Sketches from a bygone era...

Sketches of Ossett and Flushdyke from the 1940s and 50s will go on display this weekend.
w9773a943 Ossett artist Douglas Brammer - Ossett Library.w9773a943 Ossett artist Douglas Brammer - Ossett Library.
w9773a943 Ossett artist Douglas Brammer - Ossett Library.

The drawings were carefully crafted by the late Douglas Brammer during his retirement. He used his memories of growing up in the area to capture what it looked like during his childhood.

For the first time, they have been collected together in a new book showing life in the area more than 60 years ago.

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And it will go on sale this weekend as Ossett celebrates a 1940s day and the nationwide Heritage Open Days scheme.

Local historical researcher Alan Howe has produced the book, entitled ‘Sketches of Past Times Flushdyke and Ossett’. He said: “Douglas was the most modest of men with remarkable talents. He had a phenomenal memory, an eye for detail and an ability to recall, draw and recount tales of Flushdyke and Ossett in the 1940s and 1950s.”

The book includes around 100 of his sketches as well as maps, old photographs and some of Mr Brammer’s tales from the past. It can be bought in Ossett Town Hall, where some of the sketches will also be on display, Holy Trinity Church and Ossett Library on Saturday.

Mr Howe said: “As you view the book, you wonder about these places and the lives of the matchstick men and women and the matchstick cats and dogs which grace many of his sketches.

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“They are the memories of his youth in the 1940s and 1950s and they are of immense historic importance.”

Mr Brammer was born in Flushdyke in 1937. He began sketching in his retirement, to show friends and families what the area looked like in the past.

He wanted to depict the community as he remembered it, before it became more industrialised with factories and warehouses in the 1960s and 70. His sketches include Roundwood Pit, Spring Mill and Flushdyke School.

Speaking about his drawings in 2009, he said: “You get to my age and you have all these memories about places that are long gone.

People would ask what we were talking about and I’d look for photographs but there weren’t any. So I thought the only way to show people the Flushdyke and Ossett I remembered was to paint it.”

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