Stories 1 - 30 June 2020
Volume 1 stories June 2020.
Stories performed in productions and shared events from 2016 to 2020 with photography by Mike Pinches.
The Performance Ensemble has been gathering stories and anecdotes from older people across Leeds for the last 2 years. We plan to have collected 1000 stories by the time Leeds Cultural Festival starts in 2023. At the beginning of every month we publish a story, for every day of that month, and then share them day by day on social media.
Christopher Benstead - A Journey Has Begun - #1
2016. Director Alan Lyddiard takes over the reigns, with Tamara McLorg creating the choreography. We are back once more, at the Leeds Playhouse for a development of last year’s ideas. Stories are told, dance skills enhanced, musical ideas and singing developed – and on board, the musicians of the Leeds-based amateur jazz orchestra for over-60s, the Citizens Orchestra. A big challenge for me – to find a way to incorporate them into our new show; to find a way, a style, that challenges them musically; but also – how to tempt them in? ‘Anniversary’ is born; a week of moving performances, of struggles, of huge achievements.
2017-2019. Workshops. Performances. ‘Bus Pass’. ‘Crossings’. The journey continues. Our Ensemble is forming; consolidating. Each time we gather and create, I am learning so much about writing music for and working with the performers and revelling in the freedom to express, musically, in whichever way feels right – to challenge our performers; to absolutely celebrate the opportunity of collaborating with Alan, Tamara and writer Barney Bardsley.
2020. And here we are, our Ensemble formed – and yet nowhere (physically) to go as a result of this strange virtual world we are all currently forced to live in. But – the ideas keep flowing; the enthusiasm and desire still burning strong. On we go…
Peter Gray - Batley Came Too Soon - #2
Before the child was born, she revealed she didn’t love me, but told me she married me, because she didn’t think I’d beat the children, in the way her father had beaten her. She suffered from morning sickness all day, throughout all four pregnancies. On her final pregnancy the doctor told her another pregnancy would be life threatening. After that, I had a vasectomy. We were intimate eight times in twelve years, and not again in the next fifteen.
In 1970, I became a probation officer. Five years later, I had a young lady attached to me, studying to be a social worker. She joined me at court, in interviews, and on home visits, and on the final day of her placement I went with her to see my client in a Liverpool prison. The client refused to see me, which meant we had the rest of the day to spend in Liverpool.
As we were crossing a busy road, she took my hand. It was like I was hit by a bolt of lightning. We kept hold of each other’s hands for the rest of the day. On the train back it became clear we were in the same situation at home. Un-reciprocated love. We embraced, we kissed, we sat, until we got to Batley.
I said to her, “I hate Batley”.
She said, “Why?”
“Because Leeds is the next stop. There we will part, and I’ll never see you again.”
I wrote a poem about it, and I’d like to share it with you:
You took my hand as we crossed the street
The feeling I had, nearly swept me off my feet.
We walked, hand in hand, like a young lad and his lover.
But we were forty, and married, but not to one another.
I still remember fondly,
that April afternoon,
When Liverpool was magic
And Batley came too soon.
Barney Bardsley - Budapest - #3
The actors were very friendly. None of them spoke English, but they got by with sign language. And the whiskey and pálinka and Russian champagne, soon loosened their tongues. The Kaposvár company had worked together for years. The actors’ flats were just across the road from the theatre – and they spent all their free time in the bar, playing cards, gossiping and drinking. The work they did on stage was astonishing. Every production, a hidden subversion, giving their audience a message of freedom, when open dissent was forbidden. Hungary: the happiest barracks in the Eastern Bloc. That’s what they said. But it wasn’t true.
“We can’t travel abroad”, said her friend, through an interpreter. “Except once every three years. And only if the regime approves. Once we were invited to a theatre festival in France, but the apparatchiks said no; they said the French actors were Maoist insurgents, who would only persuade us to defect.” He laughed. But it was more of a sob, really.
But she – she had privilege. A British passport. She could travel where she liked. The company kept inviting her back, to work with them. The main appeal, she knew, was her Britishness – and that suitcase, stuffed with tea bags and whiskey. The last time she went, it was summer 1989. She got really sick, and when she went home, she knew it was forever. The Berlin Wall fell four months later. The red stars were dragged from the roofs, and a new era began. Some years after that, Hungary joined the European Union. Her British passport and their Hungarian passports were joined, under a single blue flag with a circle of gold stars.
Now everything has changed again. The UK has left the European Union. Freedom of movement is over. The Hungarians can still travel where they like. But what about her? Ah, how she longs for that slow train out of Budapest now, with snow piling at the window, contraband in her case, and a sense of something beautiful and foreign and free, just ahead of her, on the country railroad track.
Colin Trenholme - David Made Me Smile - #4
We live on a row of four terraced houses. David Wadsworth was our eccentric friend and neighbour, an extremely kind and generous man. During the final years of his life, he suffered from a range of illnesses and limited mobility so we all worked together to provide support. When he died, I was asked to provide a eulogy for his funeral, and here it is:
‘DAVID MADE ME SMILE’
Wearing his apron and not a lot more-
David looked… eye-catching as you walked in the door;
Cookery book in one hand and a sharp knife clutched tight
And snarling ‘This recipe just isn’t right.’
David made me smile.
He once made some bread dough-the strangest I’d seen
For he’d poured, in the middle, a tin of baked beans.
This is true – I’m being honest – and I had to try
A slice that was soggy and orange inside!
