LeftLion Magazine - May 2020 - Issue 125

#125 May 2020

Light Hustle Presents

FOR NOTTS. FROM NOTTS.

NottstoppingFestival.com

Credits

Contents

SociAl Distancer Alan Gilby (alan.gilby@leftlion.co.uk) Editor-in-Chief Jared Wilson (jared.wilson@leftlion.co.uk) Editor Ashley Carter (ashley.carter@leftlion.co.uk) Assistant Editor Emily Thursfield (emily.thursfield@leftlion.co.uk) Editor-at-Large Bridie Squires (bridie.squires@leftlion.co.uk) Events and Food Editor Eve Smallman (eve.smallman@leftlion.co.uk)

Sales and Marketing Manager Adam Pickering (adam.pickering@leftlion.co.uk) Creative Digital Assistant Curtis Powell (curtis.powell@leftlion.co.uk) Videographer Georgianna Scurfield (georgi.scurfield@leftlion.co.uk) Web Developers Tom Errington (tom.errington@leftlion.co.uk) Hamza Hussain (hamza.hussain@leftlion.co.uk) Art Editors Laura-Jade Vaughan (laura-jade.vaughan@leftlion.co.uk) Rachel Willcocks (rachel.willcocks@leftlion.co.uk)

Open Hearts, Open Kitchens

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To Be Continued: Sensing Systems So Far

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COVID Diaries

42

Retraining Day

Under Cover Artist

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Off the Wall

Art Blanche

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Game Shooting

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Ghost Lights

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Change of Art

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Dream a Little Dream...

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Calling the Tune

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Community Editor Caroline Barry (caroline.barry@leftlion.co.uk) Fashion Editor Anna Murphy (anna.murphy@leftlion.co.uk) Literature Editor Kate Hewett (kate.hewett@leftlion.co.uk) Music Editors Eileen Pegg (eileen.pegg@leftlion.co.uk) Becky Timmins (becky.timmins@leftlion.co.uk) Screen Editors Jamie Morris (jamie.morris@leftlion.co.uk) George White (george.white@leftlion.co.uk Stage Editors Rebecca Buck (rebecca.buck@leftlion.co.uk) Dom Henry (dom.henry@leftlion.co.uk)

Notts Rebels

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From becoming Britain’s youngest MP to returning to care work during coronavirus, it’s been quite an eventful few months for Nadia Whittome...

Life Stories

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Leading by Example

Sub-Editor Lauren Carter-Cooke Designer Natalie Owen (natalie.owen@leftlion.co.uk)

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We talk to James McSharry, one of the people responsible for curating the archive project of memories, stories and experiences for NHS at 70 project

We look at the Notts restaurants involved in Open Kitchens, the project that’s delivered over 10,000 free meals to key workers and vulnerable people

In a bid to give you lot a creative outlet during lockdown, our Georgi Scurfield created COVID Diaries.

We take a look at some of the highlights so far…

Beane, whose beautiful entry was chosen as the winner of our cover competition, gives us the lowdown on his creative process

After taking over the reins from Alex Kuster, we’re delighted to introduce the brand new Editors of our Arts section, Laura-Jade Vaughan and Rachel Willcocks

The impact of COVID-19 has devastated Notts’ creative community, as Rebecca Buck finds out while talking to some of the city’s theatre folk

The change in schedule has had a big impact on our sleeping patterns. We give you a few useful tips on how to catch those ZZZs

/leftlion

Featured Contributor

@leftlion

To celebrate the Nottingham Castle Trust’s Voices of Today campaign, we’ve launched a brand new series celebrating Nottingham’s rebellious past

Eileen Pegg explores the Nottingham creative project that was forced to completely reinvent itself in the wake of coronavirus

With the help of the Futures for Business scheme, Marie retrained as a healthcare worker in order to join the NHS at a time when her help is needed the most

If your daily walk is getting a bit repetitive, Rachel Willcocks has put together a list of Notts’ best street art to provide you with some more interesting sights…

If you’re struggling to feel creative during lockdown, the Photo Parlour’s Dan Wheeler has got a weekly photo challenge for you...

Having illustrated our regular Blather feature for two years, Notts’ artist Corrina Rothwell is moving on to pastures new We talk to The X Factor runner-up Fleur East about her new album Fearless, launching her own label and coping with self-isolation

@leftlionmagazine

Thanks to All Our Supporters

Sports Editor Gemma Fenyn (gemma.fenyn@leftlion.co.uk) Julian Bower, Frances & Garry Bryan, Nigel Cooke, Caroline Gilby, Rachel Hancorn, Rhys Hawkins, Friday Club Presents, David Knight, D Lawson, Ben Lester, Barbara Morgan, Ron Mure, Reg & Lynette, Livi & Jacob Nieri, Dr Lesley Prince, In memory of Jenny Smith, Jed Southgate, Spicer, Steve Stickley Storyteller, Ivy House Environmental, Nigel Tamplin, Helena Tyce, James Wright

Photography Editors Fabrice Gagos (fabrice.gagos@leftlion.co.uk) Tom Quigley (tom.quigley@leftlion.co.uk) Cover Beane Writers Rachel Halaburda Alanah Kholsa Alex Mace Ceryn Morris Sam Nahirny Adrian Reynolds David Yancy Photographers Danni Bacon Melissa Canu Clive Doyle Simon Dunn Natasha Edgington Valentin Hadzhiyski Ashley Harvey Jack Hickling Marcus Holdsworth Rasha Kotaiche Mick Rhodes David Severn Katie Shipman John Smalley Jo Wheatley

Illustrators Raphael Achache Emily Brown Ewan Butters Emily Catherine Deanna Ebblewhite Pooja Gadhia Ava Hemsley Kathryn Jackson Anna Keomegi Leosaysays Alex Vine Kate Sharp Emmy Smith Jade Vowles Carmel Ward Amy Zacharia

Alex Mace Alex is a 20-year-old Journalism student at Nottingham Trent University, currently carving his own path through the industry with hopes to land himself a comfy spot in music journalism. Having started writing for exterior publications (his blog was getting a little lonely) for the first time with LeftLion in late 2018, the gun had been fired for more diverse contributions to Notts’ favourite monthly.

Now he sits as current Music Editor for Platform magazine, thanks to the honing of his skills at LL no less. He’ll be most commonly found at any music venue in Notts making his neck sore.

Love reading a free, independent magazine every month?

Become a LeftLion Supporter.

We’ll post you every print issue, plus treats. leftlion.co.uk/supporters

You can read Alex’s interview with Corrina Rothwell on page 48 leftlion.co.uk/issue125 5

Editorial I am, of course, fully aware that I’m writing this from the comfort of my city centre apartment, without any friends or family currently ill or struggling as key workers, and wouldn’t dare to compare the mild discomfort of self-isolating to the unimaginable horrors that so many are facing at the moment.

At LeftLion, we’ve had to deal with the same worries that many small businesses all over the country have, but we’re proud to continue producing magazines every month, and will continue to do so until things return to normal.

Now, back to that positive spirit. Firstly, we’ve been overwhelmed by both the levels of enthusiasm and creativity, as well as the sheer number, of entries we had in to our ‘Create your own LeftLion Cover’ competition. Picking an overall winner was tortuous, as there were simply too many great entries.

Last month’s editorial was fairly easy to write.

Everyone’s lives had been turned upside down, and there was that palpable sense that we were all in this together. Now, one month on, I’m struggling through my fifth attempt to string something coherent together for our May issue. Life has settled into something of a dull monotony, where days seemingly have no beginning or end.

The spirit of togetherness is still there (which I’ll come back to) but it’s hard to ignore the feelings of anger and frustration bubbling under the surface.

You see it on social media, in calls to family and friends, and maybe even feel it yourself. As humans, we’re all capable of persevering through periods of strife and misfortune – but without knowing how, when or even if there will be a conclusion to this bizarre period in our shared history, frustration is clearly starting to show.

A major source of this negativity seems to come from wanting someone or something to blame.

From goofy conspiracy theories to blatant xenophobia, we all seem to be scrambling to point the finger. It’s natural, I guess.

As humans, we’re inherently pattern seeking creatures who, without anything tangible to blame, will turn our frustrations on whatever makes the most sense. But it’s now, when we start to feel the weariest of rules and regulations, and miss seeing our friends and family, or are the most sick of being inside, that we’ll be tested the most. The novelty - if you can call it that - of self-isolation has passed, and the hard yards may only just have started.

A year in to my Editorship, I continue to be amazed (but not surprised) by the amount of creative talent in this city, and hope you’re as inspired and impressed by Iain Smith Dwight’s stunning cover as we were.

I owe a massive thank you to all of our contributors for everything they’ve done to help put this issue together. Not just the writers, who have managed to put together articles and interviews without being able to go out and meet people face-to-face, but our incredible team of illustrators who, knowing that we’re having to rely on their talents more than ever before, have put together some beautiful art work.

It’s a weird time to be the Editor of LeftLion. As a magazine, we celebrate Nottingham’s culture and, for the most part, that cultural community has had to put itself on hold. But we’re going to strive to continue delivering positive, practical stories and showcasing Nottingham’s incredible spirit.

Coronavirus might have brought the worst out in some but, for most of Nottingham, it’s highlighted the very best in our altruism, togetherness and perseverance.

Until the next one

Ashley Carter, Editor ashley.carter@leftlion.co.uk

Let cooler heads prevail Dani Bacon - @danijuliette

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Ayup, me duck!

Simon Dunn

It’s not all doom and bloom Valentin Hadzhiyski - @valentinhadzhiyski

Notts Shots

Notts Shots

Getting into the green scene Katie Shipman - @shipmanshots

What day is it?

Jack Hickling - @jackhickling345

Paws for thought Dani Bacon - @danijuliette

Up the creek Katie Shipman - @shipmanshots

Want to have your work featured? Send your high-res photos from around the city, including your full name and best web link, to photography@leftlion.co.uk

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interview and photo: Georgianna Scurfield

‘

During this lockdown period, I think the most important thing is to keep a routine. You know, some sort of normality. Personally, I wake up every morning at five, I do a thirty-minute meditation, a three-hour run and then follow that with an hour of yoga. I then knit a baby blanket, bake a batch of vegetable muffins, wave at all the old people within a three-mile radius of my house, check in on all my lonely friends, all my friends with kids, and all my key worker friends. That’s all done by lunchtime.

I then spend the rest of my day reading – something light of course, my favourite at the moment being The Thoughts of Aurelius Antoninus. It’s crucial during these unprecedented times to really look after your appearance, just because you’re not allowed out the house, does not mean you have to lose control of the things that make you feel human. I blowdry my hair every day, put on my best clothes, and make sure my manicure is immaculate.

There is no need to drop your own personal standards just because the economy is crumbling and people are dying.

My mantra for the last couple of weeks is ‘be true to yourself’.

Because in the words of my idol, Hyacinth Bucket, “if there's one thing I can't stand, it's snobbery and one-upmanship. People trying to pretend they're superior. Makes it so much harder for those of us who really are.”

Pick Six

This month we’ve tasked the queen of Notts’ art scene, Emily Catherine, with picking a few of her favourite things...

Song - My Love is Your Love (Forever) - The Isley Brothers This question is never fair, but a song I will never tire of is My Love Is Your Love (Forever) by The Isley Brothers, but only the 1966 version. It’s a perfect love song in my view, lyrically, but it also gets that chord tone right in its joyful, yet slightly tense, strings throughout.

Gorgeous geniuses.

Holiday Destination - Peru Ancient civilisations, the Amazon Bowl, proud and humble people, clever inspiring art and an obsession with alpacas. Saw fireflies in the Amazon. Those things are like watching fallen stars create another milky way in front of you. Also saw a spider-eating wasp devouring a tarantula. Not so magic.

Notts Spot - Secret Rest Garden That little secret rest garden tucked away just down from The Angel. Yes, you might go there and be confronted by four zombies on spice, but, you also might find an empty bench in dappled sunlight in the middle of the city. Unmatched secret garden joy.

Film - Kind Hearts and Coronets It’s about a son trying to avenge his mother’s death by killing his family, and every singlemember of the family is played by the same actor, Alec Guinness. It’s an Ealing comedy which never fails to be all at once comforting, funny, charming and beautiful looking.

Meal - Pizza Easy. I don’t discriminate; a deep pan, a thin crust, a stuffed crust. If it’s a good pizza it makes my heart sing. I draw the line at quirky bases though – a pure garlic or bbq base means it's not a pizza anymore! My ultimate flavour combo is black olive, mushroom and, yes, pineapple.

Book - Cautionary Verses Hilaire Belloc Cautionary Verses by Hilaire Belloc and illustrated by B.T.B is my favourite book ever. My Nan had a copy which I would always ask my mum to read to me. It’s the most hilariously Victorian, offensive, nonsensical moral compendium of teachings for naughty children.

photo: Tom Errington emilycatherineillustration.com

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Notts Goss with Jenny Joss Want the scoop?

I’m not one for wicked whispers, but as there’s not been much else to occupy this curious darling’s mind, I thought I should indulge in telling tales to give both you and I something to giggle about. Determined to find some news to exercise the sneer muscles, I first had to wade through an abundance of positive stories before I could dig for the real dirt.

Nottingham East MP and my undisputed girl crush, Nadia Whittome, returning to her care work role; the local universities running the race to find a ‘Rona vaccine and air pollution in NG dropping to the lowest level on record. You lot need to stop showing the rest of us up.

My quill is happy to report, however, that there’s still plenty to gossip about. While out on my Government-permitted stroll last week my ears were greeted with the sound of clapping, fireworks and D:Ream’s 1993 hit Things Can Only Get Better; apparently, DJ Chris Hailes has been blasting the tune from his fifth-floor balcony in the city centre every Thursday night as he thinks it's “relevant to the times.” My little dickie-bird also alerted me to the tweets of Nottingham Forest star Joe Lolley, who had turned positively red over the lowlifes continuing to flout lockdown rules, warning naysayers to have “respect for human life.”

Finally, I’ve been keeping a close eye on those LeftLion office-dwellers, whether they’re aware of it or not. And, you would not believe the scoop I have on a certain Assistant Editor – while using the Nonsuch Studio’s ‘Which Nottingham Landmark Are You?’ Instagram filter, she was presented with a fate worse than death. While the rest of her colleagues rightly scored the magazine namesake, she was outed as a right lion supporter. Looks like she’s not disguised that Brummie accent as well as she thought.

Anyways, it’s time for me to get dolled up in my finest rags to visit Lidl. Remember, lovers – keep your lips loose, your ears to the ground and your eyes on the goss. illustration: Carmel Ward

Nottingham’s most opinionated grocers on...

Peter Thompson RIP Our father passed away earlier this month and we buried him. He was the Notts County FC groundsman from 1961 to 1998. We’ve been surprised by how many people have mentioned it to us in the shop because Notts County ran an article about him on their website. His death was not coronavirus-related. He was just very old and it was his time.

We had a fantastic funeral with us, our two sisters, my father’s cousin, his half-sister and the Council workers in attendance. It was a lot different from our mother’s service – this was just a simple fifteen minutes done by the graveside. The legendary Les Bradd, the all-time Notts County top-goalscorer, had also been to see him before he died, which we know he appreciated.

Nottingham Rebels Our favourite has to be Alan Sillitoe. We loved both the book and the film of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Our father watched it several times too, but all he’d say about it was “that was when buses could go down Derby Road.” Lord Byron was a rebel too, but he had a lot of wealth and therefore it’s a lot easier to do what you want. It’s harder to be a rebel when you don’t have that luxury and you just need to get on with life.

JJ x

it?”

n “...Quiet, in

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A gp in notts It’s the patients I most enjoy about my job. Most GPs would say the same thing. It’s the feeling of making a difference: when you get to the bottom of what is going on, when the treatment you give really helps someone, when you support them through a life trauma, when you make people feel better, when you stop people from dying or when you allow people that are dying to die peacefully. The patients make sure that life as a GP is never repetitive, because no two days are ever the same.

People often ask how long it takes altogether to become a GP. For me it was eleven years, which I think is fairly typical: six years at medical school, two years as a junior doctor and three years in GP training. I am from Nottingham and love it here so I moved straight back after uni, and have worked in the same GP surgery for eight years now. It is great to stay in the same place as you really get to know your patients and go through such a lot with them.

I love the challenge of trying to find out what is in a patient's head. For example, people often think they have a brain tumour when they come and see us with a headache, but they are very reluctant to admit that. You have to really refine your listening and communication skills to get the full story. Sometimes, you just don’t know what is going on with them. It is rare to see a textbook presentation of a condition and everyone is very different. The great thing about General Practice is you can really follow things through. If you have a sudden thought about what to do with a patient, you can just phone them back.

Usually, we don’t know who is coming in.

It could be literally

anyone: from homeless people to affluent people, from men to women to transgender people, from one day old to over 100 years old.

It could be a medical or surgical emergency requiring hospital admission. It could be someone who is depressed and suicidal, who we are very cautiously following up week by week as they don’t meet the criteria for a Psychiatric referral. We may identify child abuse and have to have very difficult conversations around that.

We have an ageing population which means that people are living with several different medical conditions at the same time, and may be taking a double figure of medications. I once even had to climb through a patient’s window while wearing a skirt during a home visit. The type of patient that we see is becoming increasingly complex, and the variety is one of the amazing things about General Practice.

COVID-19 has shaken everything up and will permanently change the face of General Practice But as the complexity of the patients has increased, the time we’re allotted to see them has been reduced. Ten minutes is not enough time for a consultation, and I find it increasingly impossible to stay on time. I automatically greet everyone by saying “sorry to keep you waiting,” to the point where I’m even saying it when I’m on time. Certain newspapers will paint the picture that we are work-shy and over-paid, but I’ve never met a member of the public who believes that. Amazingly, most people are incredibly understanding of how challenging General Practice is.

Reflecting when things go wrong and when you get a complaint can be quite souldestroying, I have learnt to not be immediately defensive about this and to try and understand things from the patient’s

perspective. People are people, and there is usually a good reason behind them being upset.

I think understanding and communicating effectively about things helps to diffuse complaints massively.

At the moment things are very strange.

Coronavirus has forced us into the 21st century, so we are now regularly video-consulting which I never would have thought I’d be saying at the start of 2020. Nearly all of our appointments are telephone consultations, although we are seeing people face-to-face when we need to, wearing personal protective equipment. Even the PPE feels weird – it is strange trying to strike up a relationship or have a difficult conversation with a patient when only your eyes are visible.

For someone who is quite empathetic, there is not much more rewarding than listening to people and helping them problem-solve, so at the moment I dislike not being able to see people face-to-face. I am finding mental health consultations quite tricky; I think you need a human in front of you to be able to truly open up about your feelings. And it’s a time when so many people are really struggling with their mental health. I am also worried that people are just not phoning us up about their serious problems. It might be that they think it seems trivial, that we will be inundated with coronavirus-related consultations, or that they don’t want to come in as they are socially distancing. But we want to hear from them! People will still get cancer, still develop serious conditions like diabetes and angina, and we need to be able to diagnose them at an early stage. Before all this I’d see about thirty people face-to-face on a daily basis, as well as completing home visits, additional phone calls, doing prescriptions, actioning hospital letters and teaching GP trainees.

As with many aspects of the NHS, General Practice needs more funding to continue to function. There are not enough GPs, and new GPs don’t want to become partners, which worries me about the future of the small GP surgery. You need someone to take the lead on things like staffing and premises.

