I grew up near Rochdale, a Lancashire town that produced singing greats like Gracie Fields (for those of you in your eighties) and Lisa Stansfield, for those of you listening to pop music in the 80’s.
If you travel a mere 14 miles from Rochdale, you’ll arrive at the market town of Hebden Bridge. Quirky, arty, bohemian. It’s a place of cobbled streets, artisan shops and independent galleries. It has artistic graffiti, dog friendly cafes, a very cool music store and even politically correct non-gender bread persons (at the soap shop.)
The current BBC 1 crime drama series, ‘Happy Valley’ is filmed and set in-and-around the town, and stars the appropriately named, Sarah Lancashire – although HB is actually in the Yorkshire Pennines. (I just wish I could claim it for Lancashire.)
They have a Happy Valley Pride week in August, to celebrate LGBTQ life in Hebden Bridge and the surrounding areas. I just wish I’d got to Sylvia Plath’s grave in the nearby Heptonstall, and Ted Hughes’ neighbouring village of Mytholmroyd. (Go on, try and pronounce that one.)
Wikipedia refers to Hebden Bridge as ‘the lesbian capital of the UK.’ Could you get more groovy than that?
Angela J Dawson 