David made me smile.
He used to spend time all alone in his shed,
Hammering and banging and turning deep red.
He’d mutter and mumble and sometimes we heard
Some very peculiar, can’t-repeat-words.
David made me smile.
‘Have I told you this story?’ he often would say.
‘It won’t take too long.’-but you’d be there all day.
And, oh, let’s be honest, we were sometimes confused
And yet, in a way, David kept us amused.
David made me smile.
Earlier this year, he had a stair-lift installed;
‘It needs a name, David.’ ‘She’s Brenda!’ he called.
‘I don’t really want her,’ he murmured and frowned,
‘But I could charge my neighbours for a few ups and downs.’
David made me smile.
A few weeks ago, I was on my way home,
I thought ‘I’ll see David ‘cos he’ll be on his own.
Writing his journal; in that same chair.’
But then I remembered; ‘David’s not there’.
So I stopped- and I pondered- and I felt sort-of-sad.
But then I remembered those times that we had
When
David made me smile.
Margaret Bending - 'It Was Rocket Science' - #5
And I knew: that was what I wanted to do.
Not long after that, I came across an author called Hugh Walters.He wrote a series of books with wonderful titles: Journey to Jupiter, Mission to Mercury, Destination Mars. The spaceship captain in all these stories was a physicist. So it was simple: to go to space, I needed to become a physicist.
It’s twenty years later. It’s eleven o’clock on a Saturday night in October, and I’m standing in the desert in New Mexico. The experiment I’ve spent the last four years developing and testing is now sitting on top of an Astrobee rocket at White Sands Missile Range, ready to be launched into space.
The tannoy comes to life: “T minus one minute and counting”. There’s a public highway running for about 70 miles across the range, and the military police have closed it. We have a one hour launch window.
“T minus 20 seconds and holding.”
The countdown has stopped: something’s wrong, and I run back into the control bunker, my pulse racing. It’s the wind. Range control have to be certain that the launch and re-entry trajectories will stay within the range boundaries, and right now the wind is too strong.
“T minus 20 seconds and counting.”
It’s back on. I’m clenching my teeth so hard to stop them chattering that my jaw aches. “10… 9… 8…” My mouth is as dry as the desert, and I can’t control the trembling. “3… 2… 1…” Oh, please work!
Then there’s the sudden roar, as the rocket bursts into life. And it’s gone.Hurtling safely through the atmosphere into space, as planned. With a take-off so fast, I didn’t even see it go!
Peter Bartram - The Blackpool Photograph - #6
My mother and me, we were my father’s second family. The first family, another mother and another son, had both died, and throughout my childhood that was all I knew. The subject of the first family was totally taboo, never to be mentioned. My father’s mental wellbeing was always fragile, and any accidental reminder would leave him visibly distressed. So the first family was shrouded in mystery, and for me a subject of idle curiosity.
It must have crossed my mind at some point that, had he lived, the first son would have been my elder brother, strictly speaking a half-brother, but still a brother. As an only child, I would have liked that.
Like most families in those far-off days, the 1950s, we possessed a photograph album. It was always kept in a cupboard on the landing at the top of the stairs, along with the Christmas decorations, a battered stringless banjo, and other assorted paraphernalia. The album consisted mostly of black and white holiday snapshots, a holiday always in August, always in Blackpool, and always in the same boarding house, Miss Lee’s. This eccentric establishment had an air of old-fashioned, pre-war, respectable gentility, frayed at the edges. With hindsight, I think my father, from a mining background, probably hated it, but my mother, with her dreams of polite society and afternoon tea at the Savoy, not to mention a week’s respite from her endless chores, thought she was in heaven.
By the time I was eleven or twelve, one particular snapshot in the album began to intrigue and fascinate me. My parents are sitting on a low wall on the seafront, my mother, in the centre, just about managing a smile, my father, on the left, scowling in a scruffy tweed jacket. I stand squirming in front of my mother, pushing back against her knees. I might be four or five. The most relaxed member of the group is a good-looking young man in his twenties, sitting next to my mother on the right of the photo , smiling cheerfully at the camera, and looking for all the world like a happy member of the family. I had decided, on the evidence of this Blackpool snapshot, that this young man must be my brother. The fact that I had absolutely no memory of him didn’t matter.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became. I even began to imagine that I could remember playing football with him in the back garden. However, at some point in my late teens, I decided that I needed to settle the matter, to know one way or the other. I decided to ask my auntie, my mother’s younger sister, who was sure to have known him, and was marginally less unpredictable than her elder sister. I often went to their house, so one day I took the photo with me, showed it to her, and asked, “Is this my brother?” She barely glanced at the photo before she said “Oh no. That’s not him”. There was a tone of emphatic finality about it, an unspoken but unmistakeable message that this matter was not to be mentioned again.
In my late twenties I paid my parents a short visit from wherever I was living at the time. By then, my father was in his seventies, his health failing, and his paranoia giving cause for concern. For some reason I felt the need to look at the photo album and that Blackpool snapshot, maybe for the last time. I went upstairs and opened the cupboard on the landing. I couldn’t find the album. I rummaged through the Christmas decorations and the assortment of discarded debris, but it definitely wasn’t there. I asked my mother where it was. Of course she didn’t know, hadn’t seen it. I couldn’t bring myself to ask my father. The album, and the snapshot, were never seen again.
Of course with the arrival of the internet and ancestry websites, I was able to find some answers. My brother had died in 1943 , the year before I was born. My auntie had been right.
It might sound like a contradiction at the end of this story, but I try not to look back or think about the past, at least not intentionally. Sometimes my mind will take me there, despite my best efforts not to let it. But I’m not into nostalgia, regret or sentiment. The past is the past and it can’t be changed. I do my best to live in the present and look forward with optimism to the future, and whatever that might bring.
Alan Bolton - Zen Navigation - #7
I was a policeman from 1967 until 1999 and worked, in various capacities, in Liverpool, Bermuda, South Wales and Harrogate. After the police, I became a training consultant in the Isle of Man and ended up, in 2006, as Assistant Principal of a Leeds Secondary School. All of them places I really needed to be. I retired in 2014 and have been volunteering with Canal Connections in Leeds ever since. Zen Navigation … never doubt it!
This is the art of Zen Navigation, a pillar of my journey through life.
“Follow a car, or its nearest equivalent, that looks as though it knows where it’s going. You may not end up where you intended to go, but you’ll almost always end up somewhere you really needed to be.” (From Douglas Adams’ Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul).
I first tried it on a journey from Glasgow Airport, in a hire car, going to a police conference about Appraisal Related Pay in the centre of the city. I followed an armoured cash truck which looked as though it knew where it was going. It took me past Sauchiehall Street – which, having never been to Glasgow, was somewhere I really needed to be.
In the first bar I went into, I found half a dozen policemen from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, also going to the conference, who not only bought me a Guinness, but knew where they were going, and were also able to tell me all about the people I was going to Belfast to meet, the following week.
I’ve used Zen Navigation ever since: it taught me to keep an open mind, take a risk that others will know something worthwhile that you don’t, and so help you achieve a better outcome.
Back in Leeds, I eventually ended up following a canal boat (that looked as though it knew where it was going) and met some old geezers from Bow in East London, who also looked as though they knew where they were going. And that’s how I found the organisation Time to Shine and started Float Your Boat which, as far as I can see, is all about:
Getting the best outcomes by working together. Listening to each other. Keeping things simple. Taking a risk… and having fun doing it! In short, this was somewhere I really needed to be.
Mike Palfrey - I'm Game If You Are - #8
She’s wearing a blue outdoor coat of the style I’m sure I remember on my grandma, but, thank heavens, no hat with cherries. Small mercies! Hair, Margaret Thatcher by way of Mary Whitehouse. I wouldn’t really notice her but for one thing – she’s clutching a smart phone. Not talking into it, but playing a game. At her time of life, a computer game – and, I suppose she might be hard of hearing; she’s not set it to silent, and I can tell from the tinny noises that it’s certainly not Solitaire.
I hope, I pray, that these are not the muted sounds of explosions or shooting. Do I dare to lean forward and peep? If it should be Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty…
I lean forward, I peep… oh God!
Mercifully, this next stop is mine.
Maureen Willis - Travel Sickness - #9
I remember getting told off countless times for throwing up over various members of my family. The weekend trips to the East Coast to the family caravan were a nightmare – my dad had a van, and us kids were in the back. The sickness was always worse when I couldn’t see out the window. And boat trips on the Yorkshire Rose at Scarborough were a complete waste of money.
On the long trips to Devon, with my own children in the back, my husband had to make frequent stops for me to be sick, sometimes at the bottom of people’s drives.
During my years as a primary school teacher, coach trips were part of the job. One particular horrendous school trip, was a short journey to Lotherton Hall, less than an hour’s drive. It was pouring with rain. The coach arrived an hour late. It was a double decker and the children wanted to go upstairs. We set off, visibility was poor, and the driver put his foot down, trying to make up for lost time. Corners were taken sharply, brakes applied suddenly. We hadn’t gone far, when I started to feel ill… and so did Jason Fleming. We spent the entire journey sharing the sick bucket – the class waste paper bin.
I think when I finally leave this earth, I’ll leave instructions for the coffin to be put on the back of a horse drawn carriage.
Jen Wilson - Coming Out - #10
My mum tells me that when she knew she was expecting me she unwittingly bought blue baby clothes. She did not know what my gender would be, as it was not an option to find out in 1961. My bedroom has been blue ever since. I was a proper tomboy, loving sport – especially football – and watching westerns.
When I was about 13 years old I began to develop crushes on my history teacher and other girls in my class. I was at an all-girls school. I loved history and was reading books about Edith Cavell, Florence Nightingale and Mary Queen of Scots. My friends were all reading Jackie magazine and trying to figure out if their sign was compatible with a boy they liked. I just didn’t get what the fuss was about.
When I was 18 years old, I went to polytechnic. I met Susan and we immediately connected. We liked the same music, shared the same sense of humour and enjoyed drinking – a lot! It was a very deep and intense friendship, which for me became something more. We both decided to leave at the end of the year; Susan to do nurse training, and me, volunteer nursing two severely disabled students. Susan gave me a Snoopy toy before she left. When someone asks, “What would you rescue if your house was on fire?”, well, it’s not rocket science to guess what would be on my list.
When I saw Susan get on the bus to leave for the last time, I started sobbing uncontrollably, and I headed full pelt into a deep depression. I can even admit that I contemplated suicide. I was truly heartbroken.