A.I. is becoming more and more important in medicine. Some of this is a no-brainer – if you had a programme that diagnosed skin cancer from a photo more effectively than the naked eye of a GP, I think we would all go for it. But you will always need a human to tease out the patient’s story as it is not really a tick box exercise and people will open up to a human in a way that they will not to an anonymous computerised system.

But COVID-19 has shaken everything up and will permanently change the face of General Practice. It makes me wonder what will happen in months to come.

Will people be sitting on their problems, feeling reluctant to come in? In some ways, that won’t be a bad thing – selfcare is very important and as a society, we are not as good at it as we used to be. I also wonder whether the opposite will happen, and we’ll be inundated with things people have been saving up for when social distancing lifts. Time will tell, I guess.

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We’ve opened up our kitchens to provide FREE meals for NHS staff, keyworkers and the most vulnerable in our community. Our chefs are volunteering their time to produce nutritious and healthy meals through the #OPENKITCHENS project.

WE NEED YOUR HELP. Please search ‘Copper Bingham’ on JustGiving.com for more information

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My First...

Month in isolation

Like many people, I’ve moved back in with my family. I left because I felt trapped. But everyone said it was the best place to be. Not much has changed here though – they never leave the house anyway.

For some reason, this situation affects him the most though. He’s allowed to get the angriest. The rest of us have to stay quiet.

Some days things are good and happy, even over-the-top silly. Other days mum isn’t allowed dinner and the living room reeks of wine. I’ll look at the glass in his hands and then at the clock.

4pm. My heart sinks. The kids are starting to pick up his attitude. It breaks me that they don’t know anything better than his insane version of normal. I want to protect them and mum so badly. But I feel strangled, choking.

Swallow my tears.

Another night comes. Repeat.

Female, 21 Sneinton The only reason I’m writing this is because it’s anonymous. Even then, I’m worried about anyone else finding out how I feel. But the truth is, I’m really happy that this has all happened. I don’t enjoy my life. I hate getting up every morning, and stay up as late as possible to prolong it. That just means I’m permanently exhausted, which adds to it all. I hate my job, I hate my friends, and the entire routine makes me want to get on a plane and disappear. Putting life on hold has been incredible, and I know the reasons behind it should make me feel guilty for feeling that way, but I don’t. I love doing nothing. I do nothing all day long. Nothing from the moment I wake up at midday until I go to sleep at 4am.

Honestly, I hope it continues for as long as possible.

Male, 37 Bulwell

I was going to break up with my boyfriend when coronavirus started. That’s a lie, I was going to break up with him three months ago, but we have a lease on a flat together, and I didn’t know what else to do other than ride it out until I could make a clean break.

I guess that makes me a coward. I loved him at one point, I guess, but I cannot stand the sight of him now. I fake feeling sad and anxious about COVID-19, but the truth is I just want to be by myself. It’s any excuse to get away from him, even for an hour.

I don’t want to see him, I don’t want to talk to him, and the thought of having sex with him physically repluses me. But now I’m stuck, it’s just him and me, trapped inside, 24-hours a day, seven days a week, and he still has no idea.

Female, 26 Hyson Green

Lockdown has enabled me to indulge in some of my favourite hobbies that normally have to be put on the backburner. I’ve spent the majority of my time in the kitchen, trying out recipes that have idly sat in my Pinterest board for months, and treating myself to some comfort sweet-treats. My boyfriend isn’t complaining about the sudden abundance of food – in fact, he’s started picking up the spatula himself. As a man who cooked exclusively chicken and rice pre-corona, it’s odd strolling into the kitchen to find him sweating, tea-towel flung over his shoulder as he whips up a carbonara sauce and sauteed vegetables.

Female, 24 Hockley

illustration: Alex Vine

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Leading by Example In a time when politicians are regularly accused of being out of touch with everyday life, Nadia Whittome showed why her constituents in Nottingham East were right to place their trust in her during the last General Election. While no one would have blamed her for stocking up on essentials and hunkering down in safety, Britain’s youngest MP made the decision to put herself on the frontline of COVID-19 by returning to care work, the profession in which she worked prior to her election victory last December. With a unique, firsthand perspective on the devastating impact of the virus on the country’s most vulnerable people, we talked to the Labour MP about the ongoing lack of personal protective equipment, the impact of cuts to health and social care services and the Government’s response to coronavirus…

What have your experiences of coronavirus been since returning to care work?

It’s really tough on the frontline: residents and staff are very scared because there isn’t enough PPE. As well as that, there are not enough tests being done in Nottingham. They are currently giving 200 tests a day, which is much, much lower than it needs to be. It’s making it hard for care workers to get hold of them or book an appointment. It isn’t the fault of the local NHS, it’s that the Government isn’t prioritising testing enough.

Coronavirus has shined a light on the inequalities already present in society and the absolute scandal of low pay. Care workers just aren’t paid enough; they risk their lives for minimum wage, or not much more, and aren’t even being kept safe on the frontline. Lots of key workers will have to rely on statutory sick pay if they need to shield, which means some people will have to be made destitute in order not to work and to keep other people safe.

A lot of key workers don’t even have statutory sick pay because they have zero-hour contracts.

So people are basically being forced to choose between risking getting the virus, or risking becoming destitute?

Yes, exactly. I think that is very stark in Nottingham where, not very long ago, a man named Errol Graham starved to death on Universal Credit. I think it’s on people’s minds that some are having to choose between one thing that might kill them and another thing that might kill them.

There have been countless images in the media of frontline workers being forced to use homemade PPE that isn’t fit for purpose. Have you got sufficient safety equipment in the care home you’re working in?

We’ve got masks, but they’re surgical masks, which are not the right type, and we can only use one of those a day. That means they have to last us between 5-15 hours, depending on how long we are on a shift for. And we’ve got visors, but they’re homemade – a member of the public donated them. We’ve also got plastic aprons and gloves, which on their own don’t amount to adequate PPE.

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The Public Health England guidance is not particularly clear, and it’s also below the standard of the World Health Organisation guidance which is what we should be following. It’s ridiculous.

This virus is the same everywhere and WHO have set out minimum guidelines for PPE, so I don’t understand why we’ve decided that people in the UK should have less protection.

I know that the management where I work [in the care home] have been trying really hard to source more PPE, so it isn’t a criticism of them either – it’s the fact that the Government hasn’t prioritised it. There is a global shortage, but that’s only part of the problem. The Government should have invested in stockpiling PPE, that’s what other countries have done. In 2016 the Government did the run-through to see whether we would be adequately prepared if we had a pandemic and the answer was ‘No’. Instead of implementing changes as a result of that, they just joked, ‘Well, I hope that we don’t have a pandemic.’ Now we do and we’re not prepared.

Care workers just aren’t paid enough; they risk their lives for minimum wage, or not much more, and aren’t even being kept safe on the frontline What was behind your own decision to return to care work?

I wanted to support my colleagues because I knew that they are under massively increased strain as a result of COVID-19. I knew they were already under pressure because social care has been in crisis for a very long time – we’ve had £7.7 billion cut from the sector in the last decade and people who bear the burden of those cuts are care workers, who are always low-paid and predominantly women.

In care work, the jobs being done and the people receiving care often depend on care workers going the extra mile. I knew that, as a result of COVID-19, they would have to go several extra miles. The Government might have cut spending for social care, but the people in need haven’t disappeared.

You’re obviously exposing yourself to the risk of getting ill by returning to care work. Has that had an impact on your personal life?

I live with my mum and she's in the extremely vulnerable category, like many of my colleagues’ family members are. We’ve all been really careful by wiping down the surfaces in our house and changing our clothes immediately. It's exhausting being a full-time MP and a part-time care worker because both jobs are strenuous in themselves, but I also feel very happy to be working with my colleagues and friends [in the care home] again.

This is a very isolating time for everybody and I’m fortunate to be with friends and family.

What are your thoughts on the Government response so far?

They were slow to lock down, slow to order PPE and slow to test, which has resulted in Britain’s death toll being disproportionately high in comparison with the global death toll. That is not political point-scoring; I wouldn’t be doing my job as a Labour MP or as a careworker if I didn’t raise that issue and demand better from the Government. It’s not about scoring points, it’s about wanting to save lives and stop avoidable deaths. The lockdown has to continue and I’ll be resisting any calls for lockdown to be lifted prematurely.

There are things that Matt Hancock [Secretary of State for Health and Social Care] could and should be doing. He should be mobilising UK manufacturers to produce PPE – the fact that we don’t have enough is a combination of a decade of spending cuts, a total lack of planning and knowing that we were unprepared but still not acting. I know [new Labour leader] Keir Starmer has been contacting UK manufacturers and they want to help, but the Government hasn’t been contacting them.

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Why have they not been contacted?

I have no idea. I think it's incompetence. The only conclusion you can draw from the Government’s handling of this is that it has been shambolic. Whether it’s spending cuts, lack of planning or incompetence, the buck stops with Matt Hancock. We rely on the Government to keep us safe – it’s the very minimum we expect. But we don’t feel safe because we don’t have enough PPE. Do you think there has been a change in appreciation for the jobs previously described by the current Government as ‘low-skilled’?

Well, we sure as hell found out who the real key workers are, haven’t we? It’s not the bankers, shareholders, Starbucks, Google or Amazon. It’s care workers, refuse collectors, porters, paramedics, nurses, doctors, teachers, teaching assistants, shop workers – these are all the people who we couldn’t do without. You and I both know that they’ve always been key workers, and the Government has finally woken up to that. It was only a few weeks ago that [Home Secretary] Priti Patel was designating care workers as low-skilled. I asked her in the House of Commons which aspect of care work she considered to be low-skilled, but she couldn’t tell me. That’s because it’s a highly skilled and important job, and while the Government is now recognising that, it’s not being reflected in workers’ pay.

So how do we, as a society, ensure that things don’t go back to the way they were before COVID-19?

We've got to make sure there is no going back to how things were.

We can't return to the status quo because part of the reason we were so poorly prepared for this pandemic is because of Government decisions to prioritise the interests of big businesses above the interests of working class people. They were slow to call the lockdown because they wanted the economy – not the economy that serves you and me, but the economy that serves the interests of big business – to be protected, and they were willing to sacrifice workers in order to ensure profits would still be made.

The Sunday Times’ investigation shows that we don't have enough PPE because of austerity. We're still seeing now that working class people aren't being prioritised during this, so bosses are still getting away with paying people peanuts, keeping building sites open so that we can have a few more Costas. This isn't going to result in better conditions for working class people unless we keep the pressure on and unless we fight for it. That's not going to happen on its own, it's not inevitable. We're already hearing signals from the Government and we've got to make sure in the medium and long term that working class people don't pay for the current spending with Austerity 2.0.

We also need to guard against the measures that they may well take to protect the economy and get it back up and running again, like investing in dirty energy or going back on our climate commitments, for example.

Baroness Lawrence is leading a review into the impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.

How important is it to try and understand why the virus seems to be disproportionately impacting people from these backgrounds?

This is really crucial. It's extremely worrying that a disproportionate number of black, Asian and minority ethnic people have died from coronavirus. Racial, class and gender inequalities have all been highlighted and deepened by the crisis, and we need a full investigation as to how and why that is happening. We need an intersectional analysis of how COVID-19 is impacting people and then, as a result, what needs to be done to mitigate that. Honestly, the answer is a whole system change because what this pandemic has shown is that the entire system is failing: there are cracks everywhere and people are falling through them.

But if these problems are widely systemic, how do we tangibly start to fix them?

The scale of the problems we face are existential and overwhelming.

The answers aren’t going to come from the Government; that’s where many of the problems start, so they have to come from us in our communities. That’s very difficult when those same communities have been worn down by ten years of austerity and decades of neoliberalism. Whereas previously, during the Miners’ Strike or Poll Tax, people would have meetings on their streets, that’s all changed now. I think grassroots groups are going to be at the centre of transforming our society during and after this, helping to prevent any lurch toward right-wing authoritarian politics.

Mutual aid groups are really important as well. People are connecting in a way that they haven’t before with street WhatsApp groups and things like that. It’s about co-ordinating all of those things and joining together with what’s happening in Parliament.

That’s what I see my role as being. I’m an activist, from an activist background, and it’s my job to pass the mic to people who are already grafting in those communities but not necessarily being heard.

Nottingham is home to a huge amount of people working in creative fields, many of who are recently self-employed and finding themselves falling through the gaps of the Government’s financial help plans. What can be done for them?

This is a huge issue, and I've been contacted by lots of independents and people from creative industries about it. I've written to the Chancellor [Rishi Sunak] urging him to close the gap in provision – I think there are very strong arguments for using an emergency universal basic income to do this. I haven't heard back from him about my constituents who are in the position that you describe,

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but I think we're going to need big cash injections to independent businesses. Particularly in my constituency, these are all the small businesses and independent creatives that make Nottingham who we are as a city. We can't have those going under, it means so much for our identity as a city and it's one of the things that makes me really proud to be from Nottingham.

I started off when I was thirteen at the Nottingham Contemporary youth group, and that was one of the things that politicised me. It sounds corny, but it really helped me to find my voice when I was a difficult teenager. One of the things we're well known for across the country, and beyond, is our creative scene, so I'll be fighting tooth and nail to get the funding and investment that it needs to revive during and after this crisis.

Are you troubled by the anti-lockdown protests that have been occurring in America?

I am worried about that, and I'm worried about the farright seizing on this in the way that they have in America.

That’s why we, as progressive forces, need to be at the centre of this, coordinating the response at a community level so that people who want to sow division don’t hijack it.

This crisis has shown that immigrants are keeping the NHS afloat and saving people's lives. Someone's human and workers’ rights should not just depend on their economic utility, but I think this can take the wind out of the sails of the far-right who will want to use the crisis as an opportunity to divide people. But we just have to get in there and do the work.

With winning the seat for Nottingham East, starting life as an MP and returning to care work during a global pandemic, I guess it’s been a bit of a busy six months for you…

Oh, it has been a total whirlwind! Spending half the week on the parliamentary estate, and the other half on the estate I live on is a huge culture shock. My role isn’t to become part of the fabric of Westminster, but to learn how it works, pass on those lessons to activists in my community and around the country and use the mechanisms available to achieve change. There are a lot of arcane traditions and it needs a total upheaval.

Do you feel like you represent a different type of politician? As a voter, it feels different to have an MP that doesn’t seem to be part of the status quo…

Yes, I do. But it's not just about me making a change – I'm just a small part of it. I’m a representative of the bigger movement and force for change. I see myself as being a bridge between Parliament and that groundswell of change that is coming from grassroots movements.

You’ve been quoted as saying that life is particularly hostile for female MPs. In your experience, why is that?

We've seen that it's particularly hostile for women of colour, and I think that's because these institutions weren't built to serve us. They were built by us, if you like, but not to serve our interests, and that's why we need a system change. We don't just need more people like me in Parliament, good though that is, it's not enough in itself.

That's why it's important for me not just to be there to diversify Parliament, but to actually materially represent the interests of my constituency, particularly people of colour, working class people and young people.

I’m a representative of the bigger movement and force for change. I see myself as being a bridge between Parliament and that groundswell of change that is coming from grassroots movements The majority of us only experience politics through the various layers of media coverage. How did the reality of Parliament differ from your expectations?

To be honest, I think my cynicism probably served me well because it meant that I didn't have a rude awakening when I got there. I was expecting it to be much like it is. I don't think anything could prepare me for the feeling of being treated as an outsider though, and the way that it's rigged not to work for people like us.

What do you mean by being treated as an outsider? Is that something you feel, or the way people interact with you?

It's the way that people interact with me; a lot of people are very supportive and I've forged some good relationships in Parliament, but there are also a lot of people that think that I'm an assistant. A Tory MP handed his bag to a colleague of mine, who is a black woman MP, thinking she was estate staff. Black women MPs in particular regularly get mixed up for each other, and I get mixed up with another Asian MP as well. There’s a lot of calling you ‘love’ and ‘darling’, which wouldn’t be the case if I was a man, and probably not so much if I was an older woman, either.

Many MPs do come across as existing in their own bubble, unaware of how society has moved forward in the last seventy years…

When I first got there it struck me as to how far behind

some people seemed. That contrasted with what I'm sure was their perception of me, because the conversations I have with my friends are not conversations that are happening there. So, for example, there's a members’ tearoom that you can only use if you're a Member of Parliament or a peer. When I was going in they told me that it was only for members, despite the fact that I was wearing a member’s pass.

This is a period of huge change for the Labour Party with Sir Keir Starmer’s appointment as the new leader.

What do you see as the next steps for the party?

I think to constructively engage with the current leadership and to apply critical pressure to make sure that the important issues remain on the agenda. We need to maintain and improve on the progress made under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. For me, those really important issues are: radical change on climate, migrants' rights, and defending and expanding workers' rights. I’ve been thinking about that a lot during the pandemic, because there has been record levels of spending, but that hasn’t translated to workers having any more power. If anything, they have less power and that's what the Labour movement has to fight for.

You mentioned Jeremy Corbyn – what do you think his legacy will be now that he has stepped down as leader of the Labour party?

For me, there are two things. Firstly, shifting the terms of debate on the economy to anti-austerity. That was a fringe view when I first got involved in the Labour movement in 2013, and it’s why I supported Corbyn from the moment he announced his leadership bid. I was desperate for an anti-austerity Labour Party, and now we have that – even the Tories are saying they are anti-austerity. We can't underestimate what a feat it is for that argument to be won, that austerity was ideological, it wasn't necessary; we didn't need it then and we don't need it now. The other is that the Corbyn leadership opened the door to the type of people who are involved in politics. We saw fewer white, male, Oxbridge-educated technocrats and a greater diversity of people represented in the party, not just as MPs and Councillors, but as activists.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to the LeftLion readers and the people in Nottingham who are currently being affected by COVID-19?

I'd like to send my love and solidarity to everybody, particularly to our frontline workers. And thank you to LeftLion for generating the quality content Nottingham needs during lockdown! If you’re struggling, or have an issue to raise, and you live in Nottingham East, please contact me at nadia.whittome.mp@parliament.uk and I will do all that I can to help. Stay safe and well, everyone. nadiawhittome.org

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LIFE STORIES Up until recently, it’s fair to say that many of us have been guilty of taking the NHS for granted. But as the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on the country, stretching the health service to its absolute limits, you can’t help but feel that, as a nation, we’re finally starting to truly understand the value of what we’re lucky to have. One organisation was well-ahead of the curve on the appreciation front, however, as the NHS at 70: The Story of Our Lives project has been collating stories, memories and experiences of the NHS for a few years, and 2020 has seen them focus their attention on the East Midlands. We talk to Oral History and Public Engagement Coordinator James McSharry to find out more...

Can you start by telling us a bit about the project?

NHS at 70: The Story of Our Lives is a UK-wide project led by Dr Stephanie Snow, a historian with The University of Manchester, and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF).

We are currently in Nottingham, recording by telephone the unique stories of anyone who was treated by, worked in or shaped any area of the National Health Service since it launched in 1948 – from porters to politicians and care assistants to consultants.

We are working with several local partners including Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service (NCVS) and other charities. The aim is to capture the unique place of the NHS in everyday life since the Second World War. We want to capture everyone’s stories and the reality of the NHS – the good, the sad, the bad, and the happy.

These stories will be added to a digital archive, which will be available for all online and will unlock the rich social history of the NHS, which has never been documented to this extent before.

