South Leeds Life 64 July 2020

Your FREE community newspaper

Issue 64 | July 2020

What’s happening in Beeston, Belle Isle, Cottingley, Holbeck, Hunslet, Middleton & Stourton

BLACK LIVES MATTER

In this issue:

DAZL’s Garden Groovers

page 4

South Leeds’ Big Bike Fix page 8

Why we should fight the racism that divides and weakens us

by Zari Grist

T

he Black Lives Matter movement has exploded onto the political agenda in the last month. The murder of George Floyd by Police in the US sparked anger on both sides of the Atlantic. We asked one South Leeds resident what the movement means to her.

I am a history teacher in a large secondary school in Leeds. I am a proud resident of Beeston and my family’s origins are in Afghanistan. I am delighted to be given this opportunity to explain why ‘Black Lives Matter’ is so important and to appeal to all local people in our multicultural community, to support the movement.

In Beeston we have some recent history of challenging racism that we should be proud of. We have a vibrant local ‘stand up to racism’ group and alongside local councilors people have come together to show support for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, ‘taking the knee’ in a socially distanced way in Cross Flatts park and along local streets (see page 2).

When two years ago the local Mosque and Gurdwara were

Protesters in Cross Flatts Park ‘take the knee’ attacked, the community came together in a show of unity to offer peace and support.

The truth is we are facing serious challenges. Years of austerity have both widened existing inequalities and intensified economic hardship for all communities in South Leeds.

One immediate impact of the Covid-19 crisis will be to trigger attempts to cut public spending which means cuts to our local services.

We are only going to be able to protect our communities and services if we are united in our response. Racism divides the

community. Racism divides neighbour from neighbour, work colleague from work colleague. The Black Lives Matter movement on the other hand, in recognising and challenging the racism that still exists in British society, helps to build unity. Unity is what we need to collectively build a positive future.

Let me take you back to 17 April 1969 when a black man called David Oluwale, was (not for the first time) beaten with truncheons by two Leeds police officers who smashed his head against the pavement and urinated on his body. After the

beating they ran him out of town towards the river where his body was found. ‘Wog’ was written on the nationality section of his death certificate.

David, like many in our community, our mothers and fathers, grandparents and great-grandparents came to this country to make a positive contribution to British society.

And we have.

Not just economically in terms of providing the expanded labour force that was the basis for the growth of the British economy after the Second World War, not to mention the creation of a

national health care system; but also culturally. Our way of life, everyone living in our communities way of life: art, music, theatre, festivals, religion, language, poetry is enriched beyond recognition through the coming together of diverse experiences from all over the world.

We are lucky to live in a multicultural community, where these diverse experiences and histories are distilled.

Multiculturalism enriches everyone, Black and White.

However, by the same logic racism diminishes us all.

The Black Lives Matter movement has exposed the extent to which racism, including overt racial violence, and institutional racism is still experienced by minority communities in Britain today.

Thanks to the movement, the names of Christopher Alder, Leon Briggs, Anthony Grainger, Sean Rigg, Dalian Atkinson, Darren Cumberbatch, Edson Da Costa, Kingsley Burrell, Brian Douglas and many more Black and Asian people who have died after coming into contact with the police are becoming familiar to a much wider range of people.

Continued on page 2

Railway’s Diamond Jubilee page 8

Beeston’s award winning artist

page 22

NEWS

2-11

NATURAL LIFE 12-13 SCHOOL LIFE 14-15 COMMENT

16-18

HISTORICAL LIFE 20

LIVES

21

CULTURAL LIFE

22

SPORTING LIFE 23-4

Get the latest news at www.southleedslife.com - new stories posted daily

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

2 News

About us South Leeds Life is written by and for local people. People who live, work and play in the LS10 and LS11 areas of South Leeds.

The website and newspaper are produced by South Leeds Life CIC, a social enterprise registered with Companies House, No 9998695.

South Leeds Life is a member of the Independent Community News Network.

Our aims To inform people of events, activities, issues and opportunities taking place in the South Leeds community; To encourage the involvement of the wider community in communicating their experiences; To foster community spirit and involvement; and To provide a platform for local people to contribute and respond to community life more fully.

South Leeds Life is pleased to publish views from across the political spectrum, provided they comply with our editorial guidelines.

We remain a neutral publication with a diverse readership, as such we do not endorse any particular political party.

Contact us South Leeds Life CIC 224 Cross Flatts Grove, Leeds, LS11 7BW Email: info@southleedslife.com Facebook & Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife Phone: 07894 583966

Complaints South Leeds Life is regulated by IMPRESS and adheres to its standards code.

However, if you feel we have breached the code in any way and wish to make a complaint, please submit your complaint, in writing to the editor.

A copy of our complaints policy is available via our website at southleedslife.com/complaintsprocedure, or on request.

