Huddersfield Broad postcard

Reader's Letters & Queries: NarrowBoat, Summer 2018

I was interested to see the postcard of Jarratt, Pyrah & Armitage’s yard on the Huddersfield Broad Canal on page 33 (NB Spring 2018). I have had a copy of this postcard for several years and I have always been a bit puzzled by the date pre-printed on the reverse. The level of boating activity depicted seemed rather higher than I would expect on the Huddersfield Broad Canal in the 1940s and, looking closely, certain aspects, such as the dress of the workers, do not look right. Finally, last year some time, I came across the same picture on a card captioned ‘Jere Kaye & Co.’ for sale on the internet. Kayes was the predecessor of JPA on that site, today occupied by the Sainsbury’s supermarket adjacent to Aspley Basin. The company appears to have ceased trading very soon after World War I and the earliest date I have found for its successor is around 1923. This suggests that the original photograph is probably pre-WWI, which seems a far more comfortable date…