What is your personal involvement?

I have been working on the project since August 2017 as Oral History and Public Engagement Coordinator. I have been responsible for recruiting, training and supporting volunteers to collect oral histories and delivering public engagement events to recruit interviewees to give their stories.

I focused on South Wales in 2018, Merseyside in 2019 and am covering the East Midlands throughout 2020. This is a national project and we have coordinators throughout the UK. What other organisations or people are involved?

We have worked with a wide range volunteers and interviewees who have all either worked, volunteered or been treated by the NHS over the past 71 years. These include The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow and more local organisations including: The Brain Charity Liverpool, Paul’s Place in Bath and CVS in Nottingham.

Collating the stories and experiences from people all over the country sounds like a pretty huge undertaking. What was the starting point?

We began collecting in 2017 in two localities: Manchester, as the project is led by the University and South Wales, the home of [NHS founder] Nye Bevan.

We began by recruiting volunteers to train in recording oral histories and did public engagement events to promote the project and recruit interviewees. The response was very positive as almost everyone throughout the UK has an NHS story to tell. By 5 July 2018 we marked the 70th anniversary of the NHS by securing the full funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) and took the project across the UK. And what have you found to be the biggest challenges so far?

There is much on record of the thoughts and reflections of politicians and policymakers with regard to the NHS, but no one has ever created an archive of the thoughts, experiences and opinions of the leyman in terms of the NHS. Almost every single person throughout the UK has experienced the NHS but most people don’t see that their experience is valuable. So convincing everyday people that their experience, their story, their reflection on the NHS is of great value has been a challenge.

The NHS stands at its most extraordinary moment in its history Why do you think the overall project is important? What impact would you like it to have?

We want to create a more diverse and inclusive history of the NHS than currently exists. The NHS was created in 1948 to provide free and universal access to healthcare and is a key institution of post-war British everyday life. The lived experiences of workers, patients, volunteers and the public encapsulate a unique part of UK postwar social and health history. But the histories of many communities of patients and workers are absent from existing work. By making the history of the NHS more diverse and inclusive we will produce a shared national story about the NHS for everyone that can be taken into the future and benefit national and international audiences.

Are there any particular stories/experiences that you’ve found so far that have really stood out to you?

There are so many moving stories, some of which are already available to listen to via our website.

There are two in particular that have remained with me. Firstly, a lady from South Wales remembered when, back in the sixties, an Indian doctor joined the practice in her small village.

She described that in the days before appointment slots, patients would wait for hours to see the English doctor rather than see this foreign doctor who was viewed with great suspicion. She went on to say years later that same doctor became a partner in the practice and was beloved by the whole community.

Another man described how sexually transmitted disease clinics were often in dark basements of buildings and were very grim. He talked about getting a HIV diagnosis in 1982 and believing his life was over. He went on to talk about the advancement in HIV medicine and care over the past 38 years.

How has the archiving project been affected by the current COVID-19 crisis?

The NHS currently stands at its most extraordinary moment in its history. Since 2017, we have always arranged all our interviews face to face. As we saw the coronavirus move into Europe we realised we needed to rethink our processes, so decided to conduct interviews via telephone to ensure we could continue to collect peoples NHS stories while ensuring everyone’s safety.

And have you seen any major changes in the stories you’ve been receiving as a result?

While the aims of the project remain the same, the current COVID-19 pandemic has meant we are asking people to reflect on their current health circumstances in the moment which is adding another dimension to the project . That is why we are offering to call people back once a fortnight with follow-up interviews to allow them time to process their circumstances and reflect more effectively.

How can people get involved in the project?

We want to hear from people in Nottingham and the East Midlands. We’re looking for the whole range of people’s stories of health, wellbeing and the NHS – whether they worked at the Boots of old or were treated at the QMC, whether they were the district nurse for the Caribbean community in Lenton or ran the medical school, or whether they worked in the ear clinic on the Ropewalk or those who want to tell the current experience in light of coronavirus. Everyone has a story that relates to the NHS. Be part of NHS history and get in touch now.

If you’ve got a story you’d like to contribute, contact the project at nhs70@manchester.ac.uk or by calling 0161 275 0560 nhs70.org.uk

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The NHS stands at its most extraordinary moment in its history

Christine Joy Smith was born in Rainworth, Nottinghamshire, in 1944.

She recounts in detail being hospitalised with meningitis in 1948 at age three, her stay coinciding with the start of the NHS. At this time parents were not routinely allowed to visit or stay with their children in hospital.

“It must have been around May or June 1948. I was three.

I remember being taken to a building with a brick chimney, which I found out later was the local general hospital. I remember my dad standing in a corridor because two women came and took me from my dad. I remember shouting him and holding out my arms and him looking sad and putting his hands into his pockets.”

Tryphena Anderson was born in a small village in Jamaica in 1933 and now lives in Nottingham.

Reflecting on what brought her to the UK in 1953, Tryphena says, “That’s what we came here for, it was like an invitation and England was recruiting for nurses across the West Indies.

They put an advert out, £28-passage, and people came.”

1948 The NHS is born A new National Health Service Act led by Labour Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, created the NHS in England and Wales. For the first time, hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians, dentists, community nurses and health visitors were brought together to provide free services.

1940S

1949 National Association of Leagues of Hospital Friends formed with the objective “to mobilise, encourage, foster and maintain, the human love of the people of this Country, in the giving service to supplement the healing work of the staff and the State, and always ensure a humanising supplement to the work of the hospitals.”

1958 First mass vaccination programme for polio and diphtheria. Race riots in London and Nottingham.

The new Outpatients Department at Nottingham City Hospital is opened.

1959 Platt Report advised that parents could accompany children in hospital. Nottingham City Hospital’s new X-ray Department is opened.

1960S 1960 The UK’s first donor kidney transplant occurs in Edinburgh.

1961 The first contraceptive pill made available.

Thalidomide, ‘a mild sleeping pill’, is withdrawn after thousands of babies were born with malformed limbs worldwide. Widespread recruitment in India and Pakistan. In Manchester, one in two doctors are BAME.

1973 The NHS Reorganisation Act sees major structural changes. Six more operating theatres open and the central sterile supplies department is established at Nottingham City Hospital.

1974 Nurses march to Downing Street leading to pay awards of up to 40%. Community Health Councils – ‘the voice of the consumer’ – introduced. Family Planning Services brought into the NHS. All contraceptives provided free. Health Ombudsman introduced to manage complaints.

A new 168-bed maternity unit is officially opened at Nottingham City Hospital.

1975 95% of births take place in hospitals.

1962 The first total hip replacement.

Hospital Plan to develop new district general hospitals.

1950S

1963 Patients’ Association established.

1972 CT Scans produce new 3D images of inside the body.

1976 Overseas Doctors’ Association established.

NH

TIMEL 1971 An estimated 12% of Britain’s nurses were Irish nationals.

1977 Queen’s Medical Centre is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

1950 JS Collings’ Report into General Practice was highly critical of poor standards of practice and training. Recruitment started in the West Indies.

Recruits worked as doctors, nurses, cooks, porters, cleaners and administrators. Without them the NHS would not have survived.

1951 Nottingham City Hospital’s Occupational Therapy Department is opened.

1957 Whooping cough immunisation began.

A major scheme begins to modernise Nottingham City Hospital’s main wards, which began in May with the laying of the Foundation Stone to the new Outpatients Department.

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1955 Nurses in Huddersfield object to employment of BAME nurses on economic grounds. Ultrasound was used for the first time to examine a pregnancy.

1956 Polio immunisation began.

1964 Guyanese nurse, Daphne Steele, is the first black matron at St Winifred’s Hospital.

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1952 Charges for prescriptions and dental treatment start, causing Aneurin Bevan to quit in fury.

1965 Race Relations Act defines racial discrimination in law.

Prescription charges abolished. Group Captain Douglas Bader opens the Nottingham School of Physiotherapy.

1954 First links between smoking and lung cancer found. The Duchess of Gloucester opens the new twin operating theatre at Nottingham City Hospital.

1967 Salmon and Cogwheel Reports propose nurse training and grouping doctors by medical specialism. The Abortion Act enables some abortions (except in Northern Ireland). First major NHS inquiry into allegations of poor treatment of mentally ill patients.

The first kidney dialysis machine is presented to Nottingham City Hospital.

1968 The first heart transplant.

Prescription charges are reintroduced.

1970 Hospital Advisory Service launched after scandals in psychiatric and geriatric care. The Equal Pay Act paves the way for equal employment conditions and wages. Nottingham City Hospital is awarded teaching hospital status.

1978 Louise Brown is the first child born through IVF. The Winter of Discontent leads to widespread strikes in the NHS. Ongoing pay caps during the coldest winter for sixteen years.

University of Nottingham Physics professor, Sir Peter Mansfield pioneers the first MRI machine, using himself as the guinea pig.

1970S 1979 Bone marrow transplants began. UK’s first Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia service set up in London. A Royal Commission raises concerns of an ageing population. The Helen Garrod breast screening unit is opened at Nottingham City Hospital.

The A&E Department transferred from the Nottingham General Hospital to the QMC. 100,000 patients passed through its doors in the first year – by 2015 the number had risen to 207,000.

1969 BAME nurses make up 25% of NHS staff.

1980S

1983 The Mental Health Act allows detention of mentally ill people with or without their consent. The first combined heart and lung transplant in the UK is performed by Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub – an Egyptian-British surgeon at Harefield Hospital. The Stroke Research Unit is opened by actress Miriam Karlin at Nottingham General Hospital.

1986 Artificial heart programme began. A major outbreak of salmonella food poisoning kills nineteen patients in a Wakefield hospital.

The Duchess of Gloucester opens the Medical Research Centre at Nottingham City Hospital.

1999 Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation report aims to tackle the main killers – coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke, accidents and mental illness. Prince Charles officially opens the QMC’s Multi-Faith Centre and the parents’ overnight stay unit.

1987 World’s first heart, lung and liver transplant.

1998 Action to tackle racial harassment in the NHS announced. The Acheson Report into health inequality based on income, gender and ethnicity. NHS Direct – a 24-hour phone line that’s available all year round launches. MMR controversy – evidence, later deemed fraudulent, is published of links between the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and colitis and autism.

1982 NHS nurses strike over low pay.

1981 Linden Lodge, a 26bed unit for younger chronically ill patients, is opened at Nottingham City Hospital.

1980 Black Report into inequalities of health.

One hundred years of service is celebrated at Mapperley Psychiatric Hospital.

2000S

2012 Health and Social Care Bill passes. Doctors take industrial action for the first time in nearly forty years over pension changes. Royal London Hospital surpasses QMC as the largest hospital in the United Kingdom and the largest teaching hospital in Europe. The East Midlands Major Trauma Centre is established.

2013 NHS funding reforms. The rising costs of drugs adds pressure to the NHS.

2000 Tony Blair’s NHS Plan to modernise, invest in and reform the NHS. The cardiac surgery unit is opened at Nottingham City Hospital. The QMC’s new Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Unit is opened.

1997 ‘New’ Labour abolishes fundholding.

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TIME

2011 Foundations are laid for the new architecture of the NHS. A new £3.5m specialist burns unit for children is set up on the children’s wards at the QMC Sir Paul Smith opens the Maggie’s Cancer Care Unit at Nottingham City Hospital.

2014 The Care Bill is passed to safeguard adults from abuse or neglect. NHS 111 replaces NHS Direct. The QMC’s adult intensive care unit is re-opened after a £3.5m major refit and expansion.

1988 Breast cancer screening introduced. Carol Baxter publishes The Black Nurse, the first major work to reveal the extent of racism in nursing and its effect on nurses. Working for Patients creates self-governing NHS trusts and GP fundholding. Care in the Community begins, moving care from institutions into the community particularly for the elderly, disabled people and those with mental illness. Princess Margaret visits the new Occupational Therapy Department at the Nottingham City Hospital and officially opens the CT body scanner.

2015 Junior Doctors vote overwhelmingly for strikes over unfair and outdated contracts. Over 80% walkout resulting in service reductions and bed closures. Queen’s Medical Centre becomes the first hospital in the UK to have its own dedicated tram stop.

2010S

1989 After over two centuries of health care, the closure of the Nottingham General Hospital is announced.

Following the Kegworth Air Disaster, the QMC treats 49 air crash victims. Prince Charles later visits QMC to talk to those recovering from their injuries.

1990S

1996 Prime Minister John Major announces three new NHS White Papers around choice, primary care, and the future. The introduction of Triple therapy for AIDS involves the use of multiple drugs that act on different viral targets, known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).

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ELINE 2009 The act FAST stroke campaign introduced. NHS Chief warns savings of £15bn to £20bn are needed. Pledge to eliminate mixed-sex wards from hospitals. NHS Constitution published. After a £250,000 refurbishment, increasing the bed capacity from eight to twelve, the QMC’s High Dependency Unit is reopened.

2016 Over 400 dentists advise the NHS dental system in England is unfit for purpose. Junior Doctors’ Strike - 100,000 operations and outpatient appointments cancelled.

1990 New legislation improves access to health records. Prince Charles, after sustaining a shoulder injury from a riding accident, is operated on by QMC Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Professor Christopher Colton.

1992 Nottingham City Hospital becomes an NHS Trust.

1994 Health authorities reduced from fourteen to eight in reorganisation. NHS Organ Donor Register established.

The new £10m maternity unit at Nottingham City Hospital is opened to replace the asbestos-clad unit built in the early seventies. A new women’s endoscopy unit is also opened at the City Hospital.

2001 Redfern Report on the retention of patient organs. New hospital star rating system.

2002 Creation of Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts. Day Surgery strategy introduced.

New Patient Forums.

1993 Following the transfer of the Oncology Department to Nottingham City Hospital, Nottingham General Hospital is finally closed.

2003 Nottingham City Hospital celebrates its centenary, and QMC celebrates its 25th year.

2004 Overseas recruitment continues – including dentists from India and Poland.

The first ten Foundation Trusts established to create a ‘patient -led’ NHS. New four-hour A&E target - for patients to be seen, treated, admitted and discharged.

2008 The first vaccine against HPV (causes cervical cancer), given to girls aged twelve. Patients can choose any hospital, public or private, willing to treat at NHS prices. Nottingham NHS Treatment Centre is opened.

2007 National Stroke Strategy created. A new £275,000 unit for the treatment of post-natal depression is opened at the QMC.

2017 Since 1931, average life expectancy in the UK has risen from 58.7 to 79.5 for men, and 62.9 to 83.1 for females. Jeremy Hunt (seen as the most unpopular Health Secretary in history) ditches the four-hour A&E target as a crisis deepens in hospitals. Student Nurse bursary abolished leading to a 23% drop in nursing degree applications. Over 33,000 nurses quit the NHS – 10.5% of the nursing workforce. Nearly a quarter of those leaving are under the age of thirty.

Publication of This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

by Adam Kay.

2006 Bowel Cancer screening begins.

Wayne Rooney was treated for a foot injury at the QMC by Professors Angus Wallace and Chris Moran.

2018 One in nine nurse posts are vacant according to the Royal College of Nurses.

2020 The COVID-19 crisis puts enormous pressure on NHS staff and resources.

photos: Marcus Holdsworth

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Open Hearts, Open Kitchens Busy workers. Blissful smiles. Big ideas; we discover how Nottingham’s newest charity initiative Open Kitchens is bringing meals to the doorsteps of those who need it most...

It’s seven o’clock in the evening, and Katie unlocks the door after a long twenty-hour shift at the Queen’s Medical Centre. Her face is bruised and blistered from wearing her mask, but she doesn’t care. She’s exhausted, drained. Frown lines sketch her forehead. She reaches inside her handbag, where a tub of sticky toffee pudding sits, delivered to the hospital earlier that day. As it heats the sauce bubbles beautifully. She grabs the biggest spoon in her cupboard and scoops up a syrupy heap of sponge. It’s the most comfort she’s had all day.

Josh hears the doorbell chime. He’s been living in a hostel in Mansfield for a couple of weeks, and he’s just got his head around changing the sheets. He’s not quite sure about working the oven, but beans from the local shop stuck in the microwave have been doing him just fine.

Then he answers the door. A friendly face greets him with a box full of meals for him and his new mates. They warm up the food, vegetable moussakas all round. Josh takes a mouthful and smiles. It’s just how he imagined proper home-cooked food. His mum was never able to make that.

On the other side of Nottingham sits Adam Roberts, hunched over his computer. He’s been working 8am until 11pm since Wednesday 18 March, coordinating teams of volunteers and working strings behind the scenes to make this happen. He’s founded Open Kitchens – a brand new community food delivery initiative. The idea came from him running a food digital marketing agency, and seeing first-hand the immediate impact COVID-19 had on the industry.

“The industry collapsed overnight. I was talking to lots of restaurants at the time who were accepting that this wasn't a period where you could make money. I said, ‘Let’s see what we can do to help,’” he tells me. “On a human level, I came up with the idea and thought I couldn’t not make it happen.”

With his specialised team all onboard, they decided to create a concept, system and brand that restaurants could get involved with.

Essentially, they pledge to make a certain amount of meals and host a Just Giving page with Open Kitchens, who then deliver that food for them. They’re currently running their pilot in Nottingham, and so far they’ve delivered 10,000 meals to key workers and vulnerable people in the area. “It’s powered by the notion that restaurants can cook for their communities, with help from their communities. We all need feeding, but people also want to enjoy good food,” Adam says.“The beauty of this is the brilliant food cooked by people whose lives and passions it is.”

Typically working 40-60 hours a week, chefs and restaurant workers are used to working long hours, powered by a love of what they do. Having that taken away from them so suddenly was a shock. Bar manager of Trent Navigation, Sam Ditchfield, says, “I was going to look for some volunteer work just to keep myself busy as I'm used to being on my feet all the time. When my operations manager suggested taking part in Open Kitchens I jumped on it, as not only was it

a way to keep me active and give my days a bit of structure, we knew we would be helping the community as well.”

George Ktori, head chef at Yamas, which was the first restaurant onboard, feels the same way: “We're able, we're healthy. We're a family with a restaurant and it’s closed, so doing something to help people was a no-brainer. All my chefs, like us, just wanted to help instead of doing nothing.

We're used to doing things, and cooking is what we know and what we're good at.”

Hearty meals that are being cooked by these restaurants include beef stew, vegetable moussaka and vegetable chilli. One of the places Open Kitchens’ volunteers are delivering these to is Queen’s Medical Centre. Sam says: “They’re so busy looking after other people, so it’s nice for them to have someone look after them for a change.” George agrees, smiling, “People can share moussaka – when they get it, I reckon the nurses tuck into it together and pretend they're at the restaurant.”

It’s arguably the best way to get nutritious food that puts a smile on people’s faces to the people in our communities that desperately need it Not only are these people getting tasty meals that give them a pick-me-up, but the food is also packed with virus-fighting vitamins. “Your immune system is essential to battling it, and these meals are high nutrition,” Adam explains.

“There's also the psychology – this is a really delicious meal that gives somebody a lift. For an NHS worker who has a tough day ahead of them or has just come back from a twenty-hour shift and is too tired to cook a meal from scratch, it means they won’t have to cut corners with what they’re eating.”