Council launches review into city statues A

s Black Lives Matter protests people’s views.” continue, a long-standing “We have decided to look at the former councillor has been statues we have in the city and appointed to lead a city-wide understand their background to review into statues and ensure our city’s rich multi-cultural monuments across Leeds. history is appropriately celebrated Alison Lowe, chief executive of and represented and also to Beeston-based mental health identify any gaps that exist. We very charity Touchstone, who was the much look forward to working with first female BAME city councillor Alison to take these matters and represented Labour from 1990 forward.” to 2019, has been appointed to the Last month, demonstrators role as part of the council’s daubed graffiti on a statue of response to an ongoing debate Queen Victoria in Woodhouse Moor, around statues of some historic Leeds. Council officers have since figures. cleaned the statue up.

The move follows actions by Cllr Blake added: other local authorities across the “As a council and a city we will country who have seen always support freedom of speech demonstrations and protests in the and people’s rights to express their last month – that included the views in a peaceful and respectful toppling of the statue of 17th way. century slave trader Edward “However, we do have Colston in Bristol. established policies regarding Announcing the review, Leeds graffiti on public property and will City Council leader Councillor Judith continue to enforce these.”

Blake said: “We’re incredibly proud of our diverse multicultural city here in Leeds and particularly proud of the relationships we have and the work we do with our communities across the city.

“It’s absolutely crucial to us that we keep those relationships strong and everything we do is done in a spirit of dialogue, consultation and, most Statue of Queen Victoria on Woodhouse Moor importantly, listening to Photo: Tim Green via Creative Commons

Black Lives Matter Continued from page 1 Many are also discovering that institutional racial violence is perpetuated on a daily basis through control measures on the streets and the whole process of criminal justice.

For example, Black young people are 9 times more likely than whites to be stopped and searched by the police.

Furthermore, the whole PREVENT agenda represents institutionalised Islamophobia in terms of the measures the state uses to control and negatively label a whole generation of young Muslims. I myself have had to educate my son, aged 12, about what to do when (not if) he is stopped and searched by the police.

The movement has also precipitated some honest conversations about institutional racism more generally, in terms of education systems and in terms of health and employment inequalities.

The uncomfortable reality is that Britain’s involvement in the slave trade, colonialism and imperialism was brutal, inhumane and underpinned by ideologies of white supremacy. This is a legacy which we are still dealing with today.

It’s a history that has largely been ‘whitewashed’ out of the educational curriculum, as have the positive contributions of non-white cultures and societies to the whole historical development of the human race.

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

16 year old Sarata Sawo from Beeston has written this poem in response to the Black Lives Matter campaign:

Black Black is working 10 times harder to get to A Which a white man gets with a click You get to A you’re hard to defeat It’s growing up wanting to be white As your hair is “nappy” Your darkness is “ugly” Did you not know The darker the berry the sweeter the juice It’s expressing yourself to others To then be called “aggressive” But deep down your are just more passionate And they are scared of your skin It’s being told to go back to Africa Not all of us are african Most of us were born here too It’s being told all lives matter In reality if they did My people wouldn’t get killed When black is magic Black is excellence Black is beautiful And black lives matter

Ignored in the curriculum, children from minority backgrounds find themselves more likely to experience overt racial abuse, and are up to 9 times more like to experience exclusion from school.

I’ve had to educate my son about what to do when (not if) he is stopped and searched by the Police Furthermore, the Covid19 crisis has shone a light on the discrimination experienced by Black and minority ethnic groups in relation to health care outcomes. BAME groups are twice as likely to die of coronavirus than their white counterparts.

Sarata Sawo BAME workers are also proportionally more likely to be on the front line as ‘key workers’ and therefore are more exposed to the virus.

The continuing discrimination and poorer life chances experienced by BAME communities also clearly enhance the risk of dying of the disease.

Also, we shouldn’t forget the whole scandal surrounding the treatment of the Windrush generation, or for that matter the government’s attempts to create a ‘hostile environment’.

The mask of respectability has been stripped away from government actions and racism has become explicitly articulated as policy.

Of course, this explicit racism is promoted and amplified by the media who for years have demonised immigrants as

‘scroungers’ or ‘terrorists’ and have consistently promoted bigotry. Not surprisingly therefore, in recent years reports indicate a significant increase in racist abuse and an increase in hate crime generally in society.

The experience of racism runs very deep. It is institutionally embedded in the structure of society.

That is why the movement that has erupted is so powerful and at times, emotional. It expresses righteous anger and frustration that has been building for many years.

However, the anti-racist movement that has emerged is beautifully diverse. It has involved Black and White standing together to challenge racism. And it has been young, representing real hope for the future.

www.southleedslife.com

Website: www.southleedslife.com

July 2020 | South Leeds Life

Email: info@southleedslife.com

News 3

Kneeling in solidarity: a ‘socially distanced’ protest in Cross Flatts Park

Beeston protesters say “Black Lives Matter”

by Jeremy Morton

I

n the first of three weekly protest, 22 members of the local community came together in Cross Flatts Park on 3 June to ‘take the knee’ showing their solidarity with the family of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.

