It seems most contributors have moved away after leaving school, never to return to live in Keighley.

Is it because KBGS enabled them to move to "posher" places, or is that Keighley just didn't have the opportunities to employ graduates/well-educated young men?

I know my father moved from Keighley for a better job, but then spent the rest of his career waiting to retire to Yorkshire!

Well, Portofino it ain't, which could be one dominant factor, but I suspect there are as many reasons as there are old boys.

Chris, you say your father always wanted to get back to Yorkshire, but does that mean he was burning to get back to Keighley? Having a beer in the Turkey at Goose Eye, or the Tempest at Elslack, is a great and glorious thing; being stuck in a bleak boozer in Keighley inspires vein-opening urges.

I suspect most people in Keighley would rather be somewhere else. Career and family are the main drivers; once you start following that bouncing ball, buying property and having kids, it's unlikely you'll return. It's a big world and Keighley is a very small part of it - but I imagine for most diasporants KBGS did play a significant part in helping us move on. Or perhaps it gave us a reason for moving on.

Each to his own - there are worse places than Keighley. But there are also many better.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-57

Current location (optional) melbourne

I remember clearly what prompted my move to Oz. In 1965 I had gone on a camping holiday to St Ives in Cornwall with Stuart Proctor (a KBGSer?) and it simply poured rain incessantly. So much so that we quit after a couple of days and headed back home. My parents recall that I said - in my best Yorkshire accent - "I'm not workin' all't'year just to on 't'olidays and forrit 't' rain all't'day - I'm goin' 't' Australia". They said if I was going then they were going too and believe it or not we landed in Oz about 6 months later. It all just happened so quickly - and it only cost us 10 quid each.
And yes, I really do miss the Yorkshire Dales and their pubs, the history, the traditions and Rugby Union (Victoria is an Aussie Rules State - bloody silly game!) and ironically I miss the rain, we are still in the grip of a 7 year drought.
And of course I find it hard to believe that I would have done as well as I have had I stayed in Keighley. I live in a wonderful part of the Surf Coast, a great home on 2 acres with an oil producing olive grove.
At least I am now in a position to make return trips every 3 or 4 years and I intend to do just that. You can take the lad out of Yorkshire but you can't take Yorkshire out of the lad!

Cheers
TP

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 56 --63

Current location (optional) Torquay, Oz

>>Chris, you say your father always wanted to get back to Yorkshire, but does that mean he was burning to get back to Keighley?

No, in fact he wanted to live in one of the nicer villages near Keighley or Skipton -- but not in Keighley itself. He finally decided on a spacious house in Earby. He never liked having a BB postcode though, and always insisted he was still in the West Riding!

Chris--I've given your question a bit of thought as it is such a long time ago since the decision was made.I think it was a combination of several factors.Climate(affecting health)and the possibility of a better future.In those post war days it was hard to see too far ahead.We were still on rationing----I clearly remember handing in my ration book at Tilbury before I boarded the ship which took me to Australia.Strangely enough to the same place where Trevor Pickles journeyed to many years later.Although I live in NZ now(I married a NZ girl) and have for over 40 years,Geelong is still very much close to me as I have many close friends there and we visit every couple of years.I have made contact with Trevor a couple of years ago.It is hard to measure if I would have done as well for myself if I had stayed in Yorkshire,but maybe opportunities have opened up for me downunder that might not have at home.I know many English folk who have no sentiment for the old country but for my own part,all my friends know I am a Yorkshireman,even though I may not have a Yorkshire accent these days.I have fond memories of growing up there,even though times were tough through the war,and after.I passed the County Minor Scholarship as did your dad,which qualified me for entry to KBGS and I am thankful for the start in life that I got at the school. I guess I was looking for a better life than I could see available to me at that time.To be fair,I was enthused and encouraged by the visit in 1953 from a relative who had emigrated to Australia pre war and painted glowing pictures of the place.I get fairly regular visits from different friends and relatives from Keighley and without exception they all think I live in Paradise.Maybe that is a bit strong but it certainly takes some beating for me.I seem to have waffled a bit there but you get my drift !Cheers.PS Chris---- Tonight we are entertaining visitors from Singapore---people do get around these days,eh?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 47-51

Current location (optional) Auckland NZ

Just noticed this thread and been having a think about it. Maybe the answer to the question, as far as many ex-KBGS students are concerned, is "because they can".
I recall, as a young child, looking out of my bedroom window at what seemed like a huge hill at the time and wanting to be out there, over the other side, just to see what it was like. So the move to university and subsequent career moves usually involved going somewhere new "to see what it was like". Never managed to work abroad though - I used the thumb to help me see what that was like. Only returned to Yorkshire as a result of meeting my wife.
Everyone's story will be different, but for some of us moving away was a part of growing and finding who we were.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

Journeys

When I was salad green,
knee high to a bookcase,
long winter evenings I lay,
legs crooked, chin cupped,
folded in fancy
beside the great oven of our bakery,
thence, I’d circumnavigate
on the magic carpet of my Atlas and Gazette.

My fingers dared the Hindu Kush
where daylong shadows loomed
and echoes upon echoes flew.

Across the walls of Ulan Bator
winds from the long plains
plucked at my padded tunic;
carried the distant thunder
of the great Khan's hordes,
marauding westwards.

I have heard the wolf gales
howl over Novaya Zemlya's shores
where cities of ice slide through silent seas
and the lone seal barks.

Astrakhan, Petra, Panama, Tiero del Fuego
slid under my fingers
where I roamed with the winds and currents

Mastless I’ve homed on Ithaca.

Tundra, steppe, pampas, prairie, desert,
equatorial forests dim – all were my domain
as winter beat its rain-run wings
against my windows.

Later, I accepted more modest contours;
imagination fettered, I was bound
by the proscriptions of reality;
my world coloured
an even and undemanding brown.

Fate winked,
since when, I've wound my way
twice round this planet home;
winged over reefs
and seas of unbelievable blues;
watched dolphins shepherd tuna for the kill,
beneath an umbrella of frigates
black against a murderous light;
seen flying fishes flitter and skim
as luminous wakes unfurled abaft;
watched petals fall on midnight forest pools.

All my oven-coddled dreams come true
and yet I have come home.

Home?
The peaty reek of sodden moors,
The wind off the tops a whetted blade,
rain horizontal, thick with sleet,
paths paddled to mud
under the curlew’s lonely cry,
along the ragged outcrops of the scarp.

I emigrated because I had no choice in the matter, I was only 14 and went where my parents took me, missed Yorkshire dreadfully for at least a year before I decided to start enjoying everything that Australia had to offer me, and believe me it really had a lot in the early 60s.

What really shook me was about 10 years ago I was wandering through a grave yard in Beechworth, Victoria. This is an old gold mining town, I found the grave of Josiah Horsfall of Balcony near Haworth, he died in 1847, almost 100 years to the date before I was born. This really made me think, I knew kids in Haworth who had never been to Bradford, for whom a trip to Keighley was a major event, yet here was a man who had left Haworth in the early 1800's, he was quite old when he died, to seek his fortune.

I sent a photo of the grave to my sister in law in Haworth, she showed it to the orsfall family in Haworth, they said, "We allus wondered what 'appened to 'im"

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-61

Current location (optional) Blue Mountains via Haworth

John's story about finding the gravestone of an ex-Haworth citizen in far off Australia makes me realise how brave and adventurous these early travellers were. Even growing up in the Keighley area in the 50s, our horizons were severely limited. A trip to Bradford or Leeds was quite a thing to do and my dad's annual treat, a coach trip overnight to London (pre-motorway days) was like a trip to the moon. We often used to sit at Marley watching the trains go by, labelled with exotic destinations, such as Bristol Temple Meads or Exeter St. David's. I had a conversation with my 32 year old son, and that generation can't grasp the vast change in their opportunities to travel, compared with ours.

The education at KGBS, I think, put us into the situation of having to look for employment further afield because the jobs we were then qualified for, certainly in my case, didn't exist in Keighley. Once you've moved away, you can never really move back and expect to drop into the circuit you left. Oddly enough, there seems to be a great resentment at one's leaving, as if it's an insult. Strangely, my local station is now Exeter St. David's. I'm glad that John is now more than happy after his initial trauma.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-63

Current location (optional) Exeter, Devon

I must say I enjoy Arthur Seeley's poetry. They have a marvellous 'Boy's Own' quality to them. Which I find particularly relevant in the centenary of the Boy Scouts movement.

As regards emigration, it would be unusual for a young man not to consider living and working overseas at some time during his working life. Although I believe the opportunities to do so are less now than they would have been in 40s, 50s and sixties.

Might be interestig to know why so my people from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa emigrate to Keighley and West Yorkshire? Just a thought.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1961-68

Current location (optional) Ireland