As well as the doctors and nurses at the QMC, the Nottinghamshire YMCA are also receiving meals, which they are distributing to their hostels and housing across the county. Nick Clements, the housing manager at the YMCA, tells us, “Not everybody that we house is a budding chef – in fact, most of them aren't and don't always eat properly. We serve a broad range of people and a lot of the individuals are homeless and have experienced trauma. Also, a lot of people we accommodate don't always have the independent living skills you and I have.” The charity doesn’t have the budget to cook and deliver lots of food, so when Open Kitchens stepped up to the plate to help them do that, they thought it was fantastic.

“When we see hungry people with big eyes, salivating to eat the food, it's brilliant,” Nick continues. “It's the same feeling as giving somebody keys – you know if it wasn't for you and it wasn't for that bunch of keys, that person would be sleeping on the streets tonight. It's

the same with delivering food – if you hadn't delivered that food, they wouldn't have eaten as much and, certainly, it wouldn't have been as nutritious as that.”

They’ve also been wowed by the community spirit of Nottingham rallying behind them. Nick says, “It's a lovely, warming feeling when the community responds that way.” George feels the same way, having seen his customers support Yamas massively during this time, “Customers have been donating money, writing posts – it's all positive, and that's what we need at the moment.”

Other restaurants and cafes across Nottinghamshire that have been pledging their support and making meals include Bar Iberico, Copper, Ugly Bread Bakery, Alchemilla, and even Nottingham Forest. But while this movement has started in Nottingham, it’s clearly set to go nationwide, with restaurants from other counties starting to join in too. Adam tells me, “We've built this with the aim of expanding and becoming a national food solution. There are 50,000 restaurants in the UK and our aim is to activate 10,000 of those as quickly as we can.

At that point we'd be able to provide a million meals a day.” He continues, “Hopefully the Government will get behind this too, as there is a concern about how they'll do this on their own. We'd also like to have some of the bigger Nottingham businesses behind us too, like Boots and Experian.”

Adam is also hoping to keep Open Kitchens going after COVID-19. “There's going to be millions of people across the country and the world that need food. On top of that, most restaurants have the capacity to do this at some point during their week, so we're looking at how we can fund the initiative,” he explains. “For example, adding a way to donate a couple of pounds onto a bill could then create a meal for someone in the community surrounding that restaurant. We want it to continue forever, and to roll it out internationally.”

In the meantime Open Kitchens is still growing, helping you to donate to your community in these difficult times. Adam tells us, “It's arguably the best way to get nutritious food to the people in our communities that desperately need it and put a smile on their faces in the process. It will help save lives.” If you can’t afford to donate, you can still help: “We know how hard it is for people's jobs and livelihoods, so if you can't donate financially then please do share the link online, as someone may see it who can donate.”

The meal you donate could be going to a key worker Katie, a vulnerable Josh, or a child who usually gets a free school meal. It's all on our doorsteps. It isn't going to someone at the other end of the country – it is going to someone who could live on the end of your street. openkitchens.co.uk justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ trentnavigationopenkitchensuk justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ yamasopenkitchensuk nottsymca.com

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Our Georgi Scurfield has been keeping herself rather busy over the last few weeks. Rather than spending her isolation time binging box sets and rinsing Buzzfeed quizzes, she set up COVID Diaries, a video project aimed at giving Nottingham folk a platform during self-isolation. Whether they want to rant, unload or simply shoot the breeze, she’s been collating the best submissions and putting them out regularly on Instagram, and will continue to do the same as long as lockdown continues. We round up some of the best videos so far...

[ Staying Positive ]

[ Hammock Love ]

[ Worries ]

[ Dwyz Shows Us Around Notts ]

[ Keeping Busy ]

[ Clean Out Complications ]

You can catch up with all of the COVID Diaries videos on Georgi’s Instagram @georgiscurfield

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Notts R eb el s words: Ashley Carter and David Yancy

Peter Wyncoll once described Nottingham as a “banner town, always at or near the front of Reform Movements,” and with good reason. As a city, we can boast an illustrious history of rebellious acts, fighting injustice and righteous activism. In collaboration with the Nottingham Castle Trust’s Voices of Today campaign – which aims to inspire residents to get creative and represent their experiences or perspectives on activism, protest and rebellion – we’ve launched a brand new weekly online series celebrating the very best of Nottingham’s rebels. Here’s a rundown of the events, people and acts of protest we’re including...

J eremiah Brandreth

Nipp er R ead

‘The Nottingham Captain’, as he came to be known, was an out-of-work stocking maker who lived in Sutton-in-Ashfield. After getting involved with the Luddite movement – a radical faction who protested industrialisation by destroying textile machinery – Brandreth was one of the leaders of the 1817 Pentrych Rising. With Britain in a deep depression following years of warfare against Napoleon, the ultimately doomed armed uprising intended to take control of Nottingham, creating a new currency and wiping out the National Debt. With the plot foiled by a hidden Government spy, Brandreth was caught, and has the dubious honour of being the last man to be beheaded by axe when he was executed outside Derby Gaol.

Being deemed too short for the Nottingham police force, Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read moved to London to join the Metropolitan Police in 1947 after a spell working at Players cigarette warehouse and serving in the Royal Navy during World War II. Moving his way up the ranks, he gained promotion to Detective Sergeant by 1958, and went on to cement his legacy as one of the most important figures in the history of the British police force. After being involved in the Great Train Robbery investigation, it was his leadership on the Met’s Murder Squad that eventually led to the conviction of The Kray Twins. Sadly, Read died of COVID-19 last month, just one week shy of his 95th birthday.

Alan Sillitoe The impact of a poverty-stricken childhood in 1930s Nottingham clearly made a lasting impression on Sillitoe. The writer would have hated being called a ‘Nottingham rebel’ just as much as he loathed being labelled as one of the so-called ‘angry young men’ of the 1950s. But it’s impossible to overlook the rebellious and anti-establishment sentiments in his work. From Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, his writing captured an authentic rawness of time and place, and a palpable sense of frustrated disillusionment within his anti-heroic leading men.

Lucy Hutchinson Born in 1620, Lucy Hutchinson boasts a pretty impressive CV that includes diarist, combat medic, poet, translator and biographer. Perhaps best known for translating Latin poetry into English (including the first ever full translation of Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things), she was wife to Colonel John Hutchinson, one of the signatories on King Charles’s death warrant following the Civil War. Her writings paint a vivid picture of Puritan life in Nottingham during the war, which the Hutchinson’s successfully held despite repeated Royalist raids from nearby Newark. Although her work was neither circulated or appreciated during her lifetime (publishing female-penned work was deemed unsuitable) the importance of both Hutchinson’s Civil War accounts and translations were integral to later generations.

Ge orge Africanus The exact details on George John Scipio Africanus’ early life are lost to history, but he was probably born in the early 1760s in a Sierra Leonean village. As a victim of the transatlantic slave trade, George arrived in England in early 1766, before settling in Nottingham as a free man at the age of 21. Together with his wife Esther Shaw, he started an employment agency, operating out of their home in what is now the Lace Market. As Nottingham’s first black entrepreneur, it’s impossible to over-state Afraicanus’ legacy, which is remembered with a blue plaque on his former residence, another on St. Mary’s churchyard railings and a tram named in his honour.

Brian Clough What can you say that hasn’t already been said about Ol’ Big Head? His management career with Forest might be defined by silverware, but his reputation as being outspokenly honest and fearlessly controversial off the field is what makes Brian Clough a rebel. Wildly charismatic and always ready with an opinion, Clough consistently marched to the beat of his own drum, and suffered no fools in the process – just ask the lad who caught a mean right hook from him during a 1989 pitch invasion.

Henry Garnet

The Nottingham R eform Riots

It was the most ambitious assassination attempt in British history, and one whose consequences are still with us today, four centuries later. Celebrated every November, the story of the Gunpowder Plot is well known, and catapulted a certain Guy Fawkes to lasting notoriety – yet despite Fawkes’ enduring infamy, he was far from the only one involved. Much less well remembered is the arrest of a Nottingham local, Henry Garnet, who the authorities executed for playing an instrumental role in the plot’s fruition. But was Garnet truly guilty of involvement, or was he the victim of something darker?

It’s been said that the true history of Nottingham can be defined as a series of social struggles fuelled by the economic distresses of the city’s working class residents, and never was this more evident than with the events following the rejection of the Second Reform Bill in 1831. The failure of the bill – which sought to create a fairer electoral system – saw Nottingham erupt into serious rioting and systematic destruction. Over three days, a mob targeted property owned by prominent reform opponents, sacking Colwick Hall, setting fire to Lowe’s silk mill in Beeston and, on 10 October, surrounding Nottingham Castle and burning it down. 26 men were eventually arrested for the riots, of which eight were found guilty and three were hanged.

Margaret Humphreys It’s hard not to be impressed by the magnitude of what Margaret Humphreys CBE has achieved in her time. The Nottingham-born social worker has dedicated her entire life to bringing attention to the British Government programme of Home Children, the widespread policy of forcibly relocating poor British children to Commonwealth countries. After uncovering the scandal in 1987, she worked tirelessly to bring justice to the surviving victims, which included a landmark apology from then Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2010.

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DH Lawrenc e Through his radical exploration of themes like sexuality, emotional health, vitality and spontaneity, Eastwoodborn writer David Herbert Lawrence garnered many enemies during his short life. Enduring endless persecution, censorship and the misrepresentation of his pioneering work, Lawrence spent the second half of his life in voluntary exile, which he called his “savage pilgrimage”. By the time he died at the age of just 44, his reputation was little better than a pornographer who had squandered his sizable writing talent. Now, he’s considered one of Nottingham’s greatest ever artists whose unscathed integrity may have cost him momentary popularity, but assured him a literary legacy few can match.

Sleaford Mods In a time when the music industry is filled with fake-rage and insincere rebellion, Sleaford Mods have consistently shown that they’re not afraid to put a boot firmly in the establishment’s arse. Frontman Jason Williamson’s brash, brutal style perfectly accentuates his embittered explorations of austerity-era Britain and working class life and culture.

Grantham-born Williamson’s sprechgesang style has drawn comparisons with John Cooper Clarke, Ian Dury and Mark E. Smith, and once led Noel Gallagher to claim that there will never be another David Bowie, “because c*nts like Sleaford Mods will f*cking sneer at them.” If you’re pissing him off, you must be doing something right.

Eric Irons As Britain’s first black magistrate, Eric George Irons OBE spent his life fighting racial inequality. Having been born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, he was recruited to the RAF during World War II, and eventually settled in Nottingham having visited RAF Syerston in Bedford. It was there that he met Notts girl Nellie Kelham, who he married and had six children with. Pushing back against the rampant racial prejudices in 1950s Britain, Irons set up a community group, the Colonial Social and Sports Club, at his own home, and continued to fight for the rights of Nottingham’s BAME residents until his death in 2007.

King Edward III Young Edward may never have been King had it not been for a single act of bravery at the age of 17. His mother, the beguiling Isabella (often referred to as the She-Wolf of France) had arranged to have her husband, and Edward’s father – King Edward II – murdered, making her lover and co-conspirator, Roger Mortimer, de facto ruler of England. With Mortimer staying at Nottingham Castle, Edward and a small band of supporters led by Sir William Montagu, staged a coup d'état, entering the castle via a secret tunnel and overpowering Mortimer and his guards. From that single event, Edward III regained control of the throne, going on to transform England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe.

William Brewster From the wonderfully named, though otherwise unassuming, village of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, William Brewster went on to become one of the most famous names in the foundation of modern America.

Fleeing religious persecution in England (and later Holland), Brewster sailed aboard the Mayflower to the New World, landing at Plymouth Colony, where he became the settler’s senior elder. After a disastrous first year in which almost half their number died, it was the generosity of the Native Americans to Brewster’s surviving pilgrim settlers that began the tradition of Thanksgiving.

J ohn Deane Sailor? War hero? Shipwrecked cannibal? Spy? Pirate? There are countless ways to describe the legendary life of John Deane, who was born in the village of Wilford in 1679. Pick any chapter from his 81-year life, and you’re guaranteed a fascinating story. Our personal favourite? When his ship, the Nottingham Galley, shipwrecked on Boon Island on its way to Boston from London. Deane and the surviving crew lasted two months by eating the flesh of their dead shipmates, before they were eventually rescued. Several of the survivors even claimed that Deane had intentionally caused the wreckage in order to claim a huge sum of insurance money...

Lady Mary Wortley Montague Speaking of global pandemics, did you know that it was Notts’ own Lady Mary that is credited with introducing and advocating smallpox inoculation to Britain? We say Notts’ own, but Mary was never really tied down to any single location. Her father owned extensive estates in Nottinghamshire and Wiltshire, and Mary found herself in Constantinople, then the heart of the mighty Ottoman Empire, when her husband was appointed as Britain’s ambassador to the city. It was here that she first learnt of the practise of inoculation which, although initially met with scepticism and mistrust, gradually became accepted by the medical community.

Usha Sood Usha’s upbringing in Malaysia heavily focussed on religion, which taught her the empathy and determination she’s so famed for in the courtroom.

After attending a convent school, her family relocated to England so Usha could attend the University of Nottingham to study law. She began practicing in 1990 and, two years later, took on a case that lasted 22 years in total. Despite much doubt from her peers, this saw the first successful use of the Wardship in Immigration law. It was also used as one of the underlying cases which in 2009 led the Government to pass legislation to make children’s welfare a priority in immigration cases. Other career highlights include her winning the first successful dowry case in England and advising the Home Office on making forced marriage illegal.

Lord Byron There’s rebels, there’s anarchists, and then there’s Lord Byron. From keeping a pet bear during his time at Cambridge to fighting in the Greek War of Independence, his life was so wild it’s almost easy to forget that he was one of our greatest ever writers.

As he said himself, “I am such a strange mélange of good and evil that it would be difficult to describe me.” While it’s hard to pick a single definitive moment from his life, our personal favourite came on 3 May 1810, when he took it upon himself to swim the Hellespont Strait, the open water stretch that separates Europe and Asia. Why? Because he could.

Helen Watts Born in 1881, Helen grew up the daughter of the vicar at Holy Trinity Church in Lenton. In 1907, she joined the Women’s Social and Political Union, becoming an instrumental part in setting up the Nottingham branch of the organisation. Two years later she attended the Women’s Parliament at Caxton Hall, where a number of women demanded their case be taken to the Prime Minister. Helen was one of thirty women to be arrested and charged with obstruction, and accepted a sentence of one month’s incarceration rather than promise the court she’d adhere to good behaviour. Six months later, she was arrested again in Leicester, only to be released after a ninety-hour hunger strike. Her commitment to the fight for women’s rights cemented a lasting legacy in her hometown though – in 2016, a juniper tree was planted in Helen’s honour in the Arboretum.

St. Ann’s Riots 62 years ago, hundreds of people clashed on the streets of St. Ann’s. During events that have been described as “one of Britain’s most bitter and ugly black-versus-white battles”, men armed with knives, sticks, machetes and cut-throat razors clashed over increased racial tensions in the area. The aftermath of World War II had seen the need for manpower to help rebuild an exhausted country. The response – embodied by the Windrush, the ship that carried 500 Caribbean passengers to London in 1948 – saw a huge, and desperately needed, influx of immigration to the city. But with thousands of people living in impoverished conditions, coupled with the overt racism inherent in British culture at the time, violence erupted on 23 August 1958. It ended in a scene described at the time by the Nottingham Evening Post as a “slaughterhouse”, with dozens of men and women injured.

Wise Men of Gotham How much of the story of the Wise Men of Gotham is legend, and how much is historical fact has long been debated, but the story goes as follows: in the 12th century, King John intended to travel through Gotham on a hunt. At that time, any road the king travelled on had to be made a public highway, something the people of Gotham were keen to avoid at all costs. Feigning imbecility, they baffled the King’s royal messengers who, wherever they went, saw members of the community engaged in bizzare, idiotic acts.

They reported their findings back to John, who swiftly decided to hunt elsewhere.

‘Voices of Today’ is aimed at inspiring Nottingham residents to get creative and represent their experiences or perspectives on activism, protest and rebellion in a number of ways, including poetry, drawing, singing, acting, dance, creating a protest banner or something different altogether.

You can submit your artistic take on Nottingham's history of activism, protest and rebellion at @nottmcastle using the hashtag #VoicesofToday

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UNDER COVER ARTIST

THE BEST OF THE REST When we first decided to run a competition to choose our cover for this issue, I don’t think any of us expected there to be as many entries as we had. Not just the number, but the quality of all of your beautiful work was so impressive. It was extremely hard to pick a winner, but after much (virtual) discussion, a couple of arguments and more than a few tears, we finally chose Beane’s wonderfully uplifting design. As there were so many entries, we decided to feature a round-up of the best of the rest, too‌

We talk to competition winner Beane about the inspiration behind his beauteous cover...

Tell us a bit about yourself‌ I’m a graphic designer by day, DJ and promoter by night – I co-run the long-running Soul Buggin’ evening.

What was the inspiration behind the cover?

It was partly inspired by my daughter's rainbow and cloud patterned trousers, and partly by all the rainbow artwork that started appearing in people’s windows due to children being off school. I wanted to create paintings to show solidarity with the community and support for the NHS. I toyed with the idea of going down a darker, more moody route but that’s the last thing we need at the moment, so made it upbeat and bright. By utilising and tweaking some vector illustrations I attempted to communicate the current lockdown situation with us all living on our own little isolated islands.

Jade Vowles - @jadek_v

Kathryn Jackson - @katyjayy

Beane - @beane_noodler

Kathryn Jackson - @katyjayy

How does it compare with some other projects you’ve worked on?

In my day job I work for many different businesses in a variety of sectors. I haven’t done any magazine cover work where I’ve been given free rein to do whatever I wanted, so jumped at the chance to do a LeftLion cover.

What was the biggest challenge that you faced in creating the piece?

As always, it’s making sure I execute a concept I feel is strong and do it justice. Here it was creating a vector-based illustration in a cartoon fashion that communicated my idea clearly.

Deanna Ebblewhite @DJDeDeMusic

Ava Hemsley - @4aalt

Pooja Gadhia @artbypoojag

Tell us about some projects you’ve worked on in the past‌ I do all the Soul Buggin’ artwork for both online and print, so that keeps my creative juices flowing. But my clients in my day job are varied and range from both Nottingham universities, the Premier League, the NHS, Co-op and countless others.

ZOMBIES

What have you got planned for the future?

I honestly don’t know now that the world has been turned on its head with the recent coronavirus pandemic. Will I still be working as a graphic designer next month? Let’s hope so. Soul Buggin’ will most definitely be back, so the thought of getting mucky in a basement the other side of this is keeping a spring in my step.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell the LeftLion readers?

Keep busy to keep your spirits up and we’ll all be dancing again soon.

Amy Zacharia

Emily Brown

Ewan Butters

Ashley Harvey

isddesign.dunked.com @beane_noodler leftlion.co.uk/issue125 30

Art Blanche illustration: Emmy Smith

words: Laura-Jade Vaughan and Rachel Willcocks

One of the last things we did before the world went all Walking Dead was to appoint two brand-new Art Editors.

But sadly for us, them and the entire artistic community in Nottingham, all of the galleries in the city closed their doors soon after. So by means of an introduction, we thought it might be nice for Laura-Jade Vaughan and Rachel Willcocks to write about an exhibition that made a big impression on them...