Large scale protests have swept cities across America following the death of George Floyd as a Police Officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. In the UK Stand Up To Racism called for protests in solidarity in small groups and on door steps.

Addressing the protesters Sam Kirk from Leeds Stand Up To Racism said: “What about here? This does happen here in the UK. Mark Duggan was shot dead by Police in 2011 and just a month ago Desmond Ziggy Mombeyarara was out for a walk with his five year old son in Manchester when he was tasered by Police. We don’t see pictures of white people being tasered like that. We have racism in this country too and it’s important that we stand up to it.

“It’s good to see you all here in Beeston today. We deliberately didn’t advertise it widely because the Covid19 virus disproportionately affects people from BAME communities and

the last thing we wanted was anger over what has happened in America to spread the virus here.

“The Beeston community has a proud tradition of coming together over issues of racism and tonight has been another example of that.”

All three Beeston & Holbeck Councillors were present and spoke.

Cllr Gohar Almass said: “It is a sad day that we should be gathered here again for something that shouldn’t be going on in the 21st Century. I’m really proud of this city, last night all the Council building were lit up in purple in solidarity with George Floyd and his family. Look at who’s here, there are people in scarves,

Asian, white, all sorts of people and that just shows you how great a community we are.”

Cllr Andrew Scopes added: “Is it relevant to us here? Yes it is.

It’s only two years ago we were stood here demonstrating with the exact same banners because of the attack on a local mosque and a local gurdwara. We have to, as a community, come together. Thank you for coming and let’s continue to show solidarity with our BAME brothers and sisters.”

Cllr Angela Gabriel said: “I’m glad to see so many have come out tonight. Unless we all make a stand, we will be here next year and

the year after. It’s all of us joining together no matter what colour our skin is, no matter where we were born, we’ve got to stand together.

“If we hear racist language or we see something going on we have to call it out.”

Others talked about recent incidents of racism including the racial abuse of a asian security guard managing the queue outside Hunslet Morrisons.

Another woman, Naseem, commented: “I was born and bred in Holbeck and Beeston. I grew up oblivious to racism, I worked 32 years on the market and I never felt intimidated, but in the last three years I’ve felt intimidated.”

The ‘new normal’ as Covid-19 lockdown eases

O

n Tuesday 22 June, the government sent out new guidelines on lockdown restrictions. It is important to remember that although some restrictions have been eased, this is not seen as the end of social distancing.

To stay safe and slow the spread of the virus, here are three key things to remember: • The two-metre rule still applies wherever possible • If you can’t stay two metres away, you must try to maintain a distance of one-metre plus.

• Where neither of these are possible, you must take other

measures to reduce the risk of spreading the infection. This includes wearing face coverings, standing side-byside instead of facing people, and using Perspex screens and other barriers.

You must also wear face coverings on public transport and if you have been invited to a face-to-face NHS appointment in Leeds, unless you are under 3 years old or have medical condition that prevents you from doing so.

More information on keeping safe during this time can be found on the government

website at www.gov.uk Charges for Leeds City Council car parks and on street parking will resume from Saturday 4 July 2020, with some important changes in place.

City centre parking: • Payment via the machines will resume at our standard prices.

• Payment via the ParkMobile app will resume at a temporarily discounted rate of £1 per hour or £5 per day.

People are encouraged to use this method if possible to avoid touching the machines.

• All charges will be suspended on Sundays and in the evenings.

Outer areas of the city: • Payment will resume at our standard prices for all methods of payment.

NHS and social care staff: • Parking will remain free for NHS and social care staff who are carrying out front line COVID-19 duties in the city centre, either at hospital, at other medical facilities or in people’s homes.

• A free permit scheme will be in operation to manage this, and those who believe they qualify should apply through their workplace.

More information on council on and off street car parking available can be found at: www.leeds.gov.uk/parkingroads-and-travel/parking Councillor Judith Blake, leader of Leeds City Council, said: “We are proud that Leeds was one of the first council’s to introduce free parking in a bid to ease some of the pressure on those still going to work during the pandemic. While suspending charges during the lockdown was the right thing to do, as lockdown restrictions begin to lift and shops and businesses start to reopen, it is time for us to resume parking charges to help manage demand and usage.

“NHS and social care workers with a valid permit on

display will continue to receive free parking and those who pay via Parkmobile will benefit from a discount in the city centre.”

The White Rose Shopping Centre has introduced a number of additional health and safety measures, now that non-essential retail stores are open, in accordance with government guidelines. One way system at the White Rose The health and Steven Foster, Centre safety of guests and staff is Director, White Rose said: White Rose’s highest priority.

“Safety is our highest priority.

