Happy 100th birthday to Dora Lunn of Fryston

One of six sisters (one of whom died in infancy) and two brothers, Dora was born close to Fryston Pit entrance - in one of the overcrowded back-to-back houses in Oxford Street. Her father, Sam Holmes, was a Shropshire-born miner who came to Fryston aged eight, while her mother, Edith Bairstow, was a Castleford-born glass bottle blower.

Dora recalled how, in the late 1920s, the family moved ‘up the hill’ (both physically and socially) into the more exclusive setting of Brook Street.

She said: "My mam, who was a generally shy woman, barged into the manager’s office to insist that he honour his pledge by giving her the first house to come vacant in the village.

"The boss, who was feared by all the miners, tried to tell her that the house was on Brook Street which was built solely for the deputies. “But you bloody promised!” my mam shouted back. And sensing that it was futile to argue any further, he handed her the keys."

Dora remembers the Fryston of the pre and post-war years as a superbly friendly, self-sufficient and mutually supportive place in which to live: "The people of the village looked out for one another, laughed together, and took collective pride in our honest, hard-working way of life," she said.

On leaving school aged 14, Dora worked briefly at Burton’s the tailors in Leeds. By this time, her older sister, Elsie, was working in domestic service for the local publican, Sam Williamson. It was Elsie who recommended that Dora change jobs and take on a similar role for Williamson’s son, George, who was a dentist on Bank Street, Castleford and resident of Ackworth. Although George and his wife treated Dora well, she quickly grew homesick and successfully pleaded with her mother to allow her to stay at home.

Fortunately for her, Dora was offered a similar job closer for home as domestic servant for the charismatic Fryston pit boss, and soon to be celebrated writer, broadcaster and founder-president of the British Association of Colliery Managers, Jim Bullock.

With the outbreak of World War Two, she became a munitions worker at the Royal Ordnance Factory in Thorp Arch, Wetherby. This was followed by spells as a Fryston Pit canteen worker and shop assistant for the village butcher.

Dora’s working life was irreversibly changed for the better following Jim Bullock’s retirement in the mid-1950s as Fryston Colliery manager. It was at this point that Bullock and his second wife set up home with their two young children in the converted stables of Swillington House near Leeds.

Though initially reluctant to take on the daily travel involved, Dora eventually accepted Mrs Bullock’s flattering invitation to re-enter domestic service, a position she continued to occupy until 1992.

Jim Bullock’s enhanced celebrity saw Dora rubbing shoulders with the great and good of the era, such as the controversial chairman of the National Coal Board, Lord Robens, the television presenter and future MP for Grimsby, Austin Mitchell, and the Leeds United and England legend, Jackie Charlton.

Dora was already in her forties when she met and married Trevor Lunn, who was an English and drama teacher at Carleton Secondary Modern School in Pontefract.

They spent a happy 32 years together until Trevor’s death in 1997.

It was Trevor’s unerring knack of bringing the best out of his pupils, and occasionally launching them on professional acting careers, which resulted in Dora coming into contact with the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Gere, and the acclaimed director John Schlesinger.

Trevor had recommended two of his pupils for small parts in Wetherby, a film in which he also had a brief speaking role. At the subsequent premiere, Dora engaged in a long and fascinating conversation with Ms Redgrave – who complimented Trevor on his acting and teaching abilities and came across, in Dora’s words, as ‘an immensely modest and genuine person.’

When three more of Trevor’s protégés were given parts in Yanks, John Schlesinger invited the Lunns to attend three consecutive days of filming.

At one post-production buffet, the film’s star, Richard Gere, came running, half-naked, through the room. "I don’t think that Mr Schlesinger was totally impressed,’ said Dora. "But Richard Gere was absolutely wonderful with Trevor’s lads, and was very charming and accommodating when Trevor asked if he could take a photo of us all."

That photograph has since become legendary within the family. According to Dora, "Every time Pretty Woman comes on the telly, one of my nieces or nephews says, “Look at Julia Roberts with one of Auntie Dora’s cast-offs!”’

Before the onset of the current pandemic, Dora could regularly be spotted determinedly winding her way round Castleford town centre in the company of her close friend, Dot Townend. "I can scarcely see a thing, and she is hard of hearing, so we learned to compensate for one another," said Dora.

Nowadays, Dora tends to stay closer to home, where her daily meals are served up by her niece, Janet (who lives in Glasshoughton), and other members of Janet’s immediate family; or failing that, her nephew, Paul, and his close relatives who happily travel across from Wakefield.

These arrangements are a testament to the love they all feel for the ‘Queen Mother’, as she is affectionately known. Though she never had children of her own, Dora’s nephew, David Waddington, a professor at Sheffield Hallam University, recently spoke for his generation of the family in dedicating the first volume of his recent book on Fryston to ‘Our Dor’, his ‘second mother’. ‘

"She’s been a great teacher, moral compass and role model to us all,’ Dave said. "I talk to her every night on the phone – more for my sake than hers, if I’m honest.

"She looked after me when I was a baby and my mam was ill in hospital, bought me my first coat, bike and two-foot effigy of Donald Duck. And she still nags at me to wrap up warm!

"It’s for these reasons, rather than any sense of obligation, that we all rally round so eagerly to help her," said Janet. "She’s always been there for every one of us, showing unconditional love. She’s an uplifting and reassuring presence in all our lives, and long may that continue."