LJ Vaughan

Rachel Willcocks

In 2007, a school trip took me to Andy Goldsworthy’s exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I was studying Art History on a bit of a whim – I had purposefully chosen obscure A-levels in a tactical attempt to get accepted into a college with a great contemporary dance programme. While convenient choices may have led me from my hometown of Essex to this haven in Yorkshire, when I stood in front of Goldsworthy’s sculptures, I felt I was where I was meant to be.

Discovering a big black 'weird-looking' building in Hyson Green influenced me to pursue a career in the art sector, and made me realise how much I, and all of us, can connect with art. Funnily enough around the same time, I found LeftLion!

Goldsworthy’s Leaf Stalk Room was a white cube space divided by a delicate curtain of thousands of twigs, painstakingly pinned together by thorns. I was fascinated by how Goldsworthy’s large sculptural installations embodied the fragile relationship between nature and artifice, object and experience, time and preservation. It left me thinking, what could a gallery tell me about a natural environment, and vice versa? I am still really interested in the relationship between contemporary art and its environment – how art functions outside of galleries, and how art can intervene in our experiences of everyday spaces.

I have returned to these questions through various curatorial projects and my writing.

My visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park inspired me to study Art History at uni – that’s how I came to live in Nottingham. I’ve loved being part of such an exciting arts scene. We have such a diverse range of art spaces, and I’ve found there’s a real openness to experiment, initiate projects, and form collaborations.

My first job was at Nottingham Contemporary for the grand opening, and ten years later (with a few years hiatus in the middle) I am Marketing Manager here.

Each day I get to creatively interpret ideas in the art for a range of audiences, and I always hope that my work might persuade someone to take a chance and visit an exhibition – and you never know – it might make for a meaningful, or even lifechanging, experience.

I have always thought that Nottingham’s lucky to have LeftLion – a platform that celebrates the diverse creativity of our city and represents a range of local voices.

I am really looking forward to being part of the team and getting to delve deeper into Nottingham’s arts and culture.

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Fast-forward ten years later and, after a stint in the youth theatre, and a Journalism degree at University of Arts London, I'm back at the big black weirdlooking building – also known as New Art Exchange, working as the Marketing Officer. I had no idea I'd be working in the 'art world', but it feels oddly perfect that I've gone full circle and ended up where I first discovered art and what it meant to be creative.

My first exhibition working at NAE was The Path by Hassan Hajjaj – a show that was the perfect welcome into the job. Walking into the gallery space was therapeutic: seeing the bright sunshine colours and bold patterns bursting with vibrancy; listening to the range of musicians and singers dressed head-to-toe in rainbow-coloured outfits, in different locations yet brought together with succinct synchronicity nestled into the film and its structure; touching the tables and frames put together from old Coca-Cola crates and painted tyres. This show felt alive, and its energy hit me hard and affirmed my decision to work with art.

The show combined photography, film and immersive space. Exploring each piece, questions on cultural identity, globalisation and the instilled perspectives we all carry popped into my head. The Dakka Marracekchia series challenged all those questions – photographs of women in hijabs posing like supermodels, their stance and style challenging the Western stereotype of Islamic women as suppressed and disempowered. I realised that it was the perfect example of how imagination and creativity can open up new worlds and new knowledge, concepts, feelings unexplored. Who knew art could do so much?

I've come a long way since my youth theatre days. Although I was terrible at Art in school and never thought I'd get an opportunity to put my Journalism degree to good use, I'm delighted to be a part of the LeftLion team. Nottingham's creative scene has so many stories to tell, and I can't wait to write them and keep this legendary piece of Nottingham's past and present engaged in art.

illustration: Kate Sharp

Our Editor-in-Chief is keeping himself busy by timetravelling through Nottingham’s past. Can you spot Jared enjoying his beloved Notts County away at Spurs in 1899?

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illustration: Raphael Achache

Think you know your Beestons from your Byrons? Your Broadways from your Bendigos? Test your Notts knowledge in the hardest quiz around these parts...

1. In Disney’s animated version of Robin Hood (1973) Friar Tuck is portrayed as which animal? a) Bear b) Badger c) Raccoon d) Mole

7. Which of the following did not play for both Nottingham Forest and rivals Derby County? a) Nigel Clough b) Kris Commons c) Colin Todd d) Kenny Burns

2. Which famous scientist gave a lecture at Nottingham University College on 6 June 1930 a) Nikola Tesla b) Marie Curie c) Edwin Hubble d) Albert Einstein

8. Who was the first band to perform at the City Ground in 2005? a) Oasis b) Blur c) The White Stripes d) REM

3. Which World Cup-winning All Blacks legend spent a month playing for Nottingham Rugby Club in 2010? a) Ali Williams b) Cory Jane c) Ma’a Nonu d) Owen Franks

9. Not including the lounge, how many screens does Broadway Cinema have? a) 3 b) 4 c) 5 d) 6

4. In which year was the first Goose Fair recorded? a) 1184 b) 1284 c) 1384 d) 1484 5. Why did some of the 508th Infantry Regiment get in trouble while stationed on the grounds of Wollaton Hall during World War II? a) They replaced the Union Jack with an American flag b) They shot and ate several deer c) They used some of the statues for target practice d) They started a fire with books from the Hall’s library 6. Who played Arthur Seaton in David Brett’s stage adaptation of Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1964? a) Patrick Stewart b) Albert Finney c) Richard Harris d) Ian McKellen

10. What did William Byron do to achieve the nickname ‘The Wicked Lord’? a) Shoot his coachman over a dispute b) Kill his cousin during a duel c) Built two forts on his property to stage mock battles with real cannon d) All of the above

14. What film gained actress Samantha Morton an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress? a) Minority Report b) Control c) Elizabeth: The Golden Age d) Sweet and Lowdown 15. Which of these is not a brand of Raleigh bike? a) Grifter b) Chopper c) Belter d) Burner 16. What is Jake Bugg’s real name? a) Jacob Bugsworth b) Jake Edwin Charles Kennedy c) Jack Michael Barnes d) Jonathan Mitchell Bugg 17. The National Justice Museum has one of the shirts worn by Reggie Kray while he was in prison. Who gave him the shirt as a gift? a) His brother Ronnie b) Buzz Aldrin c) Martin Kemp d) Henry Cooper

11. Which Italian football club was founded by Notts-born Herbert Kilpin? a) Inter Milan b) AC Milan c) Juventus d) Sampdoria

18. Which British landmark is purportedly named after legendary Nottingham boxer Benjamin Caunt? a) Caunt Bridge b) Big Ben c) Ben Nevis d) Caunt Beacons

12. Snowball, the world’s oldest guinea pig, died in Nottingham in 1979. How old was he? a) 5 years and 3 months b) 8 years and 7 months c) 14 years and 10 months d) 19 years and 2 months

19. Which of the following cities is not twinned with Nottingham? a) Ningbo, China b) Harare, Zimbabwe c) Byron Bay, Australia d) Karlsruhe, Germany

13. Which Dr. Who actor was formerly a member of Nottingham Forest’s youth academy? a) Bradley Walsh b) David Tennant c) Matt Smith d) Christopher Eccleston

20. Sutton-in-Ashfield’s town centre is home to Europe’s largest… a) Wilkos b) Maypole c) Sundial d) Hat

See you got on by checking the answers at the bottom of page 57

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As the city has been a wee bit quiet of late, we’ve decided to delve into the archives of our own (usually secret) quotes from the last year or so of the LeftLion office... e C uys? ” Ev “Sorr y, g logise Eve!” Ash o p a ’t n “Do Eve “... Sorr y.”

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’m n l ad I g o s C “I’m A sh o t Em

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“Are you going to stop singing so I can ask you a serious question? ” Eve to Ash C

Show Your Colours Our Emily Catherine has kindly whipped up a peach of an illustration for you lot to colour in – all you need to do is click the image to download a printable PDF. So grab your pens, pencils and crayons, turn off your phone, ignore the outside world and relax. Happy doodling‌

illustration: Emily Catherine leftlion.co.uk/issue125 35

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words: Rebecca Buck illustration: Anna Keomegi

Theatres are full of traditions, quirks and superstitions. One of the most poignant is the ghost light. Usually an exposed lightbulb on a pole, left switched on and placed centre-stage in an empty theatre, the practical advantages are clear: no one wants to fall off a dark stage. But the ghost light has an emotive significance beyond this. It ensures the theatre does not go entirely dark; it keeps the ghosts at bay; it is a reminder that the lights of the stage will shine again, on another performance.

Nottingham’s theatres are currently dark; outside of the theatres, hundreds of freelance performers, directors, writers, and more, search for ways to fill the downtime, the dark time. This is not a happy time, either. But their creativity is still shining – like ghost lights in a dark theatre. We spoke to just some of them to see how they’re feeling and what they’re up to when the stage is silent...

At Nottingham Playhouse, the closure came during the final week of rehearsal for Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo. Adam Penford, Artistic Director, said, “It was going to be a stunning production.

We were looking forward to welcoming schools and family audiences…” The closure also led to the cancellation of the Playhouse’s Easter Fest.

“Usually it’s a wonderful kind of chaos with hundreds of children running about the place,” says Adam. Meanwhile the Playhouse’s Head of Paintshop, Claire Thompson, should already have been working on sets for May’s Piaf but is now furloughed. As she points out it’s “impossible to be painting scenery from home due to the scale of the work.”

Over at the Lace Market Theatre, Matthew Huntbach was in the midst of directing Fin Kennedy’s How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, “a great show that’s rarely performed,” he says. “We were doing some excellent work and almost ready to perform; we had an ambitious set designed and ready to be constructed. The excellent ensemble cast of five were keen to get onto the stage. We’re essentially on pause now.”

The play is currently postponed, not cancelled.

Matthew points out that, “We are luckier than most small companies or amateur groups in the sense that we own the building the group performs in, so although we’ve lost out financially in ticket sales and performance royalty costs, we haven’t lost any venue hire costs. This is a really difficult situation for many other companies and performers.”

One such company is Chronic Insanity Theatre Company, who were meant to be staging two shows in Nottingham; Pull by Emily Holyoake and Phonecall by Joe Strickland (also co-Artistic Director of the company), both now postponed, as well as rehearsing a show for the Brighton Fringe, a summer festival that’s now cancelled. As Joe notes, “Our company stages at least one show a month, so the disruption has been rather significant for us and a lot of different projects need to be reorganised so that we can still put on shows and pay cast and crew for their input.” And Johnny Victory, a self-employed vintage performer who is familiar to audiences across the East Midlands, adds to this bleak picture: “2020 was originally going to be one my busiest years to date with a wide variety of events from private parties and performances to shows in museums, festivals and more.” He is facing cancellations for the whole

summer: “I don’t know when I will be able to start working again.”

Despite the impact of COVID-19 on their livelihoods and schedules, there is a lot of hope to be found in the essence of why theatre and performance is so important, especially in a time of crisis. Adam Penford explains, “Theatre brings people together.

It can entertain and offer escapism but also provoke empathy by asking the audience to look at the world through somebody else’s eyes. It’s been interesting seeing how many people are choosing to watch theatre online during lockdown.” Claire Thompson agrees: “Art gives us a way of engaging with each other through shared experiences and strengthens bonds. Theatre really reaches out to people and can educate, stimulate, and challenge our views.” Matthew Huntbach feels “the arts have always been important and it’s a shame they’re not pushed as much as science and technical subjects in schools. There’s always been an unfortunate assumption that working in the arts isn’t ‘real work’. This is of course, nonsense. A life without art is no life at all, right?”

Things will return to normal and I anticipate we’ll see a surge of people attending theatres and cinemas. There’s only so much streaming you can take isn’t there?

He’s being proven right, of course, as we see countless artists, theatres, writers, actors (and more) finding enthusiastic digital audiences during the lockdown. We’ve seen online content from the Playhouse, and Johnny Victory, who is livestreaming weekly, reminds us that it’s good for us too: “Visual stimulation and music help boost our serotonin levels and keep us well. Our social activities have been curtailed which usually help to stimulate our minds and keep us positive.” Joe Strickland is keeping busy as well: Chronic Insanity Theatre have online performances planned too.

As he explains, “we still have the resources and motivation to create work so we feel like we should so that people have something to do; to escape with or to examine the crisis through depending on their prerogative.”

As most of us are, Adam Penfold is looking to the future with enthusiasm. “The first performance back at the Playhouse is going to be a very special night.” Claire Thompson adds, “I know the Playhouse production departments will all work to the max to make the shows as spectacular as we

are able as soon as we are let back in the building!”

She also thinks “as soon as people are allowed to, they'll want to do all those things that we've been prevented from doing for what feels like an age already.” Sentiments echoed by Matthew Huntbach, “Things will return to normal and I anticipate we’ll see a surge of people attending theatres and cinemas. There’s only so much streaming you can take isn’t there? Audiences are going to be hungry for live performance happening in front of their eyes, or the shared experience.”

But there are reminders that this future isn’t guaranteed. The Playhouse has launched a fundraiser, and Johnny Victory expresses a hope that “Government assistance for self-employed will come off and soften the financial blow from this period. I do, however, worry that with the amount of free shows being offered online that some organisers will never go back to paid engagements in certain sectors.” Joe Strickland thinks streaming is a positive for breaking down barriers and that people will “keep creating and find ways to make the work they want to,” but acknowledges that “a lot of people are going to have a much tougher time making theatre once this is done.”

The performing arts have always been at their best when they reflect real life. Those involved with theatre and performance are creative and resilient but, like the rest of us, uncertain what the future holds. Perhaps Matthew Huntbach offers the brightest glimpse into a future when he says, “I think the post-lockdown enthusiasm for live experience will invigorate the industry. We’ll likely see COVID-19 inspired plays, films and TV shows popping up further down the line. Hopefully with a happy ending.”

Nottingham Playhouse has launched a fundraising campaign: The Curtain Up Appeal and is sharing digital content and a new podcast. Find out more via their website: nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk The Lace Market Theatre will be rescheduling shows for later in 2020 and is asking ticket holders to donate the value of their tickets rather than receiving refunds. Updates via their website: lacemarkettheatre.co.uk/LaceMarketTheatre Chronic Insanity Theatre Company is planning online content and rescheduling plays to later in the year. Follow them on Facebook or Twitter for updates: facebook.com/ChronicInsanityTheatre @CITheatre Johnny Victory is live-streaming a show every Sunday afternoon, find out more via his Facebook page or website: facebook.com/johnnyvictory1940 johnnyvictory.com

leftlion.co.uk/issue125 37

Dream a Little Dream...

In one year, your average adult will sleep for just under 3,000 hours. But 2020 hasn’t exactly been a normal year, and a lot of us are grappling with changes to our normal sleeping schedule – whether that’s an extra afternoon nap to combat the constant feelings of lethargy, or a loss of night-time hours due to anxiety triggered by watching the news. To help put your mind at ease when it comes to quarantine shut-eye, we’ve delved deep into the world of sleep to (hopefully) help you lot get a better slumber...

By the time we reach 75, we’ll have spent a solid 25 years of our lives snoozing. To some – such as the business-obsessed CEOs who thrive off checking in with their Tokyo office at 4am on the way to the gym – that might sound like a lot of wasted time. But, those hours spent in bed are invaluable to us and our ability to function as human beings.

As neuroscientist and certified sleep-expert Dr Matthew Walker once said during an appearance on This Morning in 2018: “We used to ask the question: ‘Why do we sleep?’, as if there was one single function, and that’s the equivalent of saying ‘why are we awake?’ We’re awake for lots of reasons. The same is true for sleep.” Dr Matthew released his international best selling book, Why We Sleep, in 2017, which not only runs through the nitty-gritty details of why we need sleep to function, but also details how to harness the power of sleep to improve your health both physically and mentally. Matthew completed his undergraduate degree in neuroscience at the University of Nottingham in 1996, and currently resides as a professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley – so there’s no doubt we have a lot to learn from him.

From the obvious benefits of restoring energy levels, reducing stress and repairing the body, sleep also has a major impact on your body’s ability to boost your immunity and fertility, slim your waistline and prevent illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. Without a decent amount of shut-eye, you can become emotionally unstable and unable to recall information, carry out basic tasks or understand logical reasoning and, in extreme circumstances, seriously damage your health. In a study conducted by the University

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of Chicago in 1989, when rats were deprived of REM sleep, they died almost as quickly as they would from total food deprivation.

We are currently living through a sleep-loss epidemic.

Surveys show that in the 1940s, the average adult was sleeping for 7.9 hours a night; now, that figure is closer to just 6.5 hours during the week for most adults. For centuries, our bodies have been programmed to demand a certain amount of sleep per night, but our lifestyles have undergone a significant change in those eight decades, and that’s before we’ve even begun to address the effect this pandemic is having on our slumber.

Sleep and anxiety have a complicated and intertwined relationship – when you’re suffering with anxious thoughts, the levels of adrenaline in your body are similar to those of your ‘fight or flight’ response, meaning the last thing your body will feel like doing is nodding off. But, this lack of sleep can have an even worse effect on your mood, as even small bouts of sleep deprivation will chip away at your happiness and, in turn, make you more irritable and worried. Thanks to the dramatic change of routine, concerns about the health of ourselves, our family and friends, and the constant bad news coming from our TVs and social media feeds, it’s no surprise none of us are feeling particularly rested.

People all over the world have begun to report more vivid dreams since the beginning of the pandemic too. In his book, Dr Matthew states: “REM sleep dreaming offers a form of therapy… takes the painful sting out of difficult emotional episodes you have experienced during the day, offering

emotional resolution when you are awake the next morning.” Dreaming is our brain storing, sorting and processing information, in particular negative emotions, and attempts to discard things it no longer needs. Some dream experts believe that the withdrawal from our ‘normal’ daily life, environments and stimuli has left us with a lack of new inspiration for our subconscious, leading our brains to revisit themes and memories from our past.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a quick fix to knocking yourself out for a perfect eight hours, but it’s imperative we chase as much sleep as we can for both our mental and physical health – our immune systems regulate our infection control, and without restorative sleep we could be facing a much scarier situation. It’s important to remember that as humans, our behaviors are innate, which makes it difficult to completely change our sleeping habits. But, you can implement some changes which will benefit you come bedtime.

TOP TIPS FOR SLEEPING We’re not going to delve into the obvious – limit screen time, stick to a regular sleeping routine, meditate etc. – but here are seven other ways to aid your ability to nod off...

Don’t lie in bed awake If you’re having problems dropping off, bringing stressful, negative emotions into the bedroom will undo all your hard work prepping for bedtime. Get up – and complete gentle tasks such as loading up the laundry or wiping down the kitchen surfaces until you begin to feel your eyes drooping. Similarly, try not to work from bed during the day – it’s important your brain does not make an association between bed and being awake.

Write down your stresses Stay one step ahead of those crazy dreams by processing your stresses on paper before they get the best of you in your dreams. Write down paragraphs, sentences or even singular words based on the things bothering you to prevent the anxious thoughts from stopping you from dropping off.

And, ultimately, be kind to yourself Think of how you put a baby to bed. Do you just plonk them on the duvet and expect stillness? Don’t expect this of yourself either. In the hours before bedtime, turn down the lights, have a calming bath, put on comfortable pyjamas and read a bedtime story. Maybe even invite your old cuddly toy between the sheets for an extra comforting squeeze too.

Avoid caffeine and alcohol Caffeine blocks the sleepy hormone adenosine from entering the brain, but when its effects begin to wear off, the contents of the blockage will flood into your body at once, causing you to want to fall asleep at the kitchen table. Caffeine’s other problem is its long ‘action’ life; twelve hours after a latte, a quarter of the caffeine will still be active in your brain. In context, a coffee at twelve-noon will still affect you at midnight. It will also hinder your ability to enter deep sleep.

