It is the setting of the BBC crime series and has a history of UFO sightings, but Calder Valley also has another claim to fame: an uncanny ability to align with government changes
On the third Tuesday of each month, the Todmorden UFO Society meets above the Golden Lion pub near the centre of this West Yorkshire town nestled beneath the Pennine slopes of the Calder Valley.
Its UFO history was referenced in Happy Valley, the hit BBC police crime drama series filmed in the area. Little old Tod also boasts two Nobel Prize winners, including John Cockroft, who split the atomic nucleus. The area’s extensive literary connections include the Brontë sisters – Wuthering Heights was set on nearby moors – while poetsTod has one other claim to fame – the Calder Valley constituency of which it is part has swung with every change in UK government for more than 50 years.
Labour councillor Josh Fenton-Glynn is odds-on to take Calder Valley next week at the fourth time of asking; he missed out by just 600 votes in 2017. The latest YouGov poll for the constituency puts Labour on 46.5 per cent versus 26.5 per cent for the Tories, whose candidate Vanessa Lee is defending the seat previously held by Craig Whittaker, a former Tory whip.
Wild said the Calder Valley area with its textiles past was different from Yorkshire’s old mining areas, influencing its political mindset. If a miner lost his job, he had little else. But in textiles areas workers could move from one factory to another. Although defeat beckons, Lee is campaigning hard. Her placards are visible on approach roads to all the valley’s eastern towns. Last week, she also engaged with Labour-leaning Tod voters over its lack of GP surgeries. Wild said there were always Conservative clubs even in these Labour areas. His father was chair of a local Labour club but also joined the Conservative club “because it had a good snooker table”.
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