As such, the following We’re working hard to ensure measures will be introduced, to we adhere to all government ensure we can welcome guests guidelines at White Rose and back to White Rose in the will be taking a robust safest possible way: approach to cleanliness and • Hand sanitiser points will hygiene. As well as the be located at the entrances thorough cleaning of the and throughout the centre centre, we will be using floor • A one-way system will be stickers and signs to remind in place to ensure social guests to keep the required distancing can be maintained distance apart, will be providing and regular turning points will hand sanitiser for guests and be introduced on the mall staff to use at a number of • A queuing system will be points throughout the centre, introduced for entry to the and our Security and Concierge centre should capacity be teams will be available to reached, to ensure social provide support. Guests can distancing can be maintained check which stores are open on • All Security/Concierge our website white-rose.co.uk staff and Cleaning Operatives and we will list FAQs there too. will be provided with masks We’re pleased to be welcoming • Signs and floor stickers our guests back and will remain will help remind guests on the fully compliant with malls to keep a safe distance government guidance at all apart. times.”

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

4 News

On the beat

by Insp Lucy Leadbeater

T

he last month has seen lockdown measures continue to reduce and life is starting to return to the ‘new normal’ for a larger number of us.

It has been a challenging time for all of us including my team and colleagues. I would again like to thank the residents of South Leeds for following guidance and adhering to social distancing, ensuring that you are keeping yourselves, your family and your community safe.

Watching your speed This month we have had a determined focus on keeping you safe on the roads as more people return to travel. We have conducted a number of operations across South Leeds, in particular focusing on speeding.

On 22 June one of the Inner South ward officers stopped and dealt with a driver who was driving at 73mph in a 30mph limit on Domestic Road in Holbeck. This is extremely dangerous and completely unacceptable and the driver has been summoned to court for this offence.

Road Safety is an extremely important aspect of our job and I know the concern that this brings to residents across the city. We will continue to tackle this and take positive action wherever we can.

As well as speeding, a regular complaint from residents is the anti-social use of vehicles on roads. On 17 June we attended Middleton District Shopping Centre where a vehicle was seen to be doing doughnuts in the carpark. The driver was stopped and their vehicle was seized due to this behaviour.

We have also seized a

number of other vehicles including an off road motorbike that was again causing a nuisance in the Middleton area.

As a team we take a proactive approach to identifying such vehicles and offenders and welcome any information from members of the public in relation to individuals or vehicles involved.

If you have any information please report to us through 101 or 101 online and of course 999 in an emergency.

Between 7-13 June we supported Neighbourhood

Seized: no more doughnuts Watch Week and visited a number of premises to raise awareness of this scheme. The Neighbourhood Watch is an excellent scheme that ensures that information can be shared effectively and can really help reduce crime in your neighbourhood. If you are interested in becoming involved then please email us at wyp.nhw@westyorkshire.pnn. police.uk for more information.

The part of my job that I enjoy the most is engaging with communities in a variety of

Dancing in the street with DAZL’s Garden Groovers

by Jeremy Morton

T Seized: anti-social bike different ways. Listening to your concerns and feedback to ensure that we are tackling the issues that are a priority to you.

Due to Covid 19 the last few months have been difficult to do this as we have seen meetings and events cancelled.

We are using social media and a variety of networking platforms to keep in touch with people and keep you updated.

There continue to be a variety of ways that you can keep in touch with us and all details are on our website www.westyorkshire.police.uk/ my-neighbourhood/leeds/ leeds-south.

On the website you will find information about the team, how you can contact us as well as details about our priorities each month for each ward area. We welcome feedback from residents about the priorities that we have set and want to ensure that we are working effectively in partnership with the community to tackle the issues that matter to you.

As always, the South Leeds Neighbourhood Policing Team is proud to continue to ensure we keep you and all the communities of South Leeds safe.

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

he Residents of Intake Square were dancing in the street as DAZL brought their Garden Groovers project to Middleton on Wednesday 27 May. Garden Groovers is a one hour outdoor dance session, led by DAZL’s professional dance leaders. You don’t have to travel and you can keep your safe ‘social distance’ whilst you make your moves. It’s an easy class that anyone of any age can join in, or you can just come to your gate and clap along to the music.

Ian Rodley, DAZL’s Director, said: “The sessions have been really successful, we had 70 people engaged at Intake Square, it was fantastic.

“I want say a big ‘thank you’ to everyone who has been involved and especially the Youth & Community Team at

BARCA who have been brilliant.

“We just want to get people together, get them dancing and having fun. If you want Garden Groovers on your street, get in touch.”

Sessions have also taken place at Nesfield Gardens, Sissons Road, Lingwell Approach and Windmill Road.

Garden Groovers isn’t the only thing DAZL has been busy with during the lockdown. As soon as it had to cancel physical classes, DAZL took all their groups online. You can carry on with your weekly dance class via Facebook – full details of how to sign up safely are on the DAZL website here.

