For those readers who cannot remember this street, let us begin by saying that everything to the right has now gone, the building in the distance is The Oddfellows Hall in Bradford Road which has also gone.

The demolition of all that property was part of the late '60s early '70s town centre improvement scheme, which included carving a line through the town for the new bypass which meant demolishing everything in its path.

On the left of the photograph is the back of the Co-op warehouse and although no longer the Co-op, the building is still there. So Hangram Street ran parallel to King Street behind the Co-op.

At the opposite end of the street, behind Stuart as he took the photograph, the road was at a junction with Dale Street and if you stand at the side of the Brighouse Salvation Army Citadel its car park is all that remains of Dale Street. That street was named after Emmanuel Dale, who was Brighouse's postmaster for many years, and a prominent figure in the Wesleyans in Brighouse. He died in 1899 having retired from the post office after 33 years' service.

At the corner of Bradford Road and Hangram Street was the Royal Engineers' Beerhouse, premises that are now The Print Shop. In 1906 the licensee was Joseph Speight and 10 years later it was run by Annie Speight. 'The Engineers', as it was often referred to closed on the April 5, 1965. I well remember walking on Hangram Street and using it as a short cut into the end of King Street via Dale Street.

Looking back to those days the street was a combination of terraced houses and small businesses, even going back a century little had changed. Walking along Hangram Street from the Bradford Road end in 1901 you would have seen a total of 11 houses. Among the families were: John Whiteley (number 5); Thomas Clayton (7); John Mitchell (9); Jane Kilburn (11); Thomas Clarke (2), a gas stoker who was summoned to court in July 1894 because his daughter Jane was not attending school; George Sayers (4); Emma Harrison (6); Frank Robinson (8); Frank Cheetham (10); William Parkin (12) and Walter Wilkes and his family (14).

These were the days with practically no motor vehicles to be seen and children could stay out with their 'gang' of friends in the street playing many of the traditional street games from morning until night.

How many of these games can you remember? Hopscotch, skipping, kick can and hop it, hide and seek and many more. "Having a den" was something to be expected – and if not a den, was it your hideout or HQ? Whatever it was called it was that secret place.

It would also be where groups of small children would develop superstitious beliefs about their local area. There were stories of sinister goings on in the dark and distant past, or about some local character who frightened all the kids. Not because he did anything wrong but quite often because of just the way he looked and over the years a number of myths and urban legends were created. Then over the childhood generations these were handed down time after time, and very much the 'Chinese Whispers' syndrome took over as the years went by as the stories were progressively built on.

Walking along Hangram Street the first left was Water Street, which was where a century ago Albert North had his French polishing and upholstery business alongside Joseph Smith's cloth washer maker, along with 12 terraced houses. Walking back into Hangram Street there was the Gospel Mission Room and the West Riding County Council Weights and Measures office, followed by Thornton's painting and decorating business, and finally at the junction with Dale Street a cab business run by Mr W. A. Collinge.

Looking at the featured 1965 map of this part of the town centre you can quickly see how many of those small streets were demolished to make way for the town centre improvements of the early '70s. Whole communities were moved out and scattered across the district. While many families would have gone to live in new communities many of their friends would have been moved to the opposite side of the town, and probably rarely, if ever, saw their old neighbours again.