Refugee Boy
Shake The Dust
Young Theatre Makers
LoservilleI grew up in Beeston, on top of the hill that looks out over Holbeck and the city - I went to school in Holbeck and have also worked there with South Leeds Youth Theatre in the years since. I've always felt sorry for Holbeck because I didn't think it had the strong identity and confidence of Beeston. It seemed like a rough, scruffy, soulless place but I think this is about my ego, the area I lived was just as bad but I think I pretended there was some noble spirit to it. So I looked down on Holbeck both physically and metaphorically.
Holbeck is currently a bit of a schizophrenic suburb - at the city end it has great restaurants and fancy arts organisations and lots of barristers' offices… at the motorway end it has piles of rubble next to rows of back to back houses… inbetween the two there are more abandoned buildings than I have ever seen in one place (in this country).
The rich history we've learnt about through this project, the vibrant area it used to be (not as long ago as you might think) and the stop/start development that's been going on, keeping it in a weird, half-demolished limbo… I feel even sorrier for it now, but for much more valid reasons. The people have been great, genuinely helpful and full of stories but, to a person, regretful of what it has become. The best way of getting this across is to tell you a story of what happened yesterday.
We took some pies in to the community centre, they went down well - one woman, Christine, was extremely impressed by the crust and was quizzing me as to who made them. I told her it was my mate in Pudsey and she asked for his details - she wondered if he would consider delivering pies to Holbeck? I said I thought he would if there were enough orders, then realized why she was making the request in the first place. There's no bakery in Holbeck, not one. There used to be a load, I can remember three myself that got regular lunchtime visits, there would also have been butchers that made their own meat pies, in desperation there were Co-op or Kwiksave pre-packed pies but, now, nothing. They have to travel into the city or to the White Rose - wait for a bus, deal with the crowds, carry heavy bags back to their house. We have a phrase in Leeds for being skint: "not a sausage", Well, for these poor sods it's "not a sausage roll". I really hope my mate can deliver for them.
I want to be transparent about what I think. There was a
pipe dream during the boom years to gentrify Holbeck and extend the
profit making city-centre and, when the money to achieve this ran
out, the people were left in a broken community. I hope I'm wrong,
but that's what it seems like.