They have also been delivering food parcels to 40 families in South Leeds each week and from next week they will double that to cover 80 families. The parcels include an activity pack with dance activities for those who can’t access the internet. For more

information Please contact Amy & Chrisie via email – community@dazl.org.uk or Call/Text 07519 018675.

DAZL has been involved in the Healthy Holidays work in Leeds for several years now, providing lunches at their activity camps during school holidays. The work has also involved teaching children about eating a healthy diet.

“DAZL isn’t just about physical activity, although that’s at the core of what we do” explains Ian. “It’s about helping young people to be healthy, whether that’s movement, healthy eating or mental health.”

DAZL’s community focus stretches to a weekly check-in phone call to parents to make sure they’re coping and offer help and advice.

Garden Groovers is funded by Leeds Community Foundation‘s Healthy Holidays and Leeds Inspired.

Getting their groove on at Intake Square in Middleton

Residents meetings move online

P

hysical meetings may have become impossible since the lockdown started, but Hunslet & Riverside Councillors have decided to go online and set up three virtual residents’ meetings.

This is an opportunity for local residents and businesses to: • raise issues, • discuss and develop projects, • have conversations with your ward councillors, police and council services.

The meetings will be held on

Zoom which is a free app that you can download for your laptop, tablet or phone.

Hunslet Moor

Open to people who live or work within the local area between Dewsbury Road and the M621.

On Tuesday 14 July 2020 at 6:30-8pm To join the meeting go to: bit.ly/HunsletMoorMeeting

Hunslet Green On Tuesday 21 July 2020 at 6:30-8pm To join the meeting go to: https://bit.ly/HunsletGreen WhitfieldsMeeting

www.southleedslife.com

Website: www.southleedslife.com

July 2020 | South Leeds Life

Email: info@southleedslife.com

News 5

Cockburn School’s expansion plans

by Jeremy Morton

S

enior Councillors have approved spending almost £7 million at Cockburn School in Beeston to accommodate an additional 60 students and address historic overcrowding.

Leeds City Council’s Executive Board approved a report which proposes creating the extra space at Cockburn School by building a modular block of ten classrooms and transferring land for extra playing field space.

The decision was questioned

by Conservative Cllr Andrew Carter who said he was “astonished” at the costs involved, compared to plans for other schools in Leeds either taking bulge cohorts or expanding permanently.

“I think we’ve been taken for a ride” he said. “I think this has come about because over generous promises were made and officers have been required to redeem those promises, and the result of that is the academy chain were able to ask for more money beyond their wildest dreams.”

He said the decision would be ‘called in’ for scrutiny by back bench Councillors.

The additional school places at Cockburn are required because of Government delays to building the new Laurence Calvert Academy on the site of the former Middleton Park High School. The new school was originally scheduled to open in September 2019, but is now not likely to open until 2022 at the earliest.

“I think we’ve been taken for a ride.”

Cllr Andrew Carter In April we reported on a campaign by parents whose children faced long journeys across Leeds to high school due to the shortage of secondary school places in South Leeds. Leeds City Council worked with the Cockburn Multi Academy Trust (MAT) to create extra capacity at Cockburn to resolve the issue.

Officers explained to the meeting that the scheme was so expensive because it sought to deal with historic issues at Cockburn. Cost savings made when the school was rebuilt in 2010 meant it was undersized for the number of children.

Since then pupil numbers had risen from 1,050 to 1,200 causing real difficulties for the school being able to offer the full curriculum to its students.

Plans approved by Leeds City Council’s Executive Board Additionally Cockburn is already short of playing field space on site for its number of pupils. This will be made worse by the new building having to be built over tennis courts.

Cllr Jonathan Pryor, Executive Board member for Learning, Skills & Employment, planted the blame for the current situation firmly with the Government.

“The primary reason of the costs for Cockburn is because the government failed to deliver Laurence Calvert School. We knew this bulge was there, we knew we needed an entire new school, that school was supposed to open in September 2019 and it hasn’t.

“And it hasn’t because the Government has not been listening to the Council when we’ve been saying we needed it. They’ve pushed it back, they pushed it back again, and they pushed it back again.

“We are in a place where we need places where the only schools available to expand are very difficult to expand because they’ve already expanded several times. That’s why the cost is that much higher.”

Cllr Judith Blake, leader of the Council, asked for an update on the opening of the Laurence Calvert Academy saying “We cannot carry on letting down families and young people across the south of

Leeds in this way. It’s deeply irresponsible of the Department (for Education), we’ve done everything to move things forward, we’ve moved our Highways offices out of the building (to make the site ready).”

Officers confirmed that the Department for Education had indicated that they would allow Laurence Calvert to open on a temporary site in September 2021 and would meet the costs of facilitating this.

The new three storey block at Cockburn will include two science laboratories, seven classrooms and an ICT suite.

