We moved to Leeds at beginning of September 1981. We had been living in York (my home city) and when my husband took his first teaching post in Pudsey were were faced with moving to a big city. I was not keen on the idea as we had two small children, Richard 5yrs and Rosey 2 ½ . The Yorkshire Ripper (Peter Sutcliffe) had only recently been captured and until then I resisted moving.

We looked at many properties all over north Leeds before finding our present house in Cookridge. The morning after we moved a friend of a friend in York turned up to see if we needed help unpacking etc. Jenny was the first of many friends we have made over the past 40 years. Richard started at Cookridge Primary School two days after we moved and Rosey went to Toddlers Group one afternoon a week, before joining Play Group when she was three. Play Group had two paid supervisors and ran it with the help of volunteer Mums. As Mums we each took our turn of duty helping.

I also joined a Babysitting Circle. This gave us more freedom to go out than if we’d had to pay a babysitter. There were about 12 in the group, all living locally, so there was never a problem finding someone to babysit.

I joined a badminton class at Horsforth School and an afternoon sewing class at Benton Park School. My new neighbour took me along to NHR (National Housewives Register, now National Women’s Register). It was a national women’s group whereby women could meet and share stimulating topics of conversation/activities –“ anything but kitchen sink talk”. I made some good friends through this and a few of us still meet regularly as a Book Group to discuss reading. As a family we also joined Airienteers, the local Orienteering Club. This was a good way to meet people who enjoyed the outdoors, enjoyed map-reading and were competitive. It was a good family sport where children of all ages could compete as well as adults up to the age of c80. Through orienteering we met some interesting people, made good friends and competed at some wonderfully wild and beautiful places, especially in Scotland.

Living in Leeds has given us good opportunities, like living close to Wharfedale’s natural beauty as well as the benefit of living in a big city. Leeds has lots of beautiful parks and open spaces which are all very well managed and thankfully well used by residents of the city. Thank you to all the work done by Leeds City Council’s Parks & Recreation staff.