Setting their stall out to save market hall

HOLMFIRTH Film Festival is alive and well and, despite Covid-19, held this year’s event online last month It’s campaigning to save Holmfirth Indoor Market Hall which, they say, is threatened with demolition and being replaced by a car park.

Stephen Dorril, the festival’s director, says prospective plans for the town make him think that Joni Mitchell’s song Big Yellow Taxi remains relevant 50 years after it was written.

“Don’t it always seem to go, You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.”

Holmfirth Market may not look much like paradise but it does have history.

The Film Festival website also recalls how well loved Huddersfield Market was before that came down to be replaced, in a different location, by the current Market Hall, whose future is once again being debated.

“We celebrate Holmfirth and Holmfirth Markets old and new with films and poetry, and mourn the destruction of another part of Holme Valley life,” says the website.

They have evocative cine films of both, invited the Albert Poets to write their own memories of markets, and have used some of their contributions. Hannah Bailey recalls:

The best things I ever bought in the market

Were the rustly paper bags

Of pick ‘n mix sweets.

Every type of sweet tooth

And love handles catered for, all to dive into

And transport home

In a crumpled, scrumpled paper bag Such a shabby familiar package

For so many little gems.

The poem was abbreviated for reasons of space but it delightfully recaptures the memories of many who went shopping in the old Huddersfield Market hall, demolished in the name of progress.

Check out the Holmfirth Film Festival website for more poetry, information and those films.