The block will be built on existing hard standing which is currently used for PE. The Council will also transfer a small parcel of land which was formerly part of South Leeds Golf Club to the school.

This will be used to reprovide hard sports courts and create a new full size grass football pitch.

The land to be transferred amounts to 3 hectares, or 7.4 acres. The land will be levelled and the report describes this work as “challenging” due to the site levels which vary by as much as 7m. It will also involve the removal of over 30 mature trees, each tree removed will be replaced by three new trees.

The project is to be split into two phases. The first phase comprises the construction of

the new classrooms and various works to outdoor sports area on the existing school site.

The cost of this phase is projected to be £5,468,100.

The second phase, programmed for next financial year, 2021-22, will see the new football pitch and sports courts

“We cannot carry on letting down families and young people across the south of Leeds in this way.”

Cllr Judith Blake built on the former golf club land. The cost of this work will be £1,366,900.

The report implicitly recognises that the second phase of the project is more

Cockburn School in Beeston

contentious, stating that planning permission will be sought for each phase separately “to ensure that the teaching accommodation required is in place for September 2020.”

According to the plans accompanying the report, access to the construction site will be via the lane that runs between the school and Beeston Park Boarding Kennels & Cattery. Existing hard standing next to the 3G football pitch will be used for the building compound and then extended to create a new 50 space car park. This should ensure all staff can park on site and not have to use Gipsy Lane.

The lane, including the old cobbled footpath which runs into Middleton Park, will be incorporated into the school

site as part of the phase 2 proposals with the existing public right of way diverted around the new pitch across the former golf course.

Commenting on the plans, Beeston & Holbeck Councillors Gohar Almass, Angela Gabriel and Andrew Scopes said: “We recognise the concerns about diminishing the greenbelt in our area and so there have been some mitigating steps taken to protect the land, including: • The land would remain in the greenbelt which should stop the land being developed on (beyond the sporting facilities currently being suggested).

• If the Cockburn MAT is dissolved the land would revert back to council ownership • Work is being undertaken to ensure that the wider community (ie not the school community) will be able to access the facilities outside of school usage – the exact details of this have not yet been agreed and would be done through a community access agreement as part of the legal process in handing any land over and we would welcome residents’ thoughts on this agreement.

• A commitment to replace any trees that are removed with three new ones. The proposals would mean 36 trees being removed to provide the necessary sporting facilities, these trees are not part of the ancient woodland and will be replaced with a minimum of 108 trees.

“The land proposed to be transferred accounts for 5% of the gold course. The golf course was previously private land. The remaining 95% of the land will be consulted on separately. But 100% of the golf course is moving from private to community use (whether that is the school community or the wider community).”

See also one reader’s response on page 18 and more comments on the letters page.

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

6 News

Breaking through the digital divide

by Lucy Potter

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

White Rose station gets the green light

M

y name is Lucy and I’m a Complex Needs Worker for Women's Lives Leeds, based at Women’s Health Matters.

Over the last few months we have been making enquires as to where we can access some IT resources to help the women we support get connected online and feel safe. I wanted to share how we had a breakthrough in obtaining some IT equipment really quickly and found this in the community of Beeston where Women’s Health Matters is located and is where I live too.

To be fair we have been successful over the pandemic in obtaining funding and being on a reserve list with 100% Digital Leeds, who have massively helped our Rainbow Hearts group for women seeking asylum.

However, another woman that I support had not been successful through another programme and missed out on the chance for a much needed tablet – we were too far down various waiting lists to get something straight away.

Then, on Friday 19 June after exhausting all avenues of a chance to find something I took a break and looked at Twitter. I saw a tweet from a service from The Tech Ladder promoting their work and picture of women overjoyed at receiving a free tablet and data.

Seeing this I retweeted explaining that I work at a local charity and something like this would be invaluable to the women that we support. No less than five minutes later my tweet was replied to saying ‘we can help, call this number!’ And by 1pm I was stood at the doorway of Elsie Reed, founder and director of The Tech Ladder, and with the required social distancing measures communicating the protocol of disclaimers through our masks.

Ed Carlisle had brought around

Elsie Reed, Director of The Tech Ladder

Lucy collecting the donated tablet the tablet that was donated by Baz in Hunslet. You can’t get better than some good grassroots organisation.

The Tech Ladder is a holistic social enterprise ‘switched on’ technically and for the community needs too. They also work sessional hours alongside staff within the community hubs at Dewsbury Road and Hunslet offering techy advice.

The altruistic aspect of this service is to help support people who are financially disadvantaged, not only with accessing devices but once they have obtained it offering telephone support, online and onsite training. They provide opportunities for personal and economic development in terms of job searching, assistance with interview skills mentoring and apprenticeships.

The Tech Ladder have utilised their networking skills (Elsie is also a Rotary member) with people who can help people stay connected and stay safe in these uncertain times.

The service was invaluable to us here at Women’s Health Matters showing the need to help break down digital barriers for people who need them most at this time.

