THIS crowded group represents a wartime Christmas party at the Woodbine Day Nursery in Skipton Road, intended primarily for the children of mothers in war work. Sometimes Father Christmas was played by Dr HM Holt, Keighley's Medical Officer of Health.
Seasonal cheer tended to be in comparatively short supply, but the staff decorated the nursery with "colourful streamers" and made toys for the children.
Toys were scarce during the war. At Keighley Parish Church in 1944 some 150 children attended a toy service, hanging their own redundant toys on a Christmas tree to be passed on to sick young patients in the Keighley Victoria Hospital.
Christmas in 1944 was foggy and quiet. The Mayor and Mayoress took fruit to elderly evacuees at Morton Banks, then made their traditional rounds of Victoria and St John's hospitals, the Children's Home and the Oakworth Road Institution. Nursing staff and the All Saints' Church choir sang carols round the wards of Victoria Hospital.
Bowcock's Charity paid out sums ranging from ten shillings to £1 to 109 old people from Keighley and Oakworth.
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