Day 1: The Theme?

I woke up this morning rather the same as I wake up most mornings: a rough plan of action scribbled in my head; bright anticipation at what could lie ahead; occasional, creeping hesitation that something along the way might go terribly wrong.

This morning, however, it was that much more intense. It was, of course, Day 1 of my adventure around the region I know as home, calling in on the people and the places that offered to take me in, surviving on my wits.

Having had only a few hours after meeting Emma and Phil in town yesterday afternoon, my first thought was to come up with a strategy – a narrative of some kind. Day 1 could be my food day perhaps, visiting the market, trying the fare at the city’s restaurants. Day 2 I could maybe explore the city’s cemeteries and find out about the famous but now-faded names etched onto the moss-grown headstones. Day 3 I might go and learn about the county’s sporting heritage, visit Elland Road and Headingley, head down to the Galpharm or over to Hull.

I wanted my tour to have a theme all the way through, a grand narrative – like a three-book novel or a well-made play.

But if there was a theme to my first day on the job, it was that really nothing works like that. No city works like that; no story works like that; nobody works like that. My day most certainly wasn’t like that.

I took the train from Cross Gates into town before nine, joining the rush-hour commuters in the morning sunshine. My first port stop on The Calls was La Bottega Milanese, a smart little Italian-inspired cafe (with good Yorkshire-made crisps on sale for anyone suspicious of continental influence). I took a seat outside, lovely warm americano to hand, reading the paper and taking a look at what the Twittersphere had lined up for me.

The view eastwards offered a glimpse of the top of the parish church, almost blessed in the glow of the bright daylight. But a view too few others will have enjoyed this morning: I was one of only two people that sat outside, and the other was too preoccupied with the difficult colleague on the other end of his Blackberry.

I took breakfast at the other end of the city centre, walking up to North Street and meeting Joanna and Stuart at The Greedy Pig. What to choose for my sandwich? They assured me the salt beef was their best-seller. It wasn’t hard to taste why. (Nor was it hard to work out why they call it ‘The Greedy Pig’ – I must have looked a sight as I sat outside, savouring each and every morsel, wiping the mustard and the crumbs off my shirt whilst onlookers from the number 3 bus peered down their noses at me.

But my adventure around our region is more than simply about blagging my way to free found and the occasional cup of tea. I have set out to find what is interesting, what is unknown, what is curious, quaint, surprising, affecting, dazzling about this county where we live and think we are so familiar with. Someone asked me later in the evening, “How well do you know Leeds?” My answer: “Well I’ve lived here all my life – so not very well at all.” That’s not false modesty.

I had heard about a cemetery tucked away on the campus at Leeds University, about which few could tell me very much – not even the two staff on the information desk as I arrived at the Parkinson Building. Fortunately Culture Vulture’s followers are the kind of people who come up good when – as often happens – officialdom lets us down.

After heading north through the campus, almost reaching Woodhouse Moor, I took a turning between two faculty buildings and up some stairs, emerging onto the tree-scattered green plain of St George’s Field in the midst of which stands a great mausoleum, with headstones and tombs scattered in thickets around the park and the names of the dead from times past line the pavement.

It’s a beautiful vista, especially late this morning when the sun was still shining bright. Yet only a handful were making the most of the spot, either catching rays, doing some work their own way, or (in the case of a group of three near the mausoleum itself) trying some form of exercise which seemed to combine tai chi with star-jumping.

Tess Hornsby Smith from the university (more on her incredible work in a separate post to follow this) challenged me to find the grave of one Pablo Fanque. He sounds like some kind of Mediterranean eighteenth century rake, but was in fact the first black circus owner in Britain. Real name William Darby, his wife Susannah died at the age of forty-seven, “occasioned by the falling of a portion of the circus erected in King Charles’ Croft, Leeds” in March of 1848. Her grave is to be found beside the mausoleum (yards away from the spot where the tai-chi-ers were today star-jumping blissfully unaware); her husband joined her there in 1871. Upon the stone marking it is written in fatal bold capitals: “TO GODS DECREE WE MORTALS ALL MUST BEND / ‘THY WILL BE DONE’ OUR BEST AND ONLY FRIEND…”

Mike Chitty asked about a mysterious climbing wall supposedly to be found on the side of the Henry Price flats – part of the university campus overlooking St George’s. I walked along the gritstone wall, circling the building, but couldn’t find anything that looked like climbing equipment. That was until I asked a couple of maintenance men if they knew anything about this. It turns out it had been right in front of my eyes all along. For years, beginner climbers in the university have practised using the very stones along the external ground floor of the building: you can see clear as day the white marks in between each rock. It is, I was strongly told (in case I wanted to have a go myself), not strictly allowed.

Throughout the afternoon I travelled around the inner city with Tess and a student from the university, joining them on an exciting and ambitious project. It deserves more attention than a paragraph late on here, so I’ll save it for later. You will be impressed, so hold the thought!

But for the evening I joined a group of photographers led by Exposure Leeds on their way around various points in the city, taking pictures which captured the quirky, the unusual, the interesting face of familiar sights.

Joining a group with Mike (from the Beyond Guardian Leeds blog), Andy and Nic, I headed to The Grove Inn, a characterful boozer tucked almost insolently between Bridgewater Place (christened “the Dalek”, if only by the guidebooks) and the rows of anonymous apartment blocks along the canal. (Many thanks for the pint too, Andy!) You can find some of their work from around and about on Flickr.

Leaving from Nero’s on Boar Lane, the short walk under the bridge showed something else which came out through the entire day: the importance of looking up. The next time you walk around the city centre, when you’re flitting between shops like the dedicated follower of fashion, gaze above the plastic facades or the neon signs, and look at the buildings: the designs that after all were there before Superdrug and Wetherspoons and WHSmith moved in and which will still be there long after they have folded.

And so that was Day 1 – a condensed and yet ironically wordy account. I wanted my journey to have a theme along the way. But the story of our city, and the story of the lives of its inhabitants – they are not like that. There is no theme to the curious and surprising features of the urban landscape here in Leeds, nor to the stories of the often unknown people who pass through and leave an indelible mark. In a day where I found the grave of a black Victorian circus-master as well as the story of idealists who came to Leeds fighting to end the exploitation of black people around the globe; where I found town elders aspiring to reach global heights as well as students aspiring simply to reach the first floor of the Henry Price building, there was no theme. Desultory tracks; amazing stories; great people. But no grand narrative. And that was just Day 1.

Well I’ve got twenty-seven more ahead of me, and I’m looking forward to every one. I hope you are too.

Don’t forget to follow me @mw_obrien and use the hashtag #challengemark – Garforth, Micklefield and York tomorrow, and back in Leeds city centre for the evening. Must catch some shut-eye first!

Read The ChallengeMark here