At Women's Health Matters, we work with women who have unequal access to health and support services due to poverty, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or traumatic personal experience.

We provide intensive one to one and group support across Leeds within the following areas: Domestic Violence and Abuse; parenting; women with children living in someone else's care; women seeking asylum; women with learning difficulties; and women with complex needs or mental health and well being needs.

Artists impression showing new vehicular station access through White Rose Office Park

L

eeds City Council has granted planning permission for a new proposed White Rose Railway Station to improve connectivity in the south of the city.

The northwest boundary of the White Rose Office Park and Millshaw Park Industrial Estate, between Churwell viaduct to the north and Walkers Bridge to the south has been earmarked for the development.

The project is a partnership between the owner of White Rose Office Park, Munroe K, and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, and was first proposed in 2018.

The status of the nearby Cottingley station remains in doubt, as a report on the development states ‘it is unlikely that two stations that are so close together can be fully sustained.’ However, as we reported previously, no final decision has been taken and further consultation is due to be carried out this year.

Leeds City Council approved the planning application last week, with the project being held as an exemplar of how private and public sector collaboration can speed up the delivery of large infrastructure projects in the north.

It is hoped that the station will give better opportunities

for people to access jobs at the White Rose Office Park, White Rose Shopping Centre and Millshaw Industrial Estate, as well as optimising connections for local residents who wish to access Leeds City Centre and beyond.

New footpaths and cycleways will also be built to ensure easy access to the rail station from nearby communities including Beeston, Cottingley and Churwell. The surrounding Public Rights of Way will also be upgraded and improved to provide well-lit, level and safe pedestrian routes.

Speaking on the development, Munroe K’s owner David Aspin said: “We are delighted that planning permission has been granted to build the railway station that will undoubtedly improve the

transport connections both within south Leeds and the wider city.

“Our partnership with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Leeds City Council and Network Rail has helped to make this proposal become reality. It is a testament to how collaboration can help to make significant progress in providing better connectivity in Leeds and the North.”

As part of the ongoing Leeds Public Transport Investment Programme, the speed in which infrastructure projects like this can go from concept to delivery is an indicator of how cooperation between the private and public sector can drive significant positive change in the north of England.

Speaking about the importance of this cooperation, Middleton Park

New pedestrian and cycle routes will be created

Ward Councillor and chair of WYCA’s Transport Committee Kim Groves said: “This new station serving the White Rose Office Park will result in improved transport links across the area and will act as a catalyst for local regeneration and housing growth, economic activity and jobs in the surrounding area.

“It will help transform South Leeds and provide new opportunities for the communities of Cottingley, Churwell and Millshaw and Morley.”

“Rail stations play an important role in supporting the local economy, linking people to vital services and opportunities and achieving our environmental commitments.”

The planned opening date of the White Rose Railway Station will be in May 2022.

www.southleedslife.com

Website: www.southleedslife.com

July 2020 | South Leeds Life

Email: info@southleedslife.com

News 7

South Leeds’ Big Bike Fix

Hundreds of pounds raised for NHS by Hunslet street’s fun and games

by Imran Marashli

A

single street in Hunslet has raised hundreds of pounds for the NHS after holding weekly quizzes and bingo sessions throughout lockdown.

Residents of Parnaby Avenue have raised more than £200 and strengthened their community spirit in the process. All funds will be donated to Leeds General Infirmary’s children’s ward.

On a balmy summer evening, a merry band of 13 residents sit in their front gardens with chilled drinks and pore over sheets of paper for the picture round. Organiser Susan Powell walks up and down the street to read out the questions to

Volunteers have fixed up over 50 bikes to give away as part of the Big Bike Fix - South Leeds

D

ozens of volunteers from across south Leeds and beyond pitched in throughout June to collect scores of unwanted bicycles, fix them up, and donate them back into the local community.

With lots of people taking the opportunity to 'declutter' during lockdown, and lots of others taking the chance to get into cycling (because of the spare time, sunshine, or to avoid public transport), and still others with bike-fixing skills having time on their hands, a

team emerged to line up the pieces and make something happen - within lockdown rules.

Over 50 bikes have so far been successfully patched up, and given to local people. A further 20 people have had their bikes serviced. More bike donations are forthcoming and there is certainly lots of demand, so the scheme based in Beeston Hill - looks likely to become an ongoing project.

Coordinator Ed Carlisle commented: "Huge thanks to

everyone who's helped this project take off. Locally and nationally, loads of people are getting into cycling, which is great - but that's meant the bike shops are heaving, with long waiting lists.

‘We've been pretty crazy busy, but it's been a delight to be part of, with happy people at every turn. If others want to get involved, please get in touch there's lots to do!"

To find out more or get in touch, look for 'The Big Bike Fix - South Leeds' on Facebook.

