I'm Lauren Padgett, Assistant Curator of
Collections. Since Fountains Cafe closed
in 2023, Bradford District Museums and
Galleries have been working with the
family that owned it so that we
can acquire some of the material culture
of the cafe so that it can
enter our collection to be preserved for
future generations. After months of
planning, we were able to put some of
these objects out on display in February.
The mural and painting that was on
display in the Cafe. We've got the
interior and exterior signage. We also
have some crockery and a table and chair
set. It's Sunday, the 16th of March and
I'm onsite about to meet members of
the family who ran Fountains Cafe for
three generations and for 55 years. I'm
really excited to meet them and hear what
they think about the display as it will
be the first time that they've seen it
here. Let's head down and meet them.
Well, around 10 members of the family
have arrived today to see it spanning 3
generations. And it's been so lovely to
hear them talk about Fountains Cafe and
the new display here. So we have Mary,
who, I hope doesn't mind me telling you
this is, 90 years old and she originally
set up Fountains Cafe with her husband
Paul in 1968. And we also have her son
Chris and they have kindly agreed to sit
down with me for a chat. So
Mary told us about the other
establishments that came before Fountains
Cafe and how there was a disaster in
its early days. Chris: Mum and Dad used
to have the cafe, which is now part
of the Alhambra, just going up Godwin
Street, is it? Mary: Morley Street.
Chris: Morley Street, sorry. Lauren: Ok.
Mary: Above the Alhambra.
Chris: Above the Alhambra.
So they used to have a cafe called
Metropolis.
Mary: That was our first one. Chris: That was the first one, first cafe
Mary: In Bradford.
After Metropolis, it was the
Continential at Godwin Street.
And then we got the Fiesta
on Market Street. Chris: So the
Continental was a ...
Mary: The Continental then we opened
downstairs, the first part in the
basement as Romantica Club, and then
we knocked a hole through the
wall further up the street in
the basement and made it The Hole
in the Wall disco. And then the Fountains
was the last one we opened. Chris: Yes,
I was born in 1968. So the Fountains
opened. It was when, in the old John
Street Market. Mary: And then we got
burnt down in the fire. Great
fire. Horrendous.
Chris: Certainly the Fountains, they've
retained, you've retained the
character haven't you
since it... Mary: We've retained it all
the while even after fire we
got back to the same structure
and everything. Lauren: Fantastic.
Chris: So the decor is very
retro, 19-late 60s. Which is obviously,
it's time-less to be quite
honest with you, some would say that, you
know, it's it needs an upgrade, but
obviously that's what the attraction is
for a lot of the old Bradfordians.
And even, even new Bradfordians. Mary: It
was a really nice set of
customers we had, regulars, old
and young, each generation came
one after the other, grandparents,
mothers and children. Lauren: Fantastic.
Lauren: Over the years, they had
some famous faces.
So they had the Metropolis. And David Hockney, when he was not well known, used to come in. And he used to do sketches on the napkins that we had.
And he used to do sketches on the
napkins that we had.
My dad must have thought they were rubbish and threw them away.
He knew him quite well.
The film crews were attracted to
the Fountains, pure and simple, because
of the decor inside and when you're
looking at a film set and you're doing a
70s style, 80s style, or 60s style film
or documentary, it saves building a film
set when you can just, you've got it
already there for you. So we
had, as you've probably aware, the Great
Train Robbery Part 1 and 2. And then
Part 2 was Jim Broadbent.
He was there and obviously I remember
upstairs they had the green room where
they used to sit outside in the old
courtyard. I remember Jim Broadbent
being sat there, you know, in between
his scenes and had a chat with him and,
lovely chap, and he remembered the old
Greek Turkish
cafes in Bradford when he was younger.
We had Maxine Peake there from, she
was filming Funny Cow as well, a film, so
she came. Maxine Peake, Mary: Yes
. Chris: She met my mum.
Lauren: Mary talks about how it was hard
work and all the family used to pitch in
to help. Chris: It's hard work is
catering. Mary: It's very hard. I mean,
when you're making all
different dishes. Moussaka. Lasagna. Braised steak.
And all those, they all take time, it's time-consuming.
All the children have worked in, in
the school holidays. Lauren: Ok.
Mary: You know everything,
they've all helped and Saturdays if we're
being stuck, they've come and helped.
Chris: So we had to come on, you
know, when we were abit older, we have
to come on the bus onto the cafe
and work in a cafe on
Saturdays, you know. Just, just ,
so we've lived and breathed that cafe
environment for a long time, many years,
and to the extent where I got my own
job. But I always used to go on Saturday
to help out even when I was working full
time because obviously you just have it
in your blood, really. I mean you've,
you've enjoyed it, haven't you?
Mary: I've enjoyed every minute of it.
You know it was hard work then. We used
to work hard. Go work all day, come home
get the kids ready for bed, get the
babysitter, my aunty, the babysitter. Get
ready, go out to a dinner dance or I'd have a
dinner party. It was nice
when we finished not to do
book-keeping. Chris: So my mum was still involved, weren't you, right until the end.
Mary: Until '23.
Chris: So she
used to do all the books still even at,
when she was, you know, 84, 85
she was still
involved weren't you? Mary: Yes. Chris: Still
used to go to the cafe,
still, you know, speak to the
customers, walk round, didn't you?
Mary: Yes. My son
Michael, he ran it
for me didn't he? Chris: Yes he did.
Mary: I'd just supervise it
all. Chris: He was there right until the
very, very end. A lot of our
customers up to the end will know Michael
well. Lauren: I think that's what makes
it so unique is that the three
generations. Mary: Yes.
Lauren: You know, and having that kind of
personal link and connection to it and
the kind of consistency for customers as
well going in, you know, it didn't matter
whether they were going in one day and
then you know, 55 years later, it's still
the same
family behind it. Chris: Correct. No,
it's true. Mary: I mean, when I used to
go in, I used to pop in, you know,
just to check everything and the
customers were like 'Mary's here', 'Look at Mary'.
Lauren: Mini celebrity when
you walk in. Chris: But even, I mean
the great testimony, when my dad sadly
passed
away, Telegraph and Agus did a big piece on him on
the front page, which
was, you know, which was nice because
everybody knew him in the market in
Bradford. And I think as
well, the beauty about it was, that they
always related to my mum and dad,
didn't they?Mary: Yeah. Chris: Everybody
used to, you know, my dad used to sit
in the window on his chair looking
outside all the time. And he always used
to wear a suit. Lauren: When we were in
the closed cafe unit, taking the objects
out, people were bobbing in, you
know, 'What, what you doing?' 'What's
going on here?'. So we're telling them
and someone said that, and said 'this is
the window and the chair that the owner
used to sit in'. Other people
remember that. Mary: Always
a suit and tie. Chris: That's right. I
mean, he was 89 when he died, but he was
still working in, you know, he'd go to
the cafe when he was about 88.
Still there, you know, every day
obviously sat on his chair and he'd get
up and down and meet the customers. You
can see he's head print, actually, on the
back of the Formica.
Lauren: Yeah, we saw that. So the two big
questions that I had were 'why was
Fountains called Fountains?' And 'who did
the mural and the painting of the
fountains?'. The reason why it was called
the Fountains is because, obviously, you
may not know this, but there was a there
was a fountain in the entrance of the
market. Mary: Oh, yes. Chris: So the
original market
had a fountain in it. Mary: Before the
fire. Lauren: Could you tell me a little
bit about the artwork, the artist behind
it. Mary: It was Geoffrey Beck from
Halifax. He did that and he had a fountain
. And we had water coming from underneath
and it came up, came round and down
into the fountains and it kept doing
that, circulating all the while , and
we had lights on to it. He put
lights on to it and it was fantastic.
And then the fire came. He didn't want
to replace it. And so
he did the one of the
Italian fountains. He used to do
the Victoria Theatre scenery for there,
that's how.
Lauren: Ah, yes, I can see that now with the painting in particular, it does look like a back-drop.
Mary: Yes, he used to do sceneries
you see for the theatres. Lauren: What
did the family think of the new
display?Chris: T
hat's what, you know, that's what I
think Bradford's all about. You
know, we've got to retain your
character. You got to
retain your nostalgia because once it's
gone, it's gone. Which is why
it's really good that the Fountains
interior and a bit of the exterior
has been retained. You know,
it's testimony to Bradford Council that
the Museums, that this has happened.
Thank you. A massive thank you
to Chris and Mary there for being so
generous in sharing all of their stories
and memories about Fountains Cafe with
us. A big thank you to the family for
all their support throughout this
process. And if you haven't seen it yet,
get yourself down to Bradford Industrial
Museum and see the new Fountains Cafe
display.