I met my husband Simon two years later. Simon and I got on so well. He was a kind, sensitive, intelligent and gentle man. I asked Susan to be my chief bridesmaid. I hadn’t seen her since that last departure, and when she arrived, the night before the wedding, I felt a rush of excitement. But I quenched the fire I felt in my heart – and never spoke about it.
I lived with Simon for ten years, but still had attraction to other women. When I was 29 years old, I began working with a probation officer, who admitted to me that she was bisexual. This sounded so much safer to me! We began an affair that lasted nearly a year. When it ended, I knew that I had to leave Simon. He wanted to start a family, and I knew that I could not make that commitment to him. I finally had the courage to be true to myself, and told him my predicament. He was devastated and tried everything to make me stay. Simon found support from a group called Pastels, which was for friends, family and partners of LGBT people.
When I told my father, he said “I’ve watched that programme on Channel 4 about lesbians, but I can’t work out what you do without a penis”. He was cool about the whole thing. In fact he relished being the only man in my life. When I told my mother she cried and then blubbered out, “As long as you are happy”.
I’m now in my late fifties and have had three long term relationships with women.What advice would I give to my 18 year old self? Take a chance and have courage. Be true to yourself. Be authentic. It is your right to be able to express yourself.
You deserve happiness.
Helen Thompson - The End of An Era - #11
My mum passed away at the end of September 2017. She managed to live in her own home until August 2015, but deteriorating health meant she required 24 hour support, which could only be provided in a residential home. The house was sold, and most of mum’s possessions went to a charity shop called New to You, which helps set up new homes for the victims of domestic abuse, and also provides affordable items for the local community.
It was a beautiful warm sunny day in October. We had spent weeks sorting through Mum’s home, agonising over what to keep, fighting the emotional attachment to material items, that held so many memories, and evoked such strong feelings. I told myself that this was the right thing to do, and waited anxiously for the arrival of the crew and van. The quiet before the storm.
They swarmed in. Things that had been lovingly cared for and part of our families’ lives for so long, were shoved in boxes, heaved down the stairs, to be laid out in the front garden for all to see.
Thoughts raced through my head: our family home for the past 54 years – that’s it, outside, displaced. I wanted to hold onto it, protect it, knowing this was the end of an era. I needed to hide the tears, and retreated to the sanctuary of the back garden to compose myself. At least the sun was shining.
The younger volunteers were enthusiastic about the treasures before them: excited by the prospect of buying Don’s fishing rod, the stereo system, the small old fashioned wooden chest, with drawers full of Grandad’s old tools. The copper “posser” with a green painted wooden handle, evoking memories of steamy wash day Mondays, stood on a wooden buffet, rinsing clothes at the kitchen sink. Possing up and down, air bubbles gurgling as they escaped through the holes of the bell shaped dome.
A scrawny young man brandished Dad’s wood-handled axe. My husband Mike was going to keep that, but perhaps not. Our small yellow inflatable rubber dinghy, reminding me of summer holidays in the sixties. Taking turns at paddling off on an adventure, but only as far as the washing line, attached to the back, would allow us to stray from Dad’s careful grasp.
Volunteers sat on the beds and commented that they were the most comfortable they had ever felt. They were inspired to dream, and said that some day they’d like to have a lovely house and garden like this. For me, came the realisation that this was not the end,but the beginning: of making new homes for other people.
Liung Ip - Hong Kong to Leeds - #12
Steve Golding - Blind On The Bus - #13
“There’s a seat to your left.”
“Oh! you mean my other left!”
Once I got on the bus, minding my own business, and some lads tried to get on without a ticket and they weren’t allowed. After a commotion, off they went, ran across the road and BAM! I heard the window smash and suddenly something hit me. Talk about seeing stars, I saw the galaxy! The article bounced off me – and onto a pram with a baby inside. They told me later, that the thing that hit me was a claw hammer.
A humorous incident… I’d been drinking and had fallen asleep on the bus. Then I heard these voices saying goodnight to each other. There weren’t any lights on and it sounded like it was raining heavily.
I moved forward and said “Where are we?”
The driver replied “Where did you come from?”
I replied “The seat behind the steps”.
“In is in the bus wash! Stop where you are and I’ll drop you off back home.”
“At home”? I asked hopefully.
“No. Outside the wash so you can walk home”.
Which he did and it was chucking it down.
Sally Owen - Ashes - #14
If I believed in reincarnation, I could imagine I would have lived in Japan in a previous life. During the time I worked with the Lindsay Kemp Company, we toured often to Japan. Consequently many of the company became attached to the country.
Just before one of our trips, one of the company members Javier Sanz, who was a drag queen from Valencia, had sadly died, of an AIDS-related illness. He requested half his ashes be sent to his mother in Valencia, and the other half to go on tour to Japan, to be spread in the stone garden of the Ryoan-Ji zen garden in Kyoto.
Myself and one of the other company members had been given the task to spread the ashes on the garden. This garden is formed of large islands of rocks set in white gravel, with a viewing platform along its length. It was always really busy during the day, so we decided we would go just ten minutes before the garden closed.
I distracted the attendant by buying incense and my companion snuck down into the garden and spread it all over the pristine, white gravel, leaving a grey smudge. She gave me the nod and we did a runner, saying “Arigato! Domo! Domo Arigato! Sayonara!”
When we were on the bus home, we imagined a puzzled gardener the next day, sweeping up the ashes… and chucking them in the bin.
Harry Venet - Joanna - #15
Like my father before me, I married a Leeds girl, and took her across the Pennines. But I moved from Manchester to Leeds in 1976, after the birth of my middle daughter, Joanna, who was born with what we later discovered were brittle bones.
