'I'm visiting Bradford for City of Culture and I'm blown away'

More than a million people have engaged with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture projects halfway through the city's year in the spotlight, according to its organisers.

Bradford 2025 said its events had attracted 1.1 million people since its outdoor opening ceremony that featured a performance by magician Stephen Frayne, so the BBC spoke to Bradford residents to find out the impact the performances, exhibitions and shows have had on their lives.

Taking in the sunny summer weather was 40-year-old Raqeeb Mohammed.

He said he had attended the Tape Letters exhibition at The Loading Bay, which resonated with him because of his Pakistani heritage.

The displays told the story of the custom of recording messages on cassettes and sending them back to friends and family by Pakistani migrants to the UK from the 1960s to 1980s.

"It was really refreshing and really nice listening to the old immigrants speak about what it was like when they first came here," said Mr Mohammed.

He added that he wanted Bradford's multiculturalism to be more of a feature of City of Culture.

"You've got people from all walks of life here," Mr Mohammed said.

"That's what makes us different.

"We all live here, our kids are growing up together, we're embedded with each other."

On a nearby bench was Tahera Azim, 33, whose main takeaway from Bradford 2025 was that the city centre has become much more family-friendly with more green spaces.

Bradford has undergone a major regeneration and pedestrianisation project in preparation for the year of cultural events.

"I've not gone to anything yet, but the literature festival is going to happen now so there's a few different talks on," she said.

"I've got a nine-month-old as well so I'll probably bring him to the storytelling events.

"There are events at the university with speakers from Palestine, so I'd love to go to see them as well."

A fan of poetry, Ms Azim said she would like to see more spoken word performances from Muslim women in the second half of the year.

More than 40,000 local people have participated in Bradford 2025 activity so far, and more than 500 local artists and organisations have been involved in the programme.

Lisa Nandy, secretary of state for culture, media and sport, thanked the 2,000 volunteers "who have helped to make this happen".

"I hope to see the district go from strength to strength in the second half of their year as UK City of Culture, with even more people getting involved in the great variety of events over the summer holidays," Nandy added.

Playing some tunes in the centre was Bradford's "music man", Cleveland Simmons.

Those who have spent any time in the city centre will have seen 82-year-old Mr Simmons with his boom box playing some beats for the people of Bradford.

"Fairly good," he said when asked how he thought the year of culture was going.

He added: "From what I've seen, the infrastructure has been worked on greatly."

Enjoying the music was Vanessa Taylor, 38, who was a student at the University of Bradford 12 years ago and was back visiting after she returned to her home country of Bermuda.

"I know they have a lot of events coming that I'm looking forward to attending," she said.

Valerie Barnaby-Hunter, 69, who was wearing a UK City of Culture badge, added: "It's gone well so far, but they need to put some more things in place for the youngsters.

"Something for when they leave school that they can attend the evening."

Many of those who were well-informed about the events programme were those visiting the city from further afield.

Alexandra Bowen, 64, travelled up from Kent from a knitting convention, but said she came across City of Culture listings while researching her trip.

"I've been here for four or five days on my own exploring," she said.

"I'm blown away by the city.

"People honestly said to me 'why are you going to Bradford?', because unfortunately it hasn't had a very good reputation.

"I love what's happened here in the city centre and I've been to a lot of the museums, I'm really impressed."

Mary Millar, 67, from York, and Alison Harris, 63, from Nottingham, were visiting Bradford for the first time when they told the BBC about their impressions of the city.

"We're only here for a couple of days and there's plenty to do," Ms Millar said.

"Neither of us know Bradford so it's been really nice to wander around and get a little bit lost."

Ms Harris added: "I really enjoyed the [David] Hockney exhibition when we went up to Lister Park, because I've followed Hockney for years.

"It was a really unique exhibition that showed his work from the 1940s."

Shanaz Gulzar, creative director of Bradford UK City of Culture 2025, said: "To be able to say that 1.1 [million people] estimated so far have been a part of this year is fantastic."

She added: "We've had amazing projects delivered in the first half of the year, we also have amazing projects about to be delivered in the second half of the year."

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