FOR many, wintry Saturday nights used to mean dancing, in a wide choice of venues – the Baths Hall, the Drill Hall, the Mechanics’ Institute – in evening dress to a plethora of bands.

Here, about 1930, is the Imperial Dance Orchestra, part of a tradition which continued into the 1950s with such groups as The Ambassadors, The Commanders, the Del Rio Accordion Band, Arthur Jackson and his Orchestra, the Billy Coe Dance Orchestra, Stan Smith and his Tunesmiths, Ernest Mitchell and his Sylvian Players, and many more.

A symbolic end to this era came early in 1962 with the disastrous fire at the Keighley Mechanics’ Institute – after a Saturday-night dance.