Evocative images of Wakefield in the 1980s and 1990s shared as The Art House hosts Robert Broad: My North exhibition

The son of a Lofthouse collier, Mr Broad, 55, began documenting the shifting urban landscape of the West Yorkshire city back in 1984 when he bought his first camera.

Then, Wakefield and its surrounding pits were at the heart of the miners’ strike which devastated the community and the surrounding Five Towns. The market saw thousands throng to do their shopping and - as Mr Broad puts it - you’d not have to walk far to come across “a flat cap and a whippet.”

Now it’s a city bustling with new shopping developments, bars and restaurants. But it's the bygone days of Wakefield that are to be marked in an exhibition of evocative black and white photographs all taken by Mr Broad.

With images including the backstreets of Stanley and his beloved parents, Mary and Don, enjoying a chip supper from Tony’s in Outwood, they document day-to-day life in an era now lost.

And they also provide an archive of how Wakefield city centre has developed over the past 40 years, including the development of Westgate and the demolition of major buildings such as Ings Road School and Harlequin Hotel

“I started taking pictures of things that interested me - not for sentimental reasons, but to keep a record,” he recalled, “But it all spiralled from there.

“I used to visit my parents every week when I left home, and that’s how those pictures came about.”

Reflecting on changes to the city documented in his exhibition, he said: “Obviously the old market house has gone. I photographed it for a year and you could see it was dying.

“There’s no greasy spoons anymore, it’s all very cosmopolitan - it’s got quite posh. It’s changed a lot. I don’t know what my parents would think about it.

“It’s got a lot more going for it than I think it used it to have. A great music scene, a great art scene. There seems to be a lot more happening now with a better vibe.

“You don’t see as much of an older generation now. It’s got a different feeling about it. You don’t see as many people around with long raincoats and flat caps.”

The exhibition - Robert Broad: My North - will be staged at The Art House and comes after Mr Broad spent more than a year on furlough from his job at a printers’ firm during lockdown.

He spent much of it in his own dark room at his home in the city centre developing both the images for the exhibition and a collection of family pictures for his 22-year-old son.

This article was first published by The Yorkshire Post.