Traditional storytellers in Majorca apparently used to begin every tale with, “It was and it was not so.” They knew how hard it was to speak nothing but the truth the moment you open your gob.
The whole point about #SLANT, telling one Leeds story a day until 2023, is to tell the truth about the city. No spin. No message. No hype. Just the unfiltered facts. To speak the honest truth about what Leeds is like from the position of the people who live, work and play here. In their own voices.
Of course, what Leeds is Like for me will not be the same as it appears to you. We all have our own slant on the city. My take will tend to emphasise the comical, the ludicrous and the self-depreciating. The city chuckling at itself. I do think we are a very funny bunch.
And the conversations I have with my fellow Loiners will take different turns and make very different moves to ones you may have. Like this conversation I turned into a tale for #SLANT.
It really did happen much the way I tell it. 47 was the number of the actual bus I was travelling on. The chap I was talking to really did say those things (to the best of my memory. I do have a good memory for dialogue as it happens.) I really was that much of an arse (there’s no reason you have to be perfect in these stories; Like I said I want real Leeds, and the reality is I’m often a bit of an arse in Leeds. If you behave better I’ll be happy to read about it.)
The only liberty I consciously took with the actualite was the pictures of the signs. They are real Leeds traffic signs but taken in other places than Hunslet where this story mostly occurred. It’s not possible to take pictures from a moving bus while simultaneously maintaining a conversation though, is it? And the pictures have no bearing on the story at all. The stories mainly exist as spoken pieces, the pictures are supplemental.
I wrote down most of the story an hour or two after returning home the same day. I finished it off on Sunday and sent it off to my mate Faye Dawson to be read this morning. Looking at it again now I notice the hugest fib, a howling lie, a monstrous misstatement. And I wonder how I allowed myself to commit such perjury.
It’s that first sentence.
The bus was actually early!
I’ve started #SLANT with a slander against our glorious private sector public transport service providers, FirstBus.
I can only apologise.
To be honest though, a bus being ten minutes late in Leeds does feel more real than a bus coming early, wouldn’t you say?
It’s an emotional truth? A narrative necessity? A higher sort of honesty?
You do believe me, right?
Anyway, here’s the tale. 750 words, precisely… I love a word count.
47.
The bus came at the usual time, ten minutes late.
The bus shelter opposite the Corn Exchange is always heaving. The 2/12s and 3/13s stop here. I’ve been told they are the busiest routes in Leeds, crossing the city North/South from Harehills, Chapeltown, Moortown and Roundhay to Beeston, Belle Isle, Hunslet and Middleton. But I’m going to Thorpe. Trying to catch the number 47, which can be tricky as the buses tend to arrive in convoy and you never can be sure where you need to be standing.
On a stifling hot day the shelter gets muggier than Tropical World. Tempers can get frayed. When your bus comes and it’s the bus behind the bus behind the bus that’s just about to set off, and half the queue is piling toward you and the other half is struggling against the flow, and you don’t know which way you need to be heading, this is not the time for polite conversation.
“Excuse me!” is about the best I can manage.
“Why you looking so glum?” said a voice from behind me. “It’s a lovely day. Smile!”
I did that thing with the muscles of my face that resembles the look of a scolded puppy but which is the nearest thing to an expression of glee I could manage.
“See!” he said, “isn’t that nicer?”
No, I thought, no it bloody isn’t. And I hope you are getting on the bus to Belle Isle.
Hardly anyone gets on the 47 normally. Thorpe has no destination value.
I could feel him following me as we barged our way through the crowd. The noise of the diesel engines was loud. The diesel fumes were making my head spin. I just wanted to sit next to an open window and read my book.
It’s a 35 minute journey to Thorpe.
I showed my day rider to the driver.
The guy pressed his pass flat against the ticket machine and said something loud and irrelevant to the driver.
He heaved into the seat in front of me.
The bus was almost empty. In some cultures this would be the epitome of rudeness. It was at the very least intrusive.
I hadn’t even the time to jam in my earphones and pretend I was concentrating on my own inner world before he accosted me with continued conversation.
“So, where are you going on this beautiful summer morning?” he said.
I know, I know, he was just trying to be nice. Ordinarily I would have played along with him. Joined in the banter. But it’s fifty degrees in the shade out there. And travelling by bus is about as much fun as accidentally falling into a tumble dryer that’s on the highest setting. This is not the time or place for conviviality.
“Thorpe.” I said.
“Day off work?” he said.
“No… trying to work.” I said.
“Oh… what is it you do?”
“Writing… I write a bit.”
He beamed. He gave me that look that someone with a nasty rash in an intimate area gives to someone they’ve just found out is a doctor.
“You’re a writer! What kind of writing do you do?”
“Freelance,” I said, “I’m a freelance writer.”
He paused.
“Signs. I write signs.”
“Like a sign painter?” He looked puzzled.
I know I shouldn’t, but I could not help myself.
“Signs like that,” I pointed out the window. “I keep the city moving.”
“City centre loop?” he said.
“No left turn. Bus lane cameras. Don’t drop litter, you will be fined,” I said, “that sort of thing.”
“That’s a job?” he said.
“Well, you don’t think that sort of thing just happens,” I said. “It’s a craft.”
“There,” I pointed, “one of my finest… worked so hard on that, it won an award.”
“What about that?” He nodded towards a sign apologising for some building work.
“Amateurish,” I snapped. “Omit needless words! I wouldn’t do anything so grovelling. A sign should say what it needs to say, then stop.”
He went quiet for a long moment as the bus swung off Hunslet Road.
“I’m getting off next stop,” he said, pulling himself up by the handrail and dinging the bell, “Morrisons.”
“Not one of mine,” I replied, “but good work, don’t you think?”
“More reasons to shop at Morrisons….”
I beamed. Properly this time.
He shuffled off the bus, not even pausing to share a moment of jocularity with the driver.
I put my earphones in.
Only 25 minutes to Thorpe now. In peace.