Tall tales and true: of Yorkshire moors and the byways of Surrey: The painter and the philanthropist

We have been a couple of days away from Filey this week, staying in a lovely hotel as we hunted down the works of David Hockney in the town where he grew up. A 'gothic' childhood, Hockney remembers, growing up in Bradford, which had been one of the centres of wool and worsted production since the industrial revolution, where, way back, factories smudged the sky and fouled the land. Buildings, then, were black with pollution, and water was disease ridden. In the 18th century immigrants poured into Bradford seeking wool work at the mills. The city could not cope with the numbers and their lives were grim and desperate. Children as young as nine, were employed at the work. Most died before they were 20. A twenty year life span, if they were lucky. It is simply unthinkable.

We found Hockney's work in two places: the Salt Mills wool factory, and Cartwright Hall. We followed his evolution as he turned his dark childhood memories into light, bright, magical pieces as if he had singularly discovered light and sunshine.

Hockney's work in the Salt Mills is displayed on the walls of two flagged floors of a woollen mill that had been built in the 19th century by a young Bradford man, Titus Salt, who had learned the wool business from the bottom up by working with his father, Daniel. Titus was a Congregationalist and philanthropist. He hated the filth and disease of Bradford. He thought like an entrepreneur. He bought Donskoi wool from Russia and Alpaca from South America when others did not care to handle these very different fibres. He overcame weaving difficulties of both by buying dedicated factories and learning how to successfully weave and blend them. He soon became rich and famous. He is reputed to have made Queen Victoria's mourning clothes as his light and lovely wools were the first that could be worn year round. He had long anguished over the pitiful state of his workers so when he had the money he determined to built a model factory and a model town for them down by the river, just a few miles away from the black hell that Bradford was then. This he did. It opened in 1853.

Today the entire town, called Saltaire, with its beautiful clean Italianate architecture has now become a UNESCO site with its comfortable homes for the mill workers, its hospital, shops, public buildings, mill and churches all sloping downhill to the massive green park split by the delightful river. Wonderful to see what he designed and created.

Salt's descendants lost control of the village and the mill over the decades after his death. The village and its stock finally went to a property consortium, broken up gradually, and sold piece by piece. The mill, named Salt Mill after Titus, was sold separately until it came into the hands of a local, Jonathan Silver, another Bradford boy made good, who went to the same school as David Hockney and was passionate, from the beginning, about David's work. Jonathan bought the mill with the intention of displaying Hockney works there, while letting the remaining spaces. Two floors of the mill is where we found much of David's work hanging, and there is so much to see. He is incredibly prolific. We followed this visit with another display of his work set up in the beautiful Cartwright Hall, just a couple of kilometres away in the park. So we were lucky to spend the better part of two days viewing his etchings, his lithographs, his theatrical set furniture, his graphic illustrations, his first steps building up to, then creating, his swimming pool series, along with an entire floor devoted to his 'Arrival of Spring' series, all painted around where we are living and driving daily while in Yorkshire, so we see bits of him everywhere there.

On the way home this afternoon we called in at Ampleforth Abbey again, to join the once a week tour offered by one of the remaining monks. That was a delightful experience with an anarchic monk of the Benedictine order espousing at great length on architecture, history of the Benedictines since before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the current state of world politics. We all enjoyed it. A delightful way to spend a couple of hours.