Holbeck is magic 05.10.11

There are two parts of Original Bearings. There is the performance which happens on the 14th and 15th at 730 or 930 which you can buy tickets for (although you should hurry as there's only a couple left). That's great.

And then there is the installation. The installation begins today. It is made up of 100 "For Sale" style signs that will be put up throughout Holbeck over the next week. Each sign has a story typed on it. 100 different stories about Holbeck.
Some have been told to us by people- like the lovely folk at St Matthew's Community Centre today where we swopped Holbeck Pies made by Growlers of Pudsey for stories about Holbeck.  Then again some stories have been found in history books or websites concentrating on the past like www.leodis.net
Others have been whispered to us, half remembered conversations with people over the last few months as we have explained the project to folk. And some we've made up.

One of the team for the show is Dominic Gately- a great actor and writer. He found Tsar street on a map the other day and set about, with a little help with a history book, to create a lovely story about the Tsar and Holbeck.
There was hesitancy.
"Do we have a problem about making stuff up?" worried the brilliant writer Mark Catley who is leading the project. There began a long conversation about the morality of this and we decided that we'd put the sign to one side and see how we felt in a couple of days.

So Dom sits down today with a man of some years at St Matthew's Community Centre who proceeds- completely unprovoked and without ANY knowledge of what we've been up to this week- to tell Dom the story of when the Tsar came to visit Holbeck. Dom looked about, half expecting it to be a wind up by the rest of us. But no, it wasn't us. True story.

That's been the secret joy of the last ten days. Holbeck is magic. Every day another surprise has been waiting for us; sheep used to graze on the roof of a nearby building; England played Australia at cricket once just round the corner; old men tell us stories that we are sure we made up just days before.

Before we started work on this project no one had ever told me that a spitfire had crash landed in Holbeck.

Back to it.

Alan