Similarly, your glass of red before bed will not help you sleep better. It may make you fall asleep faster – due to being a sedative – but that’s only knocking out your cortex. Throughout the night you’ll find yourself waking up frequently, and your REM sleep will also suffer, which is essential for functions like good emotional and mental health.

Turn down the temperature To fall asleep, your body temperature needs to drop by a degree – meaning those socks keeping your toes cosy will actually prevent you from getting shut-eye. The ideal temperature for your bedroom is between 16-18 degrees, so it’s best to open that window and let things get a little drafty.

Create a relaxing sleep space Try introducing smells such as lavender – famous for its ability to send you off – and playing ocean sounds or white noise. While there’s no scientific data to back this up, experts reckon these repetitive sounds relax you by mimicking the rhythmic brain wave pattern seen in deep sleep.

Napping might not be the worst idea There is always a risk that a quick afternoon nap will cause you problems at bedtime, but naps can be good for learning and memory, your immune system and calming down your cardiovascular system. A ‘nano-nap’ of ten minutes will refresh you and boost concentration by up to four hours, or a twenty-minute power nap can increase alertness and memory with no sleepy-hangover.

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words: Eileen Pegg photos: Tom Quigley and John Smalley

TO BE CONTINUED: SENSING SYSTEMS SO FAR Neuroscientist and digital artist Matt Woodham had spent month’s gearing up for his debut solo exhibition, Sensing Systems, at Bonington Gallery at the beginning of the year, which was unfortunately cut short by the pandemic. This page space had initially been blocked out for a retrospective look on a key cultural moment in Nottingham. Now, our Music Editor Eileen Pegg, speak to the artist about how he has managed to assemble and reassemble the show in a new form…

Over a year in the making – and set to act as the crowning gem in the digital artist’s career so far – Sensing Systems was Matt Woodham’s debut solo exhibition, part of an ambitious six-week multi-disciplinary Arts Council-funded project. Known by most for his work creating visuals at music events under his Multimodal alias, Matt is a neuroscience graduate with a fascination for science and computation. Sensing Systems was the chance to showcase his interests in a non-commercial setting and offer an educational experience, spanning an exhibition, academic talks, hands-on workshops and a late night music event – but it was cut short.

The exhibition closed two weeks early. While the last remaining slice of the programme’s pie has been gobbled up by COVID-19, another enticing alternative treat took its place in the form of a digital playground, using tech that has become one of the dominant platforms amongst the current live stream chaos. “I grabbed the computer from the exhibition and took it home, creating a makeshift setup on a desk in our kitchen,” Matt said. “We made a live-stream version of the show for Twitch with a chatbot that allowed people to directly control the parameters of the artwork – like the interface in the exhibition.”

Sensing Systems was launched with a goal of “enticing the viewer into considering the mechanisms at play in the complex systems around them”. Skilled as a freelance web designer, taking the physical show online would have been a breeze for Matt. But even the act of doing so, reacting to an unfathomable change in our external environment, is strangely linked to the themes of the exhibition itself – switching the experience online on somewhere like Twitch was the perfect end that no one expected.

“I even made a dark joke that the pandemic was an artwork as part of the project. The COVID-19 crisis exposes the fragilities of systems…it is caused by vulnerabilities in the ‘small-world networks’, which are ubiquitous throughout nature and our lives.

Although the show’s overall aim was to celebrate beauty in systems, it simultaneously aimed to provoke acknowledgement of the place of humanity within them.”

My gallery visit took place back in February, a time when the realities of the global pandemic hadn’t quite reached the tipping point in the UK. Whether seen online or in person, it was a sensory delight that could be enjoyed on many levels. His stylistic signature was evident: the interactive graphics projected onto the walls at Bonington took on the same futuristic, almost alien-like aesthetics as those in a club space. Those interested in the theory behind the programme would have been delighted by the light trails left behind by the swinging kinetic pendulums, etching a different mark at every circuit, and curious visitors with no prior context would no doubt have been left gobsmacked by the overwhelming experience.Anyone wanting to be more actively involved had the choice of attending a symposium at Nottingham Contemporary and a workshop series sharing arts and tech skills hosted at Broadway.

“It was an ambitious task, striving to find parallels between those working across art and science – including astronomers, nanoscale physicists, system designers, computational artists and fine artists,” Matt said of the symposium. “The speakers had a short presentation followed by a panel discussion led by [astronomer and artist] Ulrike Kuchner. We covered a broad range of topics, including the pursuit of meaning and beauty, the use

of simulations in science and art and, more broadly, how science needs art, and art needs science.”

The workshops were held in conjunction with Near Now, Broadway’s studio for art, design and innovation. Taking place in early March, they were the last hoorah for the programme before its premature closure, offering guests the chance to create interactive and moving art that followed the programme's theme.

Ranging from visualizing sound with coloured fluid splattered across murmuring speakers to a lesson in AI software from Matt himself, anyone with enthusiasm was welcome to join and I was one of them, but at the last minute couldn’t attend – true to current events, I’d been asked to self-isolate. You couldn’t script it.

Our fit ‘n’ healthy photographer still made it down and the photo essays alone tell the story of delight and discovery from the eager attendees.

While the last remaining slice of the programme’s pie has been gobbled up

by COVID-19, another enticing alternative treat took its place in the form of a digital playground “I highly recommend anyone with an interest in arts and tech in Nottingham to reach out to Near Now,” Matt said, noting the strong relationship they’d formed since his graduation. “I absolutely loved both of the days – there’s something so nice about being with a bunch of people in a room who are all keen to learn a new skill, helping each other and having relaxed chats while making something new together.”

The impact Sensing Systems had made already is clear, but it was dispersed. The ending ceremony event planned at Metronome on 20th March, but cancelled at the last moment, promised to act as the beating heart for it all. A hub attracting visitors from each previous strand and those interested in the themes to come together and experience it themselves.

Alongside performances from Simone Salvatici, Will Plowman and Rich Wood, Matt was joining Throwing Snow for a debut collab, before Lukas Wigflex – who regularly invites Matt to provide visuals for his Wigflex events – took on the role of guest to close the show. It had been bookmarked by many people as a highlight night; Metronome is known for its high spec equipment that make tech-heavy shows like this a dream.

“We’ve been in conversation about the contingency plans,” Matt reassures. “In the meantime, we are looking to create innovative community-building online AV experiences, thinking of ways to bring the bereft event goers together. We’re currently working with Wigflex on an exciting new project – keep your eyes peeled for more on that soon…” “It was an anti-climax not to go out with a bang!” But with plans to reschedule, it seems we could be set for an almighty explosion, when the time is right. multimodal.live

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Retraining Day It’s a pretty daunting time to work for the NHS. Under more scrutiny than ever before, and overwhelmed by a health crisis that, at the time of writing at least, shows no signs of slowing down, they’re literally risking their lives on a daily basis. While most of us are probably thankful that we don’t have to face working in healthcare right now, Marie, who has retrained through the Futures for Business scheme, is just about to start...

There has never been a stranger time to start a new job. I don’t know how many people would jump at the chance to have their first day on the front lines of the National Health Service (NHS) during a global pandemic, but here Marie is.

Marie (who would like to remain anonymous) is due to start with the NHS any day now after successfully completing a course in healthcare with Futures in Business in Nottingham. For anyone not familiar with Futures – they’re a training hub for individuals and businesses that offer a range of skills-based courses and adult education like English or Maths. Marie signed up to Futures with a view to studying computer course before changing her mind when she realised they could help her achieve her dream of joining the NHS. “I went to the careers office and they put me through to Futures who invited me to come to an open day,” she remembers. “It was all straightforward, although the only daunting bit was the initial assessment of Maths and English. It’s been over twenty years since I’ve done anything like that but they made it really easy and they were supportive.”

Returning to education as an adult can be a terrifying prospect. School memories, finances, homework and study length can all be a daunting prospect to anyone considering further education. Marie found that the hardest part was believing in herself and finding confidence. “When I started I was actually called Mrs Doubtfire in class, because I’m the worst person for doubting myself! Everything they threw at me, I said, ‘Oh no, I can’t do that’, but I soldiered through and did. Hayley, my tutor, was like a second mum to me. She knew when I was down, she knew when I needed support and that goes for all the team. If it wasn’t for them then I would have given up and wouldn’t be starting my dream job.

I cannot thank them enough.”

She adds that she was surprised at how much she enjoyed having homework, “I was one of those in the class – and I had never been like this at school – who actually asked for homework to be sent over. I was enjoying it that much that I actually asked, ‘Can I please have some more work?’”

I know a hospital is somewhere we don’t want to be, but I’d like them to come away and know that I gave them the best possible care I can Marie’s hard work paid off as she was offered a job with the NHS after a successful interview. The course with Futures guaranteed an interview but the rest was down to her hard work. “I did the Level 1 Health and Social Care courses and passed both, which guaranteed an interview with the NHS. It gave you access to the interview, but not the job. I went to the interview and smashed it. I don’t know if it’s anything to do with the coronavirus as to whether I got it but, as far as I am concerned, I worked my bum off for the job.”

So how does she feel about joining the front lines of a global pandemic?

“I won’t lie, every time my phone beeps or a call comes through, I wonder if it's my turn to start, but I am dedicated to giving my best so I’ve always wanted to help look after people and even more so now. Patients are going into hospital now and they aren’t allowed to see family so we become their family. That gives me more drive and passion than anything because we are going to be the only people they are going to see.”

She adds that she’s been inspired by uplifting social media posts she has seen from nurses and doctors: “I’ve seen social media videos and they are making light of the situation and having a laugh. On the other hand, we know it is really dangerous. It’s nice to see them coming together and trying to be positive for each other. That’s something I can’t wait to be a part of. I don’t class it as an organisation, I class it as one big family and you are all in it together.”

I decide I can’t let the interview go without asking what she is most looking forward to about her fresh start and NHS life, and her answer genuinely makes me feel a bit emotional: “I think the thing I am looking forward to the most is offering everyone the best care possible. I’ve waited so long for this and I cannot wait to give something back to the patients. I know a hospital is somewhere we don’t want to be, but I’d like them to come away and know that I gave them the best possible care I can.” the-futures-group.com

words: Caroline Barry

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off the wall Hands up if you're missing the whole heap of real-world culture that Notts has to offer? I think it's safe to say we all are. But while we stay safe and stay home, there is one artistic offering still available from this city. So the next time you’re on your daily walk, run or cycle, take a minute to look around at the art pieces that aren’t in galleries or on our screens, but sit on Nottingham’s walls, buildings and side streets...

Nottingham has lots of pretty mad, cool and colourful street art that even glancing at briefly will help lift your spirits. So why not go street art hunting on your daily exercise outing? You might find some pretty impressive art lurking around the corner; we've got some talented street artists in the city, and there's plenty to look at...

What's in the City Centre?

Art pieces are dotted around town: on the Lace Market chippy, the side of Six Barrels by Viccy centre and down the alleyway to Five Leaves.

As well as a few bigger iconic pieces.

An orange wall home to the Notts Legends piece opposite The Angel showcases some of the most famous and greatest from the city. The piece, by a range of different artists, includes a modern-day Robin Hood sporting a Tesco bag on his head and the classic white-lines-downthe-sides trackies, Batman and recreated film stills of Nottingham’s very own Hollywood superstar Samantha Morton.

A UFO is approaching Broadway Cinema, just up by the steps – look left to see it flying down to earth. Maybe the aliens are coming to see the latest arthouse releases? This one is an explosion of the weird and wacky. The UFO looks down on pretty much everything under the sun. Think mushrooms, birds, badgers and creepy hands, you've probably never noticed how much stuff can fit in one image before.

The Mimm shop situated just opposite Broadway Cinema has just been painted anew by the lovely Emily Catherine. The shop's new look now features the singer Sade, who was chosen by our Em for her International Women’s Day nomination, because of her wonderful music and pioneering work on trans rights. And stroll a little further down Broad Street to see another piece from Mimm by Phill Blake: this time a powerful black and white portrait of a woman dripped in beads and jewels.

What's in Sneinton Market?

Plenty of colour for you with new work popping up all the time. There are pieces from

Notts street artists Dilk and Kid30 amongst lots more. With the Montana shop nestled in an array of creative shops and businesses, it's not surprising the area is known for its colourful collection.

What's in Hyson Green?

A little birdie and a big birdhouse, a skatepark and a powerful black history mural.

Tucked away up a side street, Maple Street Skatepark is covered in street art and graffiti, and its location makes it even more special. The Think Global Act Local piece (another one from Mimm!) by Kaption 1 is a few years old but still a lush spring green that looks best glimmering in the sunshine and blue skies.

Down the side street by New Art Exchange – and created by the gallery and the local community – is the Pathways Mural that showcases Black History figures on a background of traditional African patterns and prints. Each of the people painted tells a story.

Like Nottingham legend George Africanus, a former slave and one of the first black entrepreneurs of the 18th century.

What's in Beeston?

A moving tribute to a local hero, bees, mandalas and much more. Beeston had its own street art festival back in 2018, has a few gems from international artists and will have more commissions popping up on the other side of lockdown. The area has a buzzing street art scene and many pieces that bring vibrancy to the area.

The Beeston icons mural on Station Road was commissioned by Broxtowe Borough Council as part of Beeston Street Art Festival (2018).

The late actor Richard Beckinsale, the late singer/songwriter Edwin Starr, and fashion designer Sir Paul Smith were spray-painted by international street artist Zabou.

The Painted Lady mural by Jim Vision stands on High Road and may just take your breath away.

It depicts the once-in-a-decade mass migration of painted lady butterflies arriving in the UK from Africa.

words: Rachel Willcocks

Mental Health Support During COVID-19 During these uniquely difficult times, focussing on a single mental health problem doesn’t quite seem right. So instead, here’s a roundup of some of the services available in Nottingham, and how they’ve been affected by COVID-19.

Framework Framework has announced that the only major change to their service is that their support workers are all based at home, meaning that they are still currently offering phone support.

They have also said that face-to-face appointments will be available in extreme cases if required, and new cases are also still being accepted. Prior to COVID-19, the services Framework were providing included specialised supported housing; Wellness in Mind (advice and signposting regarding mental health); support outreach programmes; therapies including CBT, mindfulness and psychological and talking therapies; employment and skills support, Better working futures: health management, training and skills support, help applying for jobs and with personal circumstances affecting employment.

Opportunity and Change: Help for people with complex needs to access education, training and employment. Social enterprise: Work placements in Sutton in Ashfield. Skills Plus: support with money management, shopping on a budget, communication, tenancy, health and wellbeing, mortgages/ tenancy support, confidence, healthier lifestyles support, move towards employment. Nature in Mind: walks, workshops, gardening and cooking support and skills building.

Nottingham Women’s Centre The centre is currently closed and all face-to-face contact is cancelled, although they are still offering telephone and online support. There is a link on their website with COVID-19-related local support groups across the country.

The services prior to COVID-19 included: Advice on: Enrolling in learning/training, getting jobs, arranging volunteer placements, benefits/financial support, money management, difficult life issues. Counselling: Group therapy, psychodrama, peer support groups. Courses: Such as academic, personal development and activities/crafts. Online resources: on social media safety.

Spaces to meet, libraries and pamper sessions.

Middle Street Resource Centre Room hires are currently cancelled, as is their Mindset programme. The café is closed, and visits to the premises are limited and only with prior arrangement in exceptional circumstances. Staff are still in the centre providing telephone support, and their garden and gardening activities are still operating. They are also looking into providing outreach support for food deliveries. Services listed on their website include: their café, which offers affordable food in a supportive environment, their gardens which provide social interaction and teaches gardening skills, support groups, Mindset, which is run by people who have experienced mental health issues and Next Step, which is peer-led.

Open Door Their home care support is running as normal. Pre-COVID-19 services included: Recovery and social activities including coping skills, discussion groups, cookery groups, walking groups, art groups, relaxation groups and outdoor/adventure therapy.

Samaritans Branches are currently closed and training for volunteers has stopped, which means longer response times, but they are still offering telephone and email support as normal.

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Mind Mind is currently running telephone helplines and video conferences. Pre-COVID services included: telephone support, information and signposting, legal advice and mental healthrelated law advice, online community support, peer support.

According to their website, there is currently no branch in Nottingham for people to drop into.

NCVS Staff are working remotely and can be contacted by email (ncvs@nottinghamcvs.co.uk) or on 0115 934 8400. There is also a dedicated COVID-19 resource page with appeals for supplies, donations and links to local resources and groups. They are also hosting virtual events, like singing workshops and selfemployment webinars. There are also websites offering advice and support on looking after your mental health including resources on sleep, wellbeing, anxiety, low mood, including: mentalhealth.org.uk/publications nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters

Support for Isolation and Loneliness Mind You can call their helplines, or find support online 0300 123 3393, or text 86463 mind.org.uk Age UK Notts Welfare service offering shopping/medication collection support and telephone emotional support.

0115 844 0011 Supportline Telephone support for all ages

01708765200

The Mix Telephone support for 13-25 year olds 0808 908 4994, or text THEMIX to 85258 themix.org.uk/get-support NHS There is a NHS page that has videos on dealing with unhelpful thoughts, tackling worries and relaxation exercises, as well as a list of mental health helplines. nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/anxiety nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/mental-healthhelplines

Support for Autism The National Autism Society have some resources online to help with COVID-19, as well as telephone and online helplines autism.org.uk/services/helplines/coronavirus 0808 800 4104 The Autism Certification Centre have set up online video learning resources autismcertificationcenter.org And Autistica have a website for coping with uncertainty, that offers coping mechanisms and strategies autistica.org.uk

Joe Wheatley - @joewheatley Portrait of Eleanor in back garden

Clive Doyle - @clive_doyle Field & tree

David Severn - @davidsevern_photo Cat on fence

interview: Jamie Morris

Melissa Canu - @analog_limoncella Self portrait with camera on tripod

Natasha Edgington - @natasha.edgington Blue material on fence

Game Shooting With the aim of keeping traditional photography and its process alive, the Photo Parlour on Queensbridge Road had firmly established itself as the central hub for Notts photographers looking to shoot stills the old-fashioned way. With their doors currently closed for obvious corona-reasons, we chatted to Dan Wheeler about Parlour Games, the weekly lockdown photo challenges he’s started...

For years, the Photo Parlour has been the heart of the Notts photography scene. Home to a processing lab, darkroom, gallery and photo book library, the community hub would usually have a selection of picture-making workshops lined up – but lockdown has forced manager Dan Wheeler to come up with a solution to keep creatives busy.

Mick Rhodes - @lofty228 Stanley’s first haircut

Dan is still popping into the Photo Parlour on Queensbridge Road twice a week to process people’s pictures by post, and has also been running online seminars in his other role as a lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. But while hosting a live video on the Parlour’s Instagram page, he suggested another idea to keep Notts folks snapping great photos.

“I wanted to do something to encourage people to make work during these bizarre circumstances, and for people to know that you don’t actually have to leave the house to make interesting and valuable work as a photographer,” Dan told us. “And if you’ve never picked up a camera before, maybe it’s something exciting and new to try.”

It was LeftLion’s own Tom Quigley – one half of our photo editorial team and darkroom regular – that suggested calling it the ‘Parlour Games’.