Some of you may remember the Maria Colwell case from 1973, where a child was killed by her step-father under the noses of Social Services. It made the authorities very twitchy, particularly when a child presented at A & E with unexplained fractures. In that sort of environment, my wife, aware of the suspicions of Social Services, felt in need of family support, so we moved to Leeds.
Since then Joanna has had a life we couldn’t have envisaged at that time. She went to university, has studied in New Orleans, worked in Australia – all in her wheelchair – married (to another wheelchair user), and has given us two lovely grandchildren. Oh, and she works at Leeds University too.
Alex Elliott - My mum and dad should never have met - #16
When I was five years old I forgot all my English. I had stayed on in Spain as I had a viral infection that affected my heart. My aunt, Mari Luz, offered to look after me. I had a great time.
When I eventually flew back all I could say was Yes, No and Harold Wilson, the name of the then Prime Minister. Even today some people think I am ‘not from here’. It’s true; I don’t really belong anywhere. Neither fish nor fowl. I dream in two languages and wear my nationality lightly. When I hear people talking about ‘being British’ I often wonder what they mean.
My mum and dad should never have met. My mother was from Valladolid, an ultra conservative town in the heart of Spain.
My dad was the only son of a communist, from a village in the East Durham coalfield, who was getting out of his National Service by working in Jersey. They were staying in the same guest house. It didn’t take them long to decide they wanted to be together.
My dad passed his driving test, and on the same day, drove down through France to Madrid, to get married in a language he didn’t speak, to a woman he barely knew. His father and mother travelled by boat and he picked them up from Bilbao just in time for the wedding.
They spent a few days of the honeymoon travelling with the newly weds. One day, my grandad went off to buy a roast chicken. They were staying with my mother’s friends in Alicante, and he wanted to thank them for letting them stay. Two hours passed – and no sign of my grandad. They went searching, and found him shortly afterwards. He had gone into a bar to ask for directions, and, having no Spanish, had begun to walk around the bar imitating a chicken, hoping they would understand what he was after.
When he was finally discovered, he was sitting at a large table, surrounded by a group of men with whom he shared no common language – and was clearly drunk. Somehow they had managed to entertain one another for quite some time. Brandy had been consumed. When they parted he embraced every one of them in turn, as if they were old friends.
It was 1960, and Spain was under a fascist dictatorship. My grandfather was a secret member of the communist party – and yet in that bar they found a bond, a common sense of humanity, a desire to connect. They had, in effect, created a small – admittedly tipsy – community.
All of us here in the Performance Ensemble are connected, we are becoming a community; we are beginning to understand one another and care for one another. We see this every day. We sense it in everything we do together. We share our aches and pains and moments of laughter or frustration. In these times when people are seeking to drive us apart, we simply refuse to be divided, separated; told we do not fit.
I am Antonio-José Elliott. Son of Harold and Margarita, a migrant who came to Leeds to train as a nurse, who never thought she would fit in, but who made lifelong friends. It didn’t matter to her where they were from. She understood that our common humanity is far more powerful than any politician’s will. We know this too.
Man Chiu Leung - Coming to England - #17
In June 1967, at the age of 23, I graduated from Hong Kong Technical College, with a Diploma in Textiles. Then I worked in a spinning mill. In September of the same year, my father asked me to come to the UK, for further studies. In October, I came to Leicester University, to study knitting technology, because knitting was fashionable in the 1960s.
I graduated with an Higher National Diploma in Knitting in 1969, and came up to Leeds to study for a Post Graduate Diploma in Textiles, from Leeds University. I didn’t finish the course, but I got a job as an assistant production controller at Nunroyd Mill, Guiseley. The company was called West Riding Fabrics, a subsidiary of PG Field Coats for a good part of the 1970s.
Namron - Born in Manchester - Jamaica - #18
When I was a young boy growing up in Jamaica, I used to love climbing trees. Especially poincianas. When I got a little bit older, I climbed a fully grown poinciana – they go up to twelve metres high – and when I got to the top, I imagined that I could see Cuba.
it was August 31st, 1959. I said goodbye to my grandparents on the verandah. I arrived in Kingston at the airport. This was the day I flew in an aeroplane for the first time. It was a BOAC, turbojet 4 engine. I was excited. Kingston to Newfoundland, Canada. Refuel. Across the Atlantic, west coast of Ireland, Shannon. Refuel. Landing at Heathrow.
My mum was waiting for me at Victoria Station, London. Imagine. I was 13 years old. Alone.
Villmore James - Meeting Namron - #19
Namron: How long have we known each other?
Villmore: I think it’s about 30 years.
Namron: Actually I think it’s about 35 years
Villmore: I remember the first time I saw you perform at the Grand theatre with London Contemporary Dance. I would have been twelve.
Namron: Twelve?! I remember the first time I saw you with Phoenix Dance Company at Battersea Arts Centre. You were about sixteen or seventeen.
Villmore: 11th November 1981 was an important date for me. That was the date David Hamilton had an idea. He came to me, we went to Donald Edwards. That was the rising of Phoenix Dance Company. My journey began.
Bill McCarthy - 'Badge of Honour' - #20
I was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. I am the son of an immigrant. My father was Jamaican, part of the Windrush generation, and my mother was from Gloucestershire. I am mixed race.