Bike-fixing volunteers are especially welcome, at almost anytime - as are donations of bikes. There is a waiting list for bikes, although the team are getting through it.

Note that the team are doing their best to practise social distancing and remain Covidsafe: please help them stick with that. Thanks to all those supporting the project especially all the volunteers and donors, and also Active Leeds, Sport England, and SLATE.

Lychee Red comes home T

hanks to a National Lottery grant, Health for All will be launching a new project to support Chinese and other isolated elders in Leeds to cope through the Covid-19 pandemic.

The new build Beeston Village Community centre will be the Hub from which staff and volunteers with appropriate language skills and knowledge deliver practical and

emotional support. Those benefitting will be isolated, vulnerable older people unable to access other Covid-19 services due to language and cultural barriers.

Pat McGeever, HFA Chief Executive, said: “Health for All has supported the Chinese community for many years now, with dedicated Cantonese and Mandarin speaking staff and

Lychee Red members cooking together before the lockdown

volunteers running weekly luncheon clubs, singing and walking groups, organising cultural activities and events.

The lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic meant we had to temporarily close our groups and centres to comply with government advice.

“We have been providing some support and groups online but this grant means that will be significantly

group at the start of lockdown has unexpectedly forged stronger community bonds and raised money, explains Ms Powell: “We’ve done it to relieve boredom and support the doctors and nurses in the NHS. We’re more of a community now. I’m an ex-landlady and used to do them [quizzes] in the pub. I thought they’d get fed up after a while, but they’ve loved it. People started giving me prizes to give out. It’s not just one or two people – it’s everyone, the whole street.”

As a game of Play Your Cards Right concludes the latest evening of fundraising fun, Sharon Taylor, who organised the weekly bingo sessions, says

expanded.

“This project will make a huge difference to the Chinese community in Leeds, reducing. social isolation and improving physical and mental health.

“We’re so grateful to National Lottery players, without whom we would not be able to deliver this exciting project!”

Lychee Red Comes Home will respond to the urgent needs of vulnerable elders including home delivery of culturally appropriate food and activity packs/games, practical support with shopping and medication, signposting to address health, housing and utility issues.

The project will also run online Activity sessions including Friendship groups, Chinese games and Singing Together.

For more information contact Toshal Bhatia at Health For All on 07507 644215 or email: toshal.bhatia@healthforall .org.uk

Good neighbours: residents of Parnaby Avenue in Hunslet each household while maintaining social distancing.

“It’s brought us all together – we didn’t really know our neighbours until this,” says James Morrow.

“You’ve got to help each other. There are people who are poorly here, but we all pull together.”

“You don’t just come out here for nowt, you have a socialised drink. We’ve done it from the first week of lockdown,” says Sandra Clay, who has lived on Parnaby Avenue for 39 years.

“It’s been getting everybody out together instead of staying indoors being miserable or watching crap on the telly.”

A bottle of wine is up for grabs for the winner and a packet of biscuits for the team with the lowest score.

Previously, a large bar of chocolate was the prize.

Seemingly simple things have led to something much bigger thanks to the community chipping in regularly during the lockdown.

One post in the neighbourhood’s Facebook

the street has been brought together.

“It’s been brilliant on a Sunday, everyone enjoys it.

Everybody’s out and it raises a bit more money. It pulls us all together. It’s through lockdown that you really get to know your neighbours,” she says.

David Wigglesworth, who volunteers as a minibus driver with South Leeds Live at Home, pays tribute to Ms Powell for providing the initial impetus.

“It really does work – it brings us together. She’s brought everybody together – we’re just people in the street who’ve joined in.”

Ms Powell reckons that the final community quiz will be held on Saturday 4 July, the date when several lockdown restrictions are due to be lifted in England – and she intends to finish on a high.

“People will want to get back to normal as soon as possible: going to pubs, going out,” she explains. “We’re going to do the street up and have a raffle and then we’ll hand over the cheque.”

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

8 News

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

Active travel Middleton Railway marks pilots areas for its Diamond Jubilee Holbeck and Beeston

by Imran Marashli

B

eeston and Holbeck are being considered as pilot areas to test new active travel neighbourhood schemes.

Leeds City Council is seeking residents’ views on emergency walking and cycling plans created by the coronavirus pandemic after a first round of consultation.

Active travel or low traffic neighbourhood schemes intend to deter ‘rat running’ through residential areas, reduce car speeds and facilitate walking and cycling.

The measures would only be temporary, with any permanent changes requiring funding if they were proven to be effective.

Although the plans have not been officially confirmed, it is thought that widening pavements and cycle lanes will not apply, to preserve residents’ parking space on already narrow roads.

Instead, entrances to roads would potentially be narrowed to create one-way traffic and reduce car speeds.

Temporary bollards for new cycle lanes such as those on Kirkstall Road would not be installed. However, cycling charity Sustrans and Active Leeds are working separately to create corridors for cyclists to access existing cycