Opinion: Heckmondwike Alliance’s Simon Thirkill on the town’s Hidden Histories project

It has been an exciting month in the Heckmondwike, firstly we launched the Heckmondwike Hidden Histories project with a family fun day in the green Heckmondwike Hidden histories is a new and exciting project which aims, over the next 12 months to collect little known stories about people’s lives and events in and around Heckmondwike, a website and a calendar to raise funds for The Heckmondwike Illuminations, along with a fantastic production called Story Hunt which was amazing.

Daniel and Sarah who produced the event showed us Heckmondwike’s past, present and future, we made our way around town travelling back and forth over the last 1000 years with tales of Heckmondwike, the people who have and who will live here, the whole event makes you realise that we are all creating and contributing to the town’s history, what we do today is tomorrows history! Thank you to Creative Scene for bringing us Story Hunt.

A new cake supplies shop has opened, along with a bed showroom in the old sorting office, and the Queen Hotel is being lovingly renovated and is set to reopen soon with the promise of real ales and live music. It yet again shows that Heckmondwike is a fantastic place to live, work and do business.

The new website has been set up to promote the town with information, events, project updates and a what’s on guide – www.byheck.org. We desperately need volunteers to help with these and other projects, [email protected].