You sometimes hear politicians say, they are a son or daughter of an immigrant, and they own it, like a badge of honour. But I couldn’t own it. I never bonded with my birth father. He had separated from my mother. We met a couple of times, but it’s not the same. If he had cared more, made the effort, then maybe it would have been different. He could have guided and protected me. But without that bond, I struggled to own who I really was.
Although society was changing my mother had little insight into racism. She was ‘colour blind’. Her love was tough and conditional. To her, I was like any other kid playing in the street.
She married eventually – a white man. He didn’t accept me and was a racist. I was only eight years old. I had to cope with his verbal abuse, name calling… coon, wog, blackie… only to face more of that shit when I got to school. I was full of anger and hurt, struggling in class, restless… As that man got older, I felt sorry for him, but when he died, I didn’t attend the funeral.
Naseem Ashfaq - Trip to Whitby - #21
I am glad that I have met the Performance Ensemble, it has given me the chance to do something different and very exciting which I have never done before and given me the confidence to perform in front of so many people, which was a truly amazing experience, which I will never forget and enjoyed so much. I would definitely recommend it to anyone. Just go for it.
In September 2018, I took part in a performance at the Queens Hotel Ball Room called Bus Ride. It was the first time I had done anything like that. It was a massive, scary challenge. But I did it. In front of 193 people – I told my story.
Last year Feel Good Factor took us on a bus trip to Whitby. There were 12 of us. I’d been to Whitley Bay, when I lived in Newcastle, but this was the first time I had been to Whitby. It was great going in a group – nice people to talk to – good company.
We got off the coach and walked around. I remember looking at a statue of two men on a bike. It was grey and quite dirty, and just as I reached out to touch it, it moved! I got such a shock. I thought it was a real statue.
Then we walked up the 98 steps to the church on the cliff. When we came back down, we had fish and chips in a cafe, and the owner gave me his card, because he had rooms to rent above the shop. It was a lovely idea, but if I had stayed overnight, how would I have got home? There were boat trips in the harbour, and I really wanted to go, but nobody else was bothered, and I didn’t want to go on my own.
I was shattered when I got home. I could hardly make myself a cup of tea. But then I kept thinking about that boat trip. Why had I not gone on my own? I should have more confidence. I decided – if I want to do something I’m going to go for it.
Since then I’ve moved on. I volunteer for Feel Good Factor, making home visits. Encouraging and motivating people who feel isolated and alone. Just like I used to feel. I get them to come to social groups. To meet new friends. It makes me happy to see them smile and I think it makes them happy to see me smile too.
Maureen Kershaw - Solo trip to Filey - #22
Never having been a driver I spend a lot of time travelling on buses. The majority of journeys are just from A to B and are instantly forgotten. This journey though is one I never tire of.
Maybe I cut a lonely figure as I set out on my journey, a woman of a certain age, perhaps going shopping or – being on this bus from Scarborough to Filey – a solo tourist. But inside I am excited, as this is my favourite bus ride. Many of my fellow passengers are visitors too, but I feel I know the route as well as the locals who hop aboard. They usually know each other, and their chatter entertains. The bus drivers are jovial and helpful: a stark contrast to those in the cities, who have to battle to keep to time.
I await the sign – Welcome to Filey – and round the next bend my heart misses a beat. It is the gate to nowhere. Two gateposts with a view across fields, the lane leading to a farmhouse, and swerving out of sight.
Flashback to the early 1990s – and I am doing the same journey with my young son and my mum. Darren sees the gateway, and exclaims that it is just like his favourite film Back to the Future: when Marty sees the entrance to Hill Valley, but this is before it was even built!
Fast forward – and the excitement is still there. We travel past as a family, always paying homage to the familiar gates.Time moves on again, and Filey is no longer on my son’s holiday list. But Mum and I still catch the bus, and we always remember happy times, when we pass the gates.
Mum passes away. Now I am a solo traveller. The gateway approaches. The chatter of my fellow passengers fades away, and I reflect on those happy days in the past. There is sadness for the dear ones who are no longer sitting next to me. But I still have my memories, and I am not alone. With each journey I wonder what the future will hold, and what experiences will come, to join the others in my memory store.
I may “cut a lonely figure”, but my Back to the Future bus ride enriches me greatly. I can surely be forgiven if I let slip a little smile?
Janet Porter - The Musical Bus Journey - #23
I was in the local Co-op in Farsley in 1988 when I heard a mellow voice warbling an old-time 1930s dance band song. I could just make out March Winds and April Showers, a lively quickstep, drifting through the store.
Must be Len Steele I thought, he’s the only person likely to know it, let alone sing it in the Co-op. I knew that he, like me, was a keen collector of old time songs and tunes. As I moved through the aisles there he was, cheerfully singing away at the tender age of 78.
We had a good natter, mainly about music. Through the check-out, we were still chattering, and we began to burst into odd bits of this song and that, continuing to the bus stop, and on to the bus.
The singing gained impetus, and soon the rest of the passengers were joining in, with well-known favourites such as My Old Man Said Follow the Van and Walking My Baby Back Home. It was a jolly bus journey, and people began asking for requests, which we were only too pleased to sing.
But there was one request we couldn’t sing. “Do you know the song about the little Dutch boy and the little Dutch girl?” someone asked. Unfortunately neither of us had ever heard of it, and no-one else on the bus had either. It was a complete mystery.
