Wakefield

The Pritchard family consisted of parents, Jane and Joe, and their two children, 15-year-old Philip and 12-year-old Diane.

In August 1966, they would buy a semi-detached post-war ex-council house at No. 30 East Drive in Pontefract, Yorkshire, which is just next to Wakefield.

The family were excited to move here because it was a bigger home for them and moving house in general is a very exciting thing.

And it was close to family.

According to local newspaper reports, as they arrived in the bullring, it slowly made its way round to the cathedral as the sound of revving motorbikes filled the city centre.

The procession of riders parked their bikes on the bullring before heading into the service, and after the service, the sub-dean of Wakefield Cathedral, Canon Tony McPherson, said...

There was today a genuine outpouring of grief and love both for Andy and Keira and also for Sarah and Mia and the applause as they left the cathedral was heartfelt.

Both Sarah and other members of the family made personal tributes which were read out and spoke of how kind and generous both Andy and Keira were and how they would always help anyone and Andy's love of life and laughter had kind of touched people.

And I delivered a session to the winning entrepreneurial students in China and Singapore.

I mean, how cool is that? I'm in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, talking to these really bright entrepreneurial 13 and 14 year olds on the other side of the world.

It's brilliant.

That's fantastic.

And how did you start playing rugby and what led you to find the gay rugby community?

So I'm from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, and rugby league has always been at the heart of our community.

It's really part of that working class Yorkshire story, and we'll talk a little bit about that later.

But all my life people said, you look like you'd be a good rugby player.

It is often said that Leeds lacks a mass transit system, but I don't think this is actually true.

It has electric suburban rail services to Skipton, Ilkley, Bradford, and down to Doncaster via Wakefield.

However, these services don't always run frequently, and they do not provide much in the way of connectivity within the urban core.

The diesel services that augment them to other locations in south and east Leeds are barely worth mentioning.

It was always like trams were the best thing they were kind of offering.

Anyway, right, for starters, West Yorkshire has four major urban hubs.

Those are, you know, besides Leeds, which is, of course, the largest, there is Bradford, Wakefield, and Huddersfield.

These create a sort of, like, squashed... rectangle shape and so became the backbone of my overall plans when I was looking at these with an additional diagonal link ensuring that Leeds has a direct connection to each of the other hubs.