Day 2: ‘Community’ (verb)

“We want to see community become a verb, not just a noun.”

So declare the folks at Baraka, a coffee shop in Garforth where I stopped off first at the beginning of my second day on tour in Yorkshire.

Taking shelter from the threatening morning drizzle and grey skies, I took their brand new mocha blend with my bacon and egg panini (with a sublime bostock pastry for afters), and started my long day in comfort along with a surprising amount of other patrons who had braved the elements just to enjoy a good breakfast and brew.

However, Baraka (they were around before Obama was big, so really he stole the name from them) is not another mere suburban cafe. It is run as a social enterprise, its husband-and-wife management team Nick and Linda pouring their profits back into the community.

The cafe endeavours to be a focal point for all the folks around Garforth: Nick tells me that it was set up to build better community cohesion, and moreover to reduce loneliness. For instance, the full-time staff are regularly supported by volunteers who come along and do a shift.

It’s a great project they have started – and for what my opinion’s worth, the coffee was pretty fine too!

My plan of attack on Day 2 was to take the train from Cross Gates (close to home in Halton) and follow the line north-eastwards through Garforth and finally arriving in York.

York is a beautiful place. Even on a cloudy, rain-soaked day the visitors from all over come out in droves to see the sights and savour the old-world magic that is palpable down every narrow street.

It is rather like Oxford to me, except better: like most southern cities, Oxford has let itself down in recent decades by surrounding its majestic old cityscape with bleak brutalist multi-storey-car-park-chic architecture. Added to that of course, most students at Oxford spend their time piling together passable chunks of writing about things they don’t know about for tutors who don’t care about it, rather than actually enjoying the city itself.

Helped on my way via Twitter by Ruth Drant, my first stop in York was a rather more modern-day project: Bar Lane Studios on Micklegate. Until recently home to York’s Sony Centre, this bright and deceptively large space serves as a gallery to showcase the work of local artists and a meeting point and venue. They sell some pretty good tea and cakes too, so if you don’t know the difference between a Picasso and a car crash then there’s still something for you!

Like Garforth’s Baraka coffee house, Bar Lane Studios is another social enterprise. I met Hannah, who was working at the front of house when I arrived. She explained how they brought in local folk, reaching out to those who might otherwise expect to be intimidated in the atmosphere of an art house.

One picture that caught my eye was a psychedelic view of the townscape looking up Petergate, the Minster watching over the scene as the street teems with locals fooling around under the dark evening skies. It was entitled simply ‘Drunk’.

Still sober, that was the direction in which I headed, stopping off at the Guy Fawkes Inn (the accepted location for the birth of Guy Fawkes, according to the pub’s marketing and Darren behind the bar) as well as Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate. The latter either derives from a phrase meaning “What a street!” or “Neither one thing nor the other” (nobody is quite sure – the historiography of York seems to be partly the story you tell, but mostly the confidence with which you tell your version of it).

Ambiente Tapas took me in for a lovely light lunch (if blue fin shark can ever be described as “light”). I casually wondered aloud where they had found the shark, imagining they might have caught one somewhere off the coast at Scarborough – but apparently not. Situated towards the end of Goodramgate, it is a really fine place: the restaurant area towards the back of the ground floor puts me in mind of a microcosmic Renaissance great dining hall, deep scarlet hues and fine furnishing. I spoke to Anne, deputising as manager whilst Tim and Zoe are away on their hols this week. She said the place was bouncing the night before, packed to the rafters; even on a rainy Thursday lunchtime it had a good custom.

On my way back to the station I found a charming, snug pub on Fossgate called The Blue Bell, where I was sent by the Twittersphere, finding that it was the place where the still-married parents of one follower went on their first date.

Just as impressive as the Minster and the proud old buildings and the hidden treasures – reminders of people and indeed of communities past – were the sights I had of couples and families ambling along, enjoying the town; of mothers and their children watching street performers, surprised and smiling.

Like the coffee shop in Garforth or the gallery on Micklegate, both social enterprises committed to bringing people together, York itself does something quite similar, telling stories on every corner.

Still so early on my adventure, I find myself reflecting on what the region has to offer, whether it’s great entertainment and days out or small and curious stories about particular places with which they are already familiar but which – if they knew more about them – would perhaps give them a better connection with their past and hence with the people around them.

I returned to Leeds to spend the evening with Katie who writes on food and drink at Leeds Grub (nice work if you can get it). As we headed towards Brewery Tap near the train station for a beer brewed with coffee from Laynes Espresso next door (another fine example of neighbours being brought together), we were talking about the Leeds Owl Trail: a route around town which points out all the owls (as civic symbol) on buildings around Leeds.

What a great idea that is, something simple and hardly expensive to organise, a lovely walk around town for a mum and dad on a Sunday morning for instance, finding out more about the vast world right there on our doorstep. Bringing people together, getting out of their homes and their routines, and finding something that may interest them, surprise them, and perhaps something that will give them greater fulfilment – knowing that none of us are here on earth as tiny atoms, lost and alone; but that we all have a bond to history, and in everything we do we are forging the future and writing the stories that correspondents like me will share with the rest of their world years from now.

Perhaps that’s what Nick at Baraka means about making “community” a verb, not just a noun.

For further background as to Mark’s challenge check out ‘28 days later’