Proud panto performers from the past

The current pantomime season across the country reminds us that Silsden has a long and distinguished tradition of community productions and concerts. Pantomimes were an integral part of the musical calendar and I am indebted to Janet Pawson for supplying the photographs above and below. The delightful dancers pictured above featured in the Sunday School panto Dick Whittington in February 1954. Left to right are: Anne Wolfenden, Muriel Helliwell, Sheila Hindle, Venetia Oates, Jean Broughton, Janet Lampkin, Sylvia Whittingham and Enid Broughton.

Above: these young riders were on stage in a Silsden panto of the early 1970s. The known names include Linda Tillotson and Melanie Catleugh (back row); Victoria Pawson (middle row); Alison Dale, Nicola Calvert, Julie Dowson and Judith Twigg (front row). Janet Pawson's father was Arthur Lampkin, who came to Silsden from London to work at the munitions factory at Steeton during the Second World War. Soon after, Arthur on his motorbike with his wife Violet riding pillion brought Janet and her brother, also called Arthur, in a sidecar to live in Silsden. Thus began the great Lampkin motorbiking dynasty. Janet and her husband Brian, who live in Gargrave, were well-known in Silsden: see my post of February 2016.