I puzzled and fretted about this song for 25 years, until my partner discovered the sheet music of a song called The Little Dutch Boy and the Little Dutch Girl on the Plate. We thought it might have been that song, but it seemed a bit obscure to be so popular with the locals. I wasn’t convinced.
Another five years went by, when, thanks to good old Google, I discovered what I am sure is the song requested, all those years ago. Recorded by the Lennon Sisters in 1958 it’s called the Little Old Mill, and it goes like this:
The little Dutch Boy and the little Dutch Girl
Sat dreaming on a hill
Tick Tock Tick Tock went the funny old clock
And the little old mill went round and round and round went The little old mill.
Pat White - The Green and Purple Boots - #24
I have been part of The Performance Ensemble for four years and have been taking long walks for about fifteen. Theatre and walking in the countryside are my two great loves and so I am never more pleased than when they coincide.
My friend Rowena and I went to the Lakes on a short walking holiday, and we stayed in a beautiful Victorian Youth Hostel, high above Elterwater. The garden had lovely views of Loughrigg Fell, and we decided we would climb it the next day. After an early breakfast, excited to begin our walk, I packed my rucksack, and drove us into Ambleside.
I thought we were ready to go – there’s something special about being first up the fell with the dew still in the grass – when Rowena remembered a pair of shoes she had seen in a shop window the previous evening. The shop was at the far end of the main street, and she wanted to go before we set off. I smiled and tried hard not to be irritated, or at least not to show it.
We got to the shop just before 9am, but it was shut and wouldn’t open until 9.30am. Rowena thought maybe coffee was a good idea? No, I was ready to walk and wouldn’t hang around any longer.
Despite the dodgy start, the day went really well: a good walk with spectacular views. We got back into Ambleside mid- afternoon, and wandered back down to the shoe shop, only to see an empty space in the window where her shoes had been!
Rowena had a long conversation with the shopkeeper, as though by protesting her love for the shoes, they would suddenly reappear in the stock room, not sold at all. She thought the shoes were so unusual, so beautiful. They were exactly what she wanted, the perfect colour, and just the right size.
With every comment I felt more ashamed of my impatience that morning. I walked to the end of the shop and pretended to look at some boots, trying not to listen.
When Rowena was told that the shoes were the end of a line and had been half-price – my humiliation was complete. Why had a thirty minute wait been so impossible for me?
It rained the next day.
Rowena Godfrey - 'The Green and Purple Boots' - #25
A couple of years ago I went with my friend Pat on a walking holiday to the Lakes. Pat knows the Lakes well, and was able to introduce me to some of her best-loved walks. We stayed at a beautiful, rambling Victorian house up on the hillside, with open views all around. It was a stunning position.
Coming back to Ambleside late one afternoon, after our day’s walking, we had a wander around the town. There are lots of interesting little independent shops at Ambleside. In one of the shop windows was a beautiful pair of bright green and purple ankle boots. “Hey, look at those, I like those!” I said. “Size seven and a half. Exactly my size.” They were in the sale. Less than half price. What a bargain. We tried the door but the shop was closed.
We decided to come back the next morning, as our walk that day began in Ambleside. We parked the car, but when we got to the shop it was closed, and wouldn’t be opening for another half hour. We agreed to try again, on our way back from Loughrigg Fell.
So, late afternoon, after our walk, we tried again. But the shoes had gone. A woman had come in that morning. She too thought they were beautiful. We were too late. “You could try our shop in Hebden Bridge”, we were told. But I don’t think I ever bothered. I can’t remember giving the shoes much thought, once I got home to Leeds. At least until a week or so ago, when I was surprised to discover just how well Pat remembered the incident.
We had taken the X36 bus to Ripon for a wander around the town, and began chatting about that holiday. She reminded me of the beautiful green and purple boots. I hadn’t realised how upset she felt, when we discovered the boots had gone. She somehow felt responsible, guilty even, that I’d missed out.
Funnily enough, about a month ago, I found a very similar pair of shoes. This time, bright blue – while on holiday in Southwold. The same soft leather, even the same make – Softinos. I have to say, I’m very pleased with my new shoes.
Tamara McLorg - Remembering My Mother - #26
I now live in Beeston. My mum was Italian. She came from near Naples. She used to make the most amazing spaghetti and I loved it. When I started school in London in the early 1950’s, I invited my friends to my home to taste my mum’s spaghetti. But they just looked at it and said ‘Ugh, ugh, your mum cooks worms! Ugh, ugh your mum eats worms!’ But we had a dog called Pickles, and he LOVED my mum’s spaghetti.
My mum loved figs – and every autumn, when I see the succulent figs in the market, I eat one in memory of her, and to celebrate her life.
Roger Harington - Living In Leeds - #27
Living in Leeds for 42 years, I’ve met a lot of people.
Yaseen’s father came from Pakistan to work in a textiles factory. He then opened a corner shop and this became a supermarket. Yaseen’s now taken over the business.
He lives and works in Leeds. This year he became a councillor. When England play Pakistan at cricket he now supports England.
Miguel was born in Chile but now lives in England with his English wife. Miguel would play the guitar all day if he could. But that doesn’t pay the bills. So he also works in a restaurant. Por supuesto que ama a su esposa y sus hijos. Of course he loves his wife and his children. But he wants to be a musician. And he misses Chile. Sometimes he can’t resist cocaine. And sometimes he steals money to pay for it.
Sonya was born in St. Petersburg. But she thought she’d have a better life here. So she found herself an English husband on the internet. But now she’s here she can’t find a good job.
