THIS year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare.

It says much for the cultural standards of 1916 that all Keighley's elementary schools observed May 3 as Shakespeare Day.

Classrooms and assembly halls were decorated with flags, flowers and sometimes busts and statuettes of Shakespeare.

Children heard talks on his life and work, sang songs and acted extracts from his plays, and took part in "old English woodland games".

Commemorative medallions were sold in aid of Great War causes.

Over the years a dramatic society at Keighley Trade and Grammar School performed a number of Shakespeare plays.

Here in 1936, reinforced by four pupils from the Girls' Grammar School, are part of the cast of Much Ado About Nothing. The queue outside the Municipal Hall for this performance was said to "challenge in size the line of cinema fans across the street " at the Regent!

A critic in the school magazine thought it "not as good as Julius Caesar four years ago, but certainly better than Macbeth".