A day in Gipton & Harehills -
An open letter from Elaine Donnellon
I’ve just returned from a weekend in Leeds, arriving on Saturday evening staying in an air b&b in a terraced house in the Burmantofts and Richmond Hill wards and then spending Sunday in Gipton and Harehills.
I’ve been asked to write about my experience there by one of the locals I befriended.
As a Scouser and life long member of the working classes, but long term London resident, an adopted cockney if you will, I really miss the Northern spirit, the realness of the North and its working class communities.
It’s not me being cliché to describe what I experienced as a perfect encapsulation of Northern working class spirit, a real sense of community. On these terraced streets, built for the factory workers and blue-collar workforces, on a very sunny Sunday afternoon it was easy to fall quickly for its charm, to be temporarily distracted away from the poverty and lack of opportunities that blight this area, like those that affectmany communities up and down the UK.
In Harehills, the housing development was part of a broader plan to escape the overcrowding of the city centre, with wider streets and detached houses initially envisioned, but closely packed back-to-backs ultimately being built.
An example in Harehills is Clifton Terrace, built in the early 1900s, which replaced a field with coal pits and a church. The houses are small, I knew that overcrowding is a problem without even inquiring, it was obvious, typical two up two down, one toilet, box rooms, small living spaces.
Myself and other members of the Green Party from London and Peterborough had joined Green Party Councillor Mothin Ali, in a newly acquired community green space, a small plot of land a few foot wide and long, but with bigger potential.
The now green space is attached to a community centre, situated on the corner at a crossroad, as we arrived Cllr Mothin Ali and other residents were bent over under the scorching sun, grafting, building a terrace and raised garden beds, having already planted fruit trees, tomatoes, chillies and a herb island. As we all worked to complete the project local children and passers by began to hang around, curious in what we were doing and after being invited to stand a little closer they then began to explore the area and had a mini guided tour by Mothin, soon learning that this is so much more their asset, than his.
There were some really wholesome moments, a mum stopped with her toddler to chat and through that interaction with her local councillor, he learnt that the mum had no access to childcare, and that accessible and affordable childcare support in this ward was inaccessible for many.
So whilst Mothin was getting stuck into gardening, with his can-do attitude and pragmatic approach, by being visible and immediately accessible right bang in the middle of his ward, he was able to naturally engage with local residents he’d not met before. We managed to speak with some local teenagers, who can be notoriously hard to engage with but they decided to chill with us for a while, enquiring about the work of the garden project and its community centre, they are its stakeholders too.
As we completed the work, residents sat in their front gardens, one had her arm chair out, families soaked up the sun rays as they sat on their front door steps, people were out enjoying the good weather.
This kinda reminded me of a Leeds summer day version of a scene out of Spike Lee’s ‘Do the right thing’ but with no brownstone nor water hydrants to cool down. I thought of ‘Da Mayor’ telling Spike Lee’s character Mookie to ‘do the right thing’, because this felt like ‘doing the right thing.
I’m a long term subscriber to this type of grassroots work, in working cohesively by starting in our own little small corners of the world and working our way out, scaling up.
This type of project is tangible for us all, with good will and determination.
I thought of what Liverpool’s Hazel Tilley spearheaded in Toxteth's Granby Four Streets project and I knew that this work in Leeds could make an impact to, one that you can see and feel, that benefits the majority.
Children played on the road, playing chase and football on narrow roads and in a fairly low traffic area, you had the sense that they were safe to play out without fear of being run over or from other harms, the community had sight of their children, a type of unorganised yet collective safeguarding. It reminded me of my childhood growing up in similar communities.
It was easy to see these communities through rose tinted specs, on a beautiful sunny day, when doing something meaningful and altruistic. I tried to imagine it at night time or in the winter months, to live here permanently, I had the feeling that it could also be quite ‘grim’. I don’t need to look up the statistics to know these wards are inflicted with a range of social issues: poor housing, overcrowding, high unemployment, high crime rates, lack of service provision, poor health outcomes, food insecurity and poorer mental wellbeing; their life expectancy on average a decade shorter than their more affluent neighbours just a mile up the road.
But this was a real community, diverse in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and religion, it felt cohesive.
I have walked in these people’s shoes but a snap shot and a weekend stay could never see their full story, but I recognise their tales and glad it was our tale that day.
After the graft we were all invited to a BBQ hosted by Mothin and his family. Upon arrival we were met with a beautiful garden they have built. Everything you can grow, grows there. With a tree house, a chicken shed, chick’s and a rooster and the family cat, all coexisted in harmony. We were fed like queens and kings and strangers soon became acquainted. We were all made to feel immediately welcome and I thought about what a peaceful space I was in. I then felt sad that this one man, Mothin Ali, has faced so much unfair criticism and abuse, how unjust that he has become somewhat of a target of those on the right of politics. I felt that even if the most stubborn hard-faced adversary of his were to walk into our gathering at this moment in time, they’d soon be hard pressed to say he was anything other than a regular, modest, non-threatening good person, who happens to be a Muslim to.
In terms of my experience and perception of our weekend as a whole, and yes, I am bias as a fellow Northerner, overall I’m left with warm and fond memories, in which I was made to feel most welcome-anytime!