They live in a bad area. Drugs. Violence. And the mental health of her husband is not good. She feels trapped.
Sonya taught me Russian. Yaseen taught me Urdu. Miguel taught me Spanish. But the only language I spoke fluently was the language of the Church. I spoke it so well I became a priest.
Picture two scenes. In the first, I’m outside a church. I’ve just celebrated the Eucharist for the first time. I’m dressed in a stole, an alb and a chasuble. In the second, I’m outside a crematorium. I’ve just taken a funeral service. But in the second scene I’m not in fact a real priest. I’m an actor in Emmerdale playing the part of a priest.
At that time I was both a priest and an actor. I was a vicar with an Equity card. But some years later, because I was no longer a Christian, I stopped being a real priest. So was I any more real in the church than I was in Emmerdale? Was I simply playing a part in both?
If you’re a Christian you’re meant to love God, and love your neighbour as yourself. I don’t know about loving God any more, but what about loving your neighbour as yourself? Of course love usually means feelings, but in this command it doesn’t. What you feel about your neighbours is irrelevant. It’s what you do for them that matters. What you do, to try and make things fair for everyone. To make things just.
I think it’s why I felt no sense of loss when I stopped being a priest. I couldn’t speak about God any more. But in trying to understand what love and justice meant I still had the same task. Is there a more important language to learn? Justice. The most important language of all.
Rosa Peterson - Woman on a Mission - #28
I get on the bus at the bottom of the Bayswaters, Roundhay Road. I know this route like the back of my hand. Trundling up through Roundhay, to Princes Avenue and Roundhay Park. Everywhere you look here, it’s a different nationality. Arab souk. Indian bazaar. Polish delicatessen. It’s changed. Not so friendly as it used to be. But lively. Very lively.
Slowly, the view changes, as we go up past the big Tescos and take a left turn at Oakwood Clock. Posher here: a different world. Bijou bars with speciality beers; and houses with big gardens. Off I get, at the stop opposite Roundhay Park. Trees dripping with green. Beautiful blue sky. Not a cloud to be seen.
I am a woman on a mission. In my hand I have a little piece of paper. There’s a flat up for rent. I want to go and look at it. It’s time I moved. Where I live, down the other end of Roundhay Road, is another country. Sirens. Noise. Fighting. Stealing. Shouting day and night. I don’t feel safe there any more. They took away the warden and now nothing’s the same.
Here we are now, at the park. Everything’s very peaceful, very green. I like it here. I relax straight away. And this: this is my mission. Find that place with the flat for rent. And make it mine. I take a few wrong turnings but then, oh!, here I am. Found it. And it looks very graceful. Yorkshire stone and a big old Victorian building. With a manicured garden. This is a different world, alright. It’s one I want to live in now. One I deserve.
My parents were rich, you know. Very rich. They sent me to private school. I’m an only child. But I wasn’t happy. They wanted me to marry someone I didn’t like. But I refused. And that was it. Cut me off without a penny. Nothing. But one thing I do have is autonomy.
You know what? I like this feeling. Getting off this bus in the brilliant sunshine, and wandering around like I own the place, own the trees, and the green spaces, and the sky itself. And in a way, I do. I carry it all before me and I know I’ll be moving on. Leaving it all behind me. Stepping forward into the light. Into freedom. The new person I was always meant to be. Thank you Number 12 bus. For bringing me here today. I’m a different person to the one I was when I got on board. And there’s no way I am ever going back.
Not long after this, I hear they’ve turned me down for a place at the new flats because of my Alzheimers. But I don’t give up. And by the following year, I live somewhere else entirely, with green trees out the back, a squirrel to watch, and birds to feed. And peace of mind, after all this time.
Connie Hodgson - 'The Signing Choir' - #29
Growing up in Madeira, I used to loved climbing trees. And the trees were eucalyptus and avocado. I love avocado because I love to climb and feel the fruit. People used to complain about me climbing trees, because I was a girl. But my father said, “Leave her alone, she’s being adventurous.”
It was November 15th, 1962. It took eleven days to get from Madeira to Southampton. They had to go the long way round, because of the weather. And because it was November. I agreed to come for two years. The two years are still running I think!
An angel in the sky arrived to help me out. And the next thing I knew I was invited to a deaf club. It was full of happy people who always remembered me. They helped me by making me sign to ask for anything, and not use my voice. It was fulfilling. I struggled but I got through it. I did it! Then I was invited to a choir. It was a signing choir and when I got there I loved it. I thought this is where I belong.
Lena Ackroyd - Stuck in a Lift - #30
I was going downstairs to a concert, in the building where I live. I got into the lift. It set off – and then it stopped. I pressed the emergency button. A voice asked me what was wrong. I explained that the lift had stopped.
She asked, “What are you doing now?” “Waiting for you to get this lift going!”
A few minutes silence. Then: “I can’t get an engineer for four hours!” I said, “Don’t be ridiculous!”
She came back with, “Will it be OK if I send for the fire brigade?” I said, “Yes please, but make sure they’re under forty, good-looking, and with a sense of humour.”
Later, when the door was finally opened on the ground floor, there stood a fire-woman and three firemen kneeling down.
The first one said, “I’m under forty”
The fire-woman said, “This one’s good-looking – and they all have a sense of humour.”
“Well, we don’t normally get requests!” one of them said, when we had all finally managed to stop laughing.
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