Read all about it: From bookish Bradford’s City of Culture legacy to the nationwide Year of Reading 2026
22nd Ebrill 2026
Over the past three decades about £1billion of National Lottery funds has backed writing and reading. Thanks to National Lottery players this funding story has grown across more than 30 years into an epic tale featuring countless characters:
- Thousands of book clubs, reading groups, libraries and literary organisations, publishers and people around the UK.
- Hundreds of books, from the first ‘Encyclopaedia of Wales’ to ‘The Book of Bradford’ (see below).
- Layers of funding to key organisations, like the £55m between The Book Trust (England/UK), The Scottish Book Trust and Northern Ireland BookTrust (all one word).
- Major grants to big institutions like The British Library, totalling close to £20m so far.
- Special events like a weekend’s storytelling in Conwy, Wales (the smallest grant to a reading event).
“Place is key to all of this,” says writer Nick Ahad. He’s summing up The Book of Bradford, a collection of short stories by 11 different Bradfordians or folks with strong ties to the city.
The book was commissioned by Bradford 2025 – the City of Culture year, hugely helped by £15m of money raised by National Lottery players. And the book’s been published by Comma Press, a literary organisation regularly funded by Arts Council England using National Lottery funds.
The 11 short stories give locals, visitors, or any reader different takes on Bradford and its people. So, what sets apart Nick’s story?
“I have a particular contemporary British Asian experience,” Nick explains. “My dad's Bangladeshi, my mum's white. I've got this mixed heritage and that’s what I explore in my writing for screen and stage."
How did this short story opportunity arise?
"Saima Mir [the book’s editor] asked me if I wanted to be part of The Book of Bradford. I said, yes, and then my next email was: Can I please have The Sweet Centre?”
What sparked Nick’s story?
“Place was key to it,” Nick recalls. “Saima Mir (the book’s editor) asked me if I wanted to be part of The Book of Bradford. I said, yes, and then my next line was: Can I please have The Sweet Centre?”
Why did you want the particular setting for your story?
“The Sweet Centre is this place that has been in Bradford since 1964. Serving Asian breakfast to the Asian mill workers – Bangladeshis, Indians would get a real taste of home.”“When I was young, I’d go with my dad. Even though I am mixed race, I grew up in a white environment in Keighley, so every now and then it almost felt like I visited the other half of my family or the other half of who I was.”
Today, Nick explains, the story’s location is known by all Bradfordians.
"The Sweet Centre has become this iconic place in Bradford. It's down the street that became notorious as a setting for the TV series Band of Gold. It's sort of taken on this almost mythic status.”
Why the specific setting for your story?
“The Sweet Centre is this place that has been in Bradford since 1964. Serving Asian breakfast to the Asian mill workers – Bangladeshis, Indians would get a real taste of home.”
“When I was young, I’d go with my dad. Even though I am mixed race, I grew up in a white environment in Keighley, so every now and then it almost felt like I visited the other half of my family or the other half of who I was.”
Nick explains that, today, the story’s location is known by all Bradfordians.
“The Sweet Centre has become this iconic place in Bradford. It's down the street that became notorious as a setting for the TV series Band of Gold. It's sort of taken on this almost mythic status.”
Nick's story tells of a key moment between a father and son. Why?
“What I did was think about a moment of deep change. So, I put these two characters in a room to see what happens when you have ‘the pressure cooker’ moment?”
The story certainly gives off both the heat of the kitchen and the heat of the moment.
“I love that – for me, the beauty of reading and writing is that the reader will bring something to it that you might not necessarily have put in there yourself.”
The story tells of a key moment between a father and son. Why? “What I did was think about a moment of deep change. So, I put these two characters in a room to see what happens when you have ‘the pressure cooker’ moment?”
The story certainly gives off both the heat of the kitchen and the heat of the moment. “I love that – for me, the beauty of reading and writing is that the reader will bring something to it that you might not necessarily have put in there yourself.”
How does Nick sum up what The Book of Bradford book tells of the place and its people?
“Our city is made up of massive moments, like City of Culture, and small moments. My narrative is about small moments, of fathers and sons talking in a little curry house, on a backstreet. We’re a complex, beautiful, brilliant city, and I think that this book tells that story.”
The Book of Bradford is a fitting legacy from the City of Culture celebrations in 2025. Any reader can savour, learn from, and discuss its unique stories for years to come. Yet what better time than now: 2026, The National Year of Reading?
Footnote
Bradford is not unique in its bookish nature, of course. The money raised for good causes by National Lottery players has backed writing and reading in every part of the UK. Authors and book clubs, reading groups, literary organisations, festivals, libraries, as well as literacy for children... and that's not even half the story.
