in 1932, in the hospital in nearby Halifax. Our stone-built terraced house, on Albion Terrace, had a lovely view looking down the valley. I used to wake up in the morning looking across what in Norman times had been a deer park. My brother always said that Hebden Bridge was the best place to be brought up during the war, because we were so deep in the valley, the enemy couldn’t find us.

Planes flew over, but the nearest we came to a bomb was Halifax.

Back then, Hebden was a small industrial town, very hard-working, full of chapels and churches; I went to the Baptist chapel and Sunday school. There were a lot of choirs – male voice choirs, especially. There was also a large number of pubs, although you didn’t see many people drunk. And fish and chip shops – the place was running with them.

I don’t think I could have been brought up in a better place. There was a lot of unemployment in the 1930s, but we didn’t experience it.

But, over time, the textile industry on which the town depended – it was named Trouser Town as it made up to a million pairs a year – began to falter. When the mills started to close, a lot of the small terraced houses became vacant.

In the 1970s, hippies moved in and made a bit of a mess of the place.

That didn’t go down well with the house-proud locals.

It also became the lesbian capital of Britain, with more women couples than any other town.

While making a film for the BBC about Hebden Bridge, I met a group of women in a lesbian bar.

I asked how many lesbians there were in town and was told ‘at least a hundred’. But, I said that considering Hebden had a population of 25,000 people… lesbian capital my foot!

Over time, various incomers have made Hebden their home. And now it’s popular with modern trendies, Hebden is something of an alien place to me.

The Hebden Bridge I remember could never have been accused of being trendy!