Dan’s idea was a livestream every Saturday at 11am where a loose task is set for participants to work on a photo centred around a theme or concept that’s broad enough to inspire a multitude of different creative responses.

“There’s this overwhelming amount of YouTube blogs that are incredibly popular, but they just focus on gear all the time – this camera versus that camera, what does this lens do,” Dan said.

“I just think it’s important that people feel creatively excited enough to make pictures, and I don’t think there should be any barriers in the way.”

One example of the weekly Parlour Games sessions that got people thinking was to take a self-portrait; not snapping a selfie, but representing yourself creatively through a photo.

Dan suggested photographing your favourite chair, with a set of creases that are unique to you and surrounded by your belongings. Apparently all it takes is a phone camera and a good idea – and people have taken to it really well.

David Severn, who also leads photography lessons at NTU, has been taking part in the Parlour Games and sending his photos to other creatives, including musicians and writers, as a source of inspiration for their own work.

The Games have even seen some global participation, with a Photo Parlour customer from Italy called Melissa Canu tuning in and sharing her pictures.

Rasha Kotaiche - @rashakotaiche Plants and flowers in colour

Sometimes contributors to the Parlour Games, including Mick Rhodes and Natasha Edgington, have selected work from a catalogue of previously taken photos, finding something that suits the category that week. Dan says this is fine: “I'm not bothered about people making new work if it encourages people to look through their old work and discover it in a different way. If it makes photographs they previously overlooked important, that's brilliant.”

That’s kind of the idea really; not as a distraction, but as a tonic to the craziness that’s going on “People need to keep their brains ticking over at this time. For those who are worried and out of work and all that kind of stuff, to have even five minutes where you're not worrying is important, isn't it? That's kind of the idea really; not as a distraction, but as a tonic to the craziness that's going on.”

According to Dan, taking photos regularly can encourage a mindset that heightens our senses by having us pay attention to the hidden beauty in our surroundings as we become more aware of things like lighting and composition. “There’s a beauty in everything,” he told us. “It’s learning to see that, and once you start to look for it it’s a very mindful process.”

Dan has also spoken to Nottingham’s Creative Quarter to discuss the possibility of a future exhibition of photos from the Parlour Games and other art produced during lockdown: “For things just to start up again and for people to move on from it would be really sad. I think it needs to be celebrated, this defiant creativity in difficult times.”

“Anyone can be a photographer,” Dan adds.

“You've got a phone in your pocket; don't be scared to take it out and make a picture, because it costs you nothing. If you don't like it, you don't have to share it with anyone. But if you do, maybe put it onto the Parlour Games! We live in a time where everyone's a photographer and I actually think that's a really good thing. I think it's great that everybody has access to it, not just because photography's great, but it's good for your mental health as well.”

The Parlour Games take place on Instagram every Saturday at 11am @thephotoparlour

leftlion.co.uk/issue125 47

A CHANGE OF ART After almost two years of unleashing the manic brilliance of writer Adrian Reynolds in an illustrative fashion, our regular feature, Blather, sadly came to an end last month. Instead of getting all melancholy about things, we chose to celebrate its time between the pages by catching up (over email, of course) with the local lady behind the brushes: Corrina Rothwell. Under the spotlight we get chatting about Blather’s beginnings, the pleasures and perils of being an artist and the inspirations behind her brand of explosive abstract workings.

Starting from the beginning, how did Blather come to be?

It was all down to Adrian (Reynolds), he's the ideas guy. We've been friends for ages and he was always keen for us to collaborate on something, but the right thing hadn't really presented itself before. Blather provided the perfect opportunity. It’s kind of sad that it’s come to an end, but at the same time I felt like it was at the end of its natural life, partly due to the fact that I no longer work as an illustrator. Two years was a perfect length of time for it to run.

Can you tell us a bit about your other art projects?

I was working as an illustrator until recently – my main thing was funny greeting cards. I'm probably best known locally for my Apostrophe Rage design. But over the past two years I've been painting. I wanted to get back to something more expressive, more hands-on and visceral. I wanted to get my hands dirty and express myself from the heart and gut rather than the mind.

Designing cards was all about thinking. So I've ended up really getting into big abstract paintings to the exclusion of everything else.

How did you get into the industry in the first place? Was art always your passion?

I've just always done art. My mum and dad were artists, I grew up in that environment. I did go to university to study European Studies, but I dropped out after a year and started making painted cushions on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme. I've done other jobs along the way but essentially I'm an artist, that's been the common thread throughout my life and that's all I want to do, ultimately.

Where does your inspiration come from?

This is a difficult question to answer with the work I'm doing now because it's not ideas-based. I work intuitively, but obviously I'm always soaking up information from the world around me in terms of colour, shape, pattern etc. Lately I've been drawn to industrial buildings and have been collaging small photographic images into my paintings – I feel like this comes from the landscape I grew up in, in Lancashire. I tend not to question it really. I just try and shut my brain off and go with whatever I'm compelled to put on the canvas.

Do you ever suffer from an inspiration block?

I get stuck quite frequently, partly because I don't like to stay in one place for too long and have to find new things to do in my paintings to try to keep myself interested and excited. My go-to solution is usually to just let rip on a big piece of canvas with lots of paint and big brushes, painting with my hands, spraying water, splashing ink – and eventually, something will start to come out of the chaos. Sometimes this process requires wine and loud music too, if I'm finding it hard to let go!

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What have you got in the works at the moment?

Well, as you know everything has gone a bit tits-up lately! So everything that was in the pipeline for the next few months no longer is. I had an exhibition scheduled for May with two artist friends at the Nottingham Society of Artists which we're hoping to hold towards the end of the year instead. I've been running small painting workshops from my home studio recently, which have been very popular – but obviously I can't do those for the time being. So I'm focusing on continuing to build up my body of work ready for when things get moving again.

My go-to solution is usually to just let rip on a big piece of canvas with lots of paint and big brushes, painting with my hands, spraying water, splashing ink – and eventually something will start to come out of the chaos What is it like to be an artist in 2020?

Being an artist at any time isn't an easy option. It's a pretty precarious lifestyle and, unless you're well established and have collectors regularly buying work from you, you're going to find yourself on a bit of a financial roller coaster. Obviously it's impossible to talk about what it's like to be an artist in 2020 without referencing our current situation which, of course, has made things incredibly difficult for lots of people, not least of all selfemployed artists. Our income has dropped away dramatically and we're left scrambling around trying to come up with ways to make money to survive.

Personally, I'm trying to ramp up my online sales which is the obvious thing to do. And offering gift vouchers that people can buy and use towards workshops and artwork once this is all over.

Do you have any advice for young artists?

Oh gosh – do I? I'm not sure. I didn't do any of this in a sensible way, really!

The main things I guess are: you need to be persistent, you need to be tenacious and you need grit. If you really, really want to do this, then you just have to keep going despite the insecurity, the knock-backs, the crises of confidence. You have to be prepared to be in it for the long haul! corrinarothwell.co.uk facebook.com/CorrinaRothwellArt ,

interview: Alex Mace

Know Your Place Recent events have shown the importance of communities more than ever before. A large part of our collective community in Nottingham comes from the communal spaces we share and, which of late, our access to has been severely restricted. Adrian Reynolds explains how and why communal spaces impact his life...

Not far off one of the arterial roads that connects Nottingham to the motorway system, a dual carriageway where traffic churns pretty much 24/7, there’s a drive-in McDonalds. Opposite, there’s a turning that branches with two routes into Old Basford. One takes you over a stone bridge by a church, and towards industrial units where you can buy sheet glass or get your car fixed. The other, along a wall behind which trains rattle, past a boarded-off site that’s never been repurposed in any of the ways local rumour has suggested, to a place of terraced houses.

The outdoorness of it all is critical. And connected to that, a park is somewhere for everyone. Unlike so many other places we spend time, a park is not branded except in the most basic ways. It has a name, and that’s pretty much it. Compare to the urban experience, where logos shriek at you from every building, insisting on the right of the corporations they denote to impinge on your consciousness. Instead, give me birdsong, lime trees, and a chance of spotting the heron who’s become an occasional resident.

Locally, rather than take unwanted items to a tip, people tend to leave them outside their homes for passers-by to choose whether they want a wooden CD holder with a missing shelf, a wonky spice rack or a stray toaster. Before now I’ve come home with things that I can use, or that I know a neighbour might appreciate for the kids she looks after in our shared back gardens.

There are more subtle aspects I’m still pondering. Walking by the pond, approaching a path that leads to one of the entrances, you go under a stone arch. It changes the way I feel as I do, and that’s about more than stepping through brickwork. Something about the surface above flickers constraint along with shadow as I step beneath. For an instant, the feeling of being inside strobes within, like a switch has been flicked.

A couple of minutes away Vernon Park welcomes Sunday league footballers, dogwalkers, families tossing a frisbee. Half an hour ago a guy in his twenties, leaning back on a bike, watched his three kids play, agreeing with their mother that they’ll have McMuffins for breakfast in a while.

We need spaces like this, and I am blessed to have one on my doorstep.

And I have some sense of how others experience it. The retired chap with a dodgy hip who circumnavigates the park five times before going home, where he will have lunch with his grandkids a couple of times a week, and in the evening sit in the garden with a bottle of wine as he does his crossword. The veiled women who laugh as they picnic on a huge blanket. The geezer with swept-back hair and a cigarette who takes his aged mum for a walk. The Turkish man with three rods lined up hoping for fish he can catch to eat and sell. The pink-haired woman perched on a rock at the back of the library using its wifi so she can send job applications from a laptop.

I don’t feel obliged to pick up litter on streets, so how come I do when there’s grass around me?

I’ve been enjoying the park on a daily basis for a few weeks now.

Sometimes I’ll use the exercise equipment that’s been there since 2012 courtesy of the Queen. The roads were packed when she came, on a blazing hot day. I still don’t understand what she had to do with putting gym gear there, planted in concrete to deter anyone who might want to uproot a rowing machine for their garden, but I’m appreciative of their presence.

Getting to know Vernon Park better has helped me understand the concept of parks more generally. They’re interesting spaces. If I’m not making use of the exercise machines, then I'll wander around the whole area. I could use any route across the grass, through the trees, by the pond – but what I actually do, more or less, is follow a tarmac path. The whole space has been designed with that in mind, allowing you to take in a variety of scenes as you do.

Coming through gates painted municipal green, there’s a low building with a 1980s feel. There are changing rooms for footballers and those who use the tennis court, toilets for anyone, and rooms available for hire. I’ve been to a Slimming World class there, and voted in the exact same space on several occasions. Just after that building is the first of the twenty-odd bins dotted around the park. Dog owners are requested to deposit bagged droppings there. I use them to put in the litter I sometimes collect, which I started to do when, after a few days of visiting, I began to feel like one of the custodians of this shared space.

I think about other places I’ve known. The woods in Disley where I spent my fiftieth birthday, bathing my feet in a chilly stream under a canopy of trees.

A beach in Anglesey, the sea lapping against a pebbled beach as it has for millennia. A mountain in Bavaria I climbed with my father, looking at the tapestry of landscape unable to discern signs of human presence. A walk around Uluru, radiating something primal and mythic with a visceral intensity that punches through the frenetic surface of the branded world’s greedy hold on the mind.

Companies pay millions to create brands hoping they will establish a foothold in the consciousness of consumers, but the presence of something so powerful that demands nothing – while offering so much – makes it clear how pale, how needy, how empty that clamour for attention is. adrianinspires.com

That notion of communal territory is interesting. I don’t feel obliged to pick up litter on streets, so how come I do when there’s grass around me?

Partly it’s about the visibility of that litter against the green, but there’s more to it. A park feels different in all kinds of ways, and the space shapes our behaviour. You’re more likely to engage with people in a park. In an open space, where there are trees, and animals run more or less free, we change in ways that are good for us. The greetings we exchange, the little conversations that crop up, are a reflection of that. Something social is happening for which we are grateful.

words: Adrian Reynolds leftlion.co.uk/issue125 49

ice, ice baby You’re sitting on the edge of Old Market Square: the sun is shining, the atmosphere is alive, and you’re feeling proper chilled out. Then out of the corner of your eye, you see a guy wheeling a cart around selling ice lollies. Yeah. You could scoff one of them up right about now. That guy is Isaac Greenway-Tambini. He’s been selling his popular Pola ice lollies on the streets of Nottingham for about a year now, and is prepping for another summer on the roads…

“Since the age of fifteen I've been wheeling and dealing, re-selling electronics and things like that, so I've always had that entrepreneurial spirit,” Isaac tells us. “I never fancied doing an office job. One day I went to my career's development at uni and they ran an enterprise programme, which I completed and won some money from. After that, I bought an old school ice cream cart, renovated it, and got some branding help from my mates.” He then got his peddler’s licence, which lets you sell all around the UK as long as you're mobile – aka always moving, as well as your cart being a certain measurement.

The hot weather has come quite early, and has given me a kick up the arse!

Isaac’s icy trading roots go back to his greatgrandfather, who sold ice cream in Wales as an Italian immigrant. His Pola ice lollies also still have a family connection – many of the ingredients are sustainablysourced and homegrown, such as the rose petal cordial made from his mum’s prized flowers. “We have elderflower trees in our garden which we use to make cordial, and then apples and blackberries

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from our allotment. The food I source is generally from a mile radius of our house, and we work with Nottingham farms for a few of our other flavours,” he says. “We get our raspberries and strawberries from Starkey's, and the mango one is made using Pakistani honey mangoes from a market stall in Hyson Green.”

After a successful summer selling around town last year, being stocked in Nottingham haunts like Homemade and Albert’s, and a huge weekend at The Vegan Campout, he started to see his hard work pay off. Naturally, he’s faced some coronavirus-shaped setbacks, which means you probably won’t spot his cart in the streets anytime soon. But he’s got some brand new tricks that will soon mean you can get in on the lolly action: “I’ve registered with Uber Eats; it will be me and my little brother delivering them!

It will all be local delivery, and I’ll be selling packs of five, ten and fifteen,” he tells me. “The hot weather has come quite early, and has given me a kick up the arse!”

Are you living away from Nottingham at the moment, but still craving some of that sweet stuff? Isaac’s sorting a solution for that too: “I'm working with a food scientist at the University of Nottingham to help me create postal ice lollies so that people can freeze

them at home,” he says. “I'm currently testing how to make them shelf-life stable so that they can be left unfrozen and still be safe and tasty to eat. It also means I’ll be able to reach new audiences, which is really exciting.”

So why save your chops for a ‘boujee’ (as Isaac says) Pola lolly, instead of a cheapie pack from the local shop? Isaac argues: “A lot of supermarkets use fruit concentrates, fructose and artificial flavours, and on the packaging, they may say natural, but if you read the ingredients list that’s often not the case.” He continues, “We're very transparent in what we use – fruit, water, and a bit of cane sugar. We will also be the world's first compostable ice poles, so we're not only going to be a healthy alternative, but also more sustainable too.” When you’re able to get your mitts on one, lounge in the garden on your poshest chair with it.

Imagine you’re back in the Square, and get all relaxed. Add that to the comfort of knowing you’re doing your bit for the community and the environment and… Ah. Sorted. wearepola.com @wearepola

compliments to the chefs

There is something wonderfully satisfying about cooking a meal from scratch.

It can be difficult at the moment to work up the energy, but sometimes crafting a proper plate can transport you back to a place and really help lift your mood.

If you’re missing your local eateries, these recipes from Nottingham chefs will help you do just that, as well as making your meal times that extra bit fancy…

Tagliatelle & Wild Garlic Pesto words and photos: Dan Coles from Iberico World Tapas Serves 4

Method 1.

For the pasta Ingredients 50g fine semolina 100g flour 100g ‘00’ flour 40g olive oil 65g water 2 egg yolks 1 whole egg 5g salt Semolina for rolling

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

For the pesto

Method

Ingredients

Blend all the ingredients together, but make sure not to over-blend. Adjust with salt, water and lemon to taste.

25g wild garlic leaves 20g basil 30g toasted sunflower seeds 30g parmesan Juice of half a lemon 20g apple cider vinegar 75g olive oil 50g water Salt to taste

words and photo: Ritchie Stainsby from No. Twelve Serves 2 Ingredients 2 Jerusalem artichoke 2 banana shallots (or 1 large white onion) 3 cloves of garlic ½ tsp brown sugar 1 lemon 30g samphire 1 tbsp truffle oil 2tbsp nutritional yeast 1 stock cube 2 sprigs of thyme 200g Arborio rice 30g butter (regular or plant based) 50g parmesan (optional) 75ml white wine

Method 1.

2.

3.

4.

Begin by finely chopping your garlic and shallots.

Pre-heat your oven to 220°C and peel your artichokes.

Chop your artichokes into quarters and put them into a roasting dish with 2 tbsp of olive oil, the brown sugar and salt/pepper to season. Transfer them into the oven and roast for around 35 mins, or until golden brown and soft.

Put a deep frying pan on a medium heat with a nice glug of olive oil. Add in your thyme, garlic and shallots. Sauté for a couple of minutes until they begin to soften up. Then add your Arborio rice.

Turn your pan up to a medium high heat and toast your rice to seal the grains, this will take a couple of minutes.

Mix all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer until it comes together to form a dough (don’t worry if it looks dry, as it will soften after resting).

Wrap in cling film and rest for one hour minimum.

Dust with semolina and roll through a pasta machine starting on number 1 and repeating up to number 5.

Change the pasta machine for your tagliatelle cutter and run the pasta through again using plenty of semolina. Alternatively, you can cut the pasta by hand.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.

Drop in the tagliatelle and cook for 1-2 minutes.

Drain off the pasta.

To serve Cherry tomatoes, quartered Fresh basil Wild garlic flowers Toss the pesto through the pasta, add the tomatoes. Divide by 4 plates and tear over the basil and the garlic flowers.

Caramel Artichoke and Truffle Risotto 5.

Add in your wine and cook off the alcohol (beware if you are using an open flame!). Once your wine has reduced, turn down your pan to medium low or a light simmer.

6. In a saucepan, add your stock cube into around 500ml of water and set to a rapid boil. Once boiled, turn down to a simmer and add a ladle of stock to your rice every few minutes, or until the stock has pretty much reduced. Repeat this until your rice is starting to soften up, taste your sauce and season with salt and pepper accordingly.

7. With a teaspoon, lift out some rice and wait for it to cool. With your fingers gently squeeze (it should still be firm in the centre, but soft on the outside). If it is, add your samphire into your risotto and fold in.

8. Now your artichokes are roasted, pull them out of the oven and with the back of a fork, crush them until they are broken down (almost like mashing a potato). Fold them into your risotto and add in your nutritional yeast.

9. Your risotto should start to become really nice and creamy at this stage. Directly into your risotto, grate in the zest from your lemon and add in your butter (and parmesan if you are using it).

10. Finally, add in your truffle oil and turn off the heat.

Let your risotto sit for a minute and then toss your pan a few times to thicken up.

11. Serve immediately into a pasta bowl and finish with some fresh herbs, another little drizzle of truffle oil and, if you are using it, a shaving of parmesan. Enjoy.

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Our new regular feature delves back into the LeftLion and Overall There is a Smell of Fried Onions archives to find what Notts was up to back in the day...

From the pages of Overall magazine...

