The First World War brought lists of those killed, injured and missing weekly in the Brighouse Echo. A few lines to announce the passing of these brave young men. Young lads killed on the battlefields of France and other faraway strange lands. For all those Brighouse lads just to take a trip to Halifax or a chapel outing to the Yorkshire Dales would have almost felt like a journey to a faraway place and have been a real outing.  

Pte Stanley Allen, a young man from Marion Street, he was severely injured when he was accidentally run over by his wagon in France. Pte Lascelles, was injured in the arm whilst trying to carry a wounded comrade from the trenches. Pte Fred Henson, of New Road Rastrick was injured by a bayonet whilst fighting the Turks. These are just three of the hundreds who came back home to be patched up at a military auxiliary hospital and then sent back.

But, whilst this was happening what other news was in the Brighouse Echo? More Belgian Refugees were arriving in Brighouse and Elland. A new military order was issued on January 19, that the sale of intoxicating liquor was made illegal after 9pm. Three days later the Brighouse Licensing Justices decided that all clubs should also have the same restriction as public houses. On February 11, the Borough Council Finance committee decided that in cases where soldiers’ wives had failed to pay their local rates the committee would pay 50% of what was owed.    

This featured photograph is the Hipperholme crossroads in August 1915 and not a car in sight. Tramlines of course - the first tram rumble through Hipperholme to Brighouse in February 1904. The corner property 1 Lees Buildings which these days is the Mamma Napoli Italian restaurant in this photograph it is probably Alfred Lee's grocery and provisions shop. He also had his coal business at the Lightcliffe railway station coal yard. Looking up Denholmegate Road it is just open space until you get to the row of buildings in the distance which is Cobden Terrace. The Whitehall pub is there, and the licensee would have been George W. Gledhill.

There are plenty of advertising hoardings and even a few flagstones leaned up against the wall ready to be layed out as the new footpath. Even with so many lads away fighting life in the communities had to carry on the best it could

Hipperholme crossroads has certainly changed in the last 100 years, even in 1927 it was causing major traffic problems. So much so that at least one newly appointed constable was posted to Hipperholme that year because of the growing traffic problem. The late Herbert Gooder told me that he attended many site meetings at the crossroads during his years on the borough council during the 1950s. I recall he said to me a couple of years before he passed away - 'Hipperholme crossroads is a problem that will run and run for many years to come...'.