News Sylie Dog was standing in the May 1995 election on a platform of free soft toilet rolls for the unwaged, dole for dogs and free tampons and contraceptives for all. We’re not sure who was behind the campaign, but the fact that there was a fundraiser at the Skyy Club makes us think it was one of the local party crews.

Needless to say, they were not elected.

Film Interview with the Vampire (Dir. Neil Jordan) Heavenly Creatures (Dir. Peter Jackson) Priest (Dir. Antonia Bird)

FREE our style is legendary

Music Two highly touted local emo-hardcore bands played a gig together at The Zone on King Edward Street (down the road from where Pryzm is now). While Manly Banister, the Overall reviewer, gushed over them, he did offer the following advice: “For both bands the problem is the same – Nottingham is yours and you run the risk from suffering the audience’s overfamiliarity. The M1 is there for the taking from the helm of a Transit van.”

Broadway Brooding words: George White I have a confession to make.

Since going into lockdown, I’ve only watched a couple of films. I know what you’re thinking: surely quarantine presents the perfect opportunity for me to catch up on all the movies I’ve missed over the years, now I’ve got nothing to do and nowhere to go. You’d be right to think that, but this self-isolation business has made me realise there’s one thing I love most about films – going to the cinema to watch them.

From the pages of LeftLion...

News Who remembers the ‘Slanty N’? Back in the days when the City Council had decided to replace the city’s old ‘Our Style Is Legendary’ Robin Hood motif with something a little more erm… generic. They tasked local design agency Purple Circle to come up with something, and the final piece received much abuse amid accusations of ‘wasting money’. Reading back, we were one of the more neutral voices at the time.

Films Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith (Dir. George Lucas)Layer Cake (Dir. Matthew Vaughn)Madagascar (Dirs. Eric Darnell & Tom McGrath)

News Riding high from the success of classics like Gladiator, LA Confidential and A Beautiful Mind, antipodean actor Russell Crowe decided to have a stab at Robin Hood. It was the first major Hood film since Kevin Costner donned the famous tights, and we went bonkers about it with an entire issue dedicated to Notts’ original gangster. The cover shoot, featuring current-day Robin Ade Andrews, was shot in my living room. We went to see the film together as a team after the mag came out, and shared a collective sigh at Crowe’s attempted accent and, well, the rest of the film too.

Other (better) films Iron Man 2 (Dir. Jon Favreau) Looking For Eric (Dir. Ken Loach) Micmacs (Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet)

Music Our May issue from fifteen years ago was a full-on Notts music scene special. It featured interviews with Amusement Parks on Fire, Bent, Detonate DJ Transit Mafia and seventies throwbacks Paper Lace. However, the overriding theme was wondering why we hadn’t seen a Notts band trouble the charts since KWS in 1992. Thankfully, that seems to have changed for the better since then. Our music listings were full of club nights like Spectrum, Psycle and Pure Filth.

Dot To Dot festival launched with Punish The Atom, Ladytron and Lo-Ego on the bill.

Chase and Status. Dot to Dot celebrated its fifth year with Zane Lowe, Mystery Jets, Ellie Goulding and Liars.

Local acts playing that month included Breadchasers, Fists, Maniere Des Bohemians, Pilgrim Fathers, Swimming, Rebel Soul Collective, Roy Stone (RIP) and We Show Up On Radar.

Spanky Van Dykes had just launched as a new venue and Late of the Pier were on the decks. Other promoters doing good stuff locally were Acoustickle, Detonate, Fuzzbox, Hello Thor, Influx and Smokescreen.

For me, there is nothing better than immersing myself in the latest blockbuster or checking out a new arthouse indie in a darkened room full of people equally enthusiastic about the art of filmmaking.

There is something about sharing this experience with others – as well having an excuse to wolf down a massive bag of Skittles – that makes it extra special. There is a sense of community that you simply cannot get in your own home, and I miss it.

This is particularly the case for Nottingham’s own Broadway Cinema. There is little else I love more in the world than nipping into the Cafébar for a delicious pizza before losing myself in a beautiful film like Portrait of a Lady On Fire. It’s a magical place, and I can’t wait for its return.

It’s also a hub for the city’s filmmaking community, providing a platform for smaller movies and top quality training sessions for aspiring filmmakers. Notts director Daniel Turner summed it up perfectly when he said, “Broadway is synonymous with filmmaking in Nottingham.”

Issue 34 ∙ April-May 2010

Music Believe it or not, back in the day they used to put on big free gigs in the Market Square. Regular live music was part of the plan of the 2007 rebuild and May Bank Holiday in 2010 saw the short-lived City Pulse festival take over featuring Boney M, Dr Feelgood, The Animals (minus a member or two) and Imelda May. Whitney Houston made an appearance at Nottingham Arena and tickets were £50-100 (which was a lot of money for a ticket back then). Rock City had gigs from The Fall, Slayer and

Broadway is synonymous with filmmaking in Nottingham

So I would ask you to show support to Broadway during this difficult time if you can. Donating or buying a membership can make a huge difference, and will make sure we can all come together to celebrate filmmaking again soon (and eat a ton of pizza, obviously).

.

If you fancy a bit more Nottstalgia, head over to read these issues in their entirety online

broadway.org.uk

leftlion.co.uk/magazine

words: Jared Wilson

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CALLING THE TUNE interview: Rachael Halaburda

After two stints on The X Factor, including finishing runner-up in 2014 where she became the first contestant in the show’s history to reach Number One on the iTunes chart during the competition, singer, songwriter and radio presenter Fleur East has walked an interesting path through the music industry. With her new album Fearless released last month, we caught up with her to talk about reality television, the unexpected truths of the music industry and how she’s handling lockdown...

What made you first want to be a singer?

When my mum was pregnant with me, her and my father would play music to me with headphones on her stomach. My parent’s earliest memory of me was when I was two years old, sitting in the back of my dad's car singing along to the radio, so it's almost always been with me since I could make a sound.

You’ve recently released your new album Fearless.

What has the response been like?

There’s been an amazing reaction. The album has only been out a short time and people are already posting covers, which is amazing. I think because of the current climate we're all in, people are taking more time to actually listen to the songs.

Fearless has been released through your own label – how have you found that in comparison to previously being part of Simon Cowell's label, Syco?

It’s been an interesting journey – a lot more intense and far more stressful. I was involved in every stage of the production process for the whole album, so as soon as it was finished and I could hold it in my hands it was the most amazing feeling. When you see it come to life and you've been involved in every single stage, there's no comparison to the situation before.

Which song means the most to you?

My father passed away recently, and his favourite song was Absence Speaks Louder Than Words. So the moment that the album came out, that song had a whole new meaning for me and now it's become my favourite song.

What is your songwriting process?

Sometimes I get an idea in my sleep and I'll just roll over and put it into my voice notes on my phone.

Other times I’ll go to the studio and the producer will start playing chords on the piano, or start making a beat and I’ll begin putting it together. So it's different every time, to be honest. That's what I love about it, it’s so unpredictable. You never know what you're going to get, you walk into the session sometimes with no ideas and you leave with a completely formed song.

You were on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here in 2018 – what was the biggest lesson you took away from your time in the jungle?

I definitely learned how important family is to me, and having your close-knit circle around you. Being away from them for so long and not being able to contact them at all definitely made me really appreciate them. I also learnt that I'm a lot more brave than I thought; when I was going into the jungle I thought I'd be an absolute mess, I didn't have very high expectations of myself going into trials. I surprised myself and I look back on it now and think ‘what an incredible experience’.

Who are you most thankful to for helping you be where you are today?

It's definitely got to be my parents for encouraging me. I sat down in lockdown with my mum the other night and started talking about the whole journey of me and my life through music. It's just amazing how much my parents encouraged me and supported me in that. Also, I think recently my husband; he believes in me more than I believe in myself. He consistently pushes me, he is very brave.

What is something that you’ve learnt about the music industry that you didn’t expect to find?

I think it can be a lot more political than I thought. I think when you look at it from the outside you think, ‘Wow how exciting, it's very glamorous, it’s very glitzy’. But when you actually get into the industry, there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. It's a lot harder than I thought – you have to be so strong in

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sticking to it and I learnt that if you don't have a love for music, you won't be able to sustain a career.

How do you feel the UK’s lockdown is affecting artists in particular?

I think everyone is coping with it in their own ways, some are losing their mind a little bit and others are taking the time to be productive. On the whole it's a great time for artists, we are seeing them be a lot more creative. For example, a lot of them now are going onto Instagram, and doing a lot of live concerts for platforms. We are getting to see an insight into the artistry which I don't think we would've got without it.

You were recently on The One Show with your rap about isolation. Can you tell us a little bit more about the story behind you creating that?

I got asked very last-minute to go on the show, and I'd been on previously and performed a rap about Brexit. Every Friday I do a rap roulette as part of my radio show for Hits Radio Breakfast.

They said, it’d be amazing if you could write something about working from home. So that day I just sat down – I think it took about an hour – and put it together. But it's had a great reaction and I think it's helped to lift everyone's spirits that are in lockdown.

There have been a lot of people tagging their friends, so I'm glad that I could do that.

I sat down in lockdown with my mum the other night and started talking about the whole journey of me and my life through music I noticed you were doing a workout on your Instagram live – are you planning on doing it as a regular thing to help people keep fit during lockdown?

It's interesting because me and my cousin started this thing called ‘The Weight Gym’. We call it a gym in a box – you can perform a full body workout without having to leave your house.

It’s been quite hard doing it with just the three of us, it's a family business that we do together, and since lockdown we've completely sold out of the majority of the products, which is unreal. Now I've got this whole community of people that are working out using the equipment. I'm definitely going to continue doing it, once I've set a task and I

put it out there publicly I'm held accountable!

What advice would you give to others looking to get into the music industry?

I would say the main thing is to just keep practising, because you never know when the opportunity will come that's going to take you to the next level. Some people believe in luck, but I think it's a combination of hard work and meeting opportunity. You've got to be working hard and just stay ready for when the opportunity comes – the minute the door opens you’ve got to be ready so you can show what you've practised and all the experience that you've got under your belt.

Fearless is available to download now

fleur-east.com @fleureast

GucciSergic Notts Badboy Did you rock out to Tumble Audio’s freshest track? Notts’ hottest rave label asked us to do just that in a recent fundraising effort, but we didn’t need any excuse to get our skank on for its 40th release. Sergic crafts up this bold ‘n’ brazen bassline production, building fast into a wonky breakdown while the rising Snowy and Vandul lay down the tune’s namesake vocals. Simple, loud and effective – a lesson in collaboration from the Tumble family.

Eileen Pegg

Megatrain Car Crashes (Single)

Do Nothing Zero Dollar Bill (EP)

Car Crashes is the latest masterpiece delivered to us from Notts indie-pop duo Megatrain. Swooning, lo-fi guitars are blended with radiant keys and the gloriously harmonic combined vocals of Tiger Aura and Felix M-B to create a complete juxtaposition when compared to the song’s rather sombre lyrics discussing darkness, death and loneliness. Car Crashes comes to us in a time of need for the more serious aspects of life to be discussed with hope and humour.

Laura Phillips

Waiting for the debut EP from our city’s finest musical upstarts has been like waiting for Christmas on steroids.

And since we’re all in need of a boost, Zero Dollar Bill couldn’t have arrived at a better time, as gutting as it is that the boys couldn’t accompany the release with their lauded live guise. Single LeBron James initially shines most brightly but, upon closer inspection, New Life commands this EP, which explosively lurches from subversive tautness to playful post-punk gold.

Becky Timmins

Hannah Pickard Apricot Cocktails (EP)

Nicole Leaskk Tough Love (Single)

Soft, husky verses with tender and heartfelt lyrics paired with simple chord progressions lay the foundations for this dreamy debut EP. Reminiscent of Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish’s style, the layered vocals are balanced with keyboards, creating a hazy, sweet sound. Keeping a steady pace throughout, it flows delicately, each song whispering and wistful. A pleasing first release from Hannah Pickard, which we had the pleasure of hearing live on our LeftLion Sofa Sessions’ stream last month.

Ceryn Morris

Nicole Leaskk serves as a soulful storyteller in her single Tough Love, rendering introspective words of wisdom while experimenting with the boundaries between RnB and pop. The single speaks about the pains of love and insecurity in an emotionally rousing yet delicate way, a style not easily achieved. Having already gained support from the likes of BBC Introducing alongside her blossoming YouTube channel, Leaskk is rapidly evolving into one of Nottingham’s youngest RnB sensations.

Alanah Kholsa

If you’re from Nottingham and want to get added to our music writers list, or get your tunes reviewed, hit us up at music@leftlion.co.uk

NUSIC BOX

Your new Notts music tip sheet, as compiled by Nusic’s Sam Nahirny. Want more? Check out the fortnightly podcasts and live sessions on the Nusic website.

Jimmy Part of creative collectives Lusty Arts and Spacecity, Jimmy (a.k.a Jimmy Rocket) is in good company. It's no surprise, then, that his debut EP (under this name) is full of NG gems.

With features from Snowy and Rico, plus production from LVNDLXRD, you’ve got the perfect platform to get familiar with his dark, witty delivery. Pair that with the multiple different energies, and you’ve got what most artists take an album to do, in just three tracks. facebook.com/JimmyRocket21

Shadows Like Strangers Fusing elements of post-hardcore and pop-rock anthem-age, Shadows Like Strangers are a perfect fusion of massive choruses and breakdowns that give you a dirty bass face. Phrases like “wall of sound” can be a bit wanky, but it's one of the best ways to describe this lot. With loud speakers, live (well, from your living room, at least), it's like they surround you completely, transporting you into a riff euphoria. And if that isn’t the name of their debut album, we’ll be disappointed. facebook.com/ShadowsLikeStrangers leftlion.co.uk/issue125 55

THINGS ARE WEIRD. WE MISS YOU ALREADY. RUNNING PUBS AND BREWING BEER IS WHO WE ARE. FOR MANY OF US, IT’S ALL WE’VE EVER KNOWN. WE’LL BE BACK AS SOON AS WE CAN BE. IN THE MEAN TIME, LET’S KEEP IN TOUCH. LOVE ALWAYS, TEAM CRB x

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W W W. C A S T L E R O C K B R E W E R Y. C O . U K

Florence Boot is fondly remembered for her numerous charitable acts that helped transform the lives of countless local workers, as well as the landscape of the city itself, during the early 20th century. In terms of a legacy, she’s been considered one of the most valuable assets in the history of Boots. What many don’t know, however, is that her position of equal partner in the family business was earned due to her relentless efforts to champion workers’ rights…

Born in 1863 in St. Helier, Jersey, Florence Ann Rowe grew up as the daughter of local bookseller William Rowe. As the family lived in the small space above the store, Florence spent her childhood assisting her parents on the shop floor, flogging books, stationery, art equipment, gifts and other luxury goods. Known as somewhat of a master of customer service, it was here that she fostered the ability to entice punters, honing her sales skills and proving herself to be an invaluable asset.

In the summer of 1885, at the age of 22, Florence met and fell in love with a young man who had taken a leave of absence from his career in Nottingham to holiday in her hometown. The man, who was 35-years-old, had been working since the age of thirteen to expand his late father’s business, and was encouraged to take some time off after his own health took a turn for the worse. That man was Jesse Boot. The pair were besotted and married a mere twelve months later – much to the objection of Florence’s mother, who refused to attend the wedding as a protest to their short engagement. Their happiness served as a great medicine to Jesse, whose health saw a drastic improvement, and encouraged the couple to move back to Nottingham to regain control of the business.

Boots was already seeing success by this point; known for their affordable medicine and healthcare, there were multiple stores in Nottingham, including the flagship Goose Gate residence, and subsequent shops in Lincoln and Sheffield. Florence quickly developed an interest in her husband's work and wasted no time putting her own stamp on the business.

Utilising the experience nurtured at her father’s store, Boots introduced the sale of stationery, books, artist materials and other gifts to the Goose Gate residence, and Florence persuaded Jesse to introduce perfumery and cosmetic counters and expand product lines further to cover the sale of silverware and picture framing.

The famed Pelham Street store – now Zara – was acquired in 1881, and Florence was tasked with designing the interior – the elegant furnishings gave the shop an air more similar to a department store, and was used as a model for future Boots locations. Determined to drive the business forward in several directions, Florence didn’t stop here; by the end of the 19th century, she had established paid lending libraries and cafes in Boots stores, to much success. She had her wits about her during the designing process – they were created to attract middle-class customers, and each library was located at the back of the first floor of the store in an attempt to boost sales by tempting customers with all the other merchandise. Stocked with second-hand books sourced by Florence herself, users could pay 2d (around 70p in today’s money) to borrow the literature. At its peak, Boots were lending out 35 million books per year.

After discovering that some of the poorer employees were showing up at work without having eaten, she implemented a free-for-all breakfast scheme serving hot cocoa to start the day While Florence had quickly established herself as an integral part of the business side of the company, her real passion lay in the development of welfare initiatives for the Boots employees, especially women. By 1914, Boots had expanded from just a handful of stores in the East Midlands to over 500 stores across the UK, taking over the entire manufacturing site on Island Street – the derelict land now sitting between Manvers Street and London Road – in the process. Florence and Jesse were now responsible for hundreds of staff nationwide.

Among the first welfare measures she introduced were

social outings, along with the Boots Athletic Club, which promoted sports and exercise to all employees, and she oversaw the employment of welfare officers and factory surgeries.

After discovering that some of the poorer employees were showing up at work without having eaten, she implemented a free-for-all breakfast scheme serving hot cocoa to start the day, and rewarded every employee at Christmas with a silk scroll inscribed with a Bible verse.

However, following the 1918 Education Act, Florence became particularly concerned with furthering the education of early school leavers who had joined the company to be trained up to work. In February 1920, she established the Boots Day Continuation School on their Station Street premises to provide part-time classes, which was eventually available to all staff. After moving to the Beeston site, the school became known as Boots College and continued to provide a broad and varied secondary-level curriculum until 1969 when school leaving age was raised to sixteen.

After Jesse relinquished control of Boots in 1920, he and Florence became philanthropists, investing much of their wealth back into Nottingham and donating over seventy acres of land to the city, including the Highfields Estate to the University of Nottingham. Florence then founded the first female-only hall of residence on the site, named in her honour. The couple retired to a villa in Jersey, where they continued their philanthropic work, which included the providing of outdoor space for locals to exercise and paid for the building of a school in St. Helier.

Known as Lady Boot after her husband's knighthood in 1909, this title was elevated to Lady Trent in 1929 after Jesse received a peerage and became 1st Baron Trent. But it is not the accolades of her husband that define Florence’s life – it’s the countless employees and students whom she inspired, supported and provided a better life who speak more to her success.

The Big Notts Quiz Part II Answers 1. (b) 2. (d) 3. (a) 4. (b) 5. (b) 6. (d) 7. (a) 8. (d) 9. (b) 10.(d) 11. (b) 12. (c) 13. (c) 14. (d) 15. (c) 16. (b) 17. (b) 18. (b) 19. (c) 20.(c) How did you do?

0-4 – You’re at the wrong end of the A52, duck. Get yourself to Derby where you belong.

5-9 – Technically you’re from Notts, but you should be bleddy ashamed of yourself.

10-13 – Fair enough. You’ve not done too badly, but it’s nowt to brag about.

14-17 – ‘Ark at you - you’re one of our own. Proper Notts, that’s what we like to see.

18-20 – Don’t go getting a big ‘ed, but no-one knows Notts like you. Hold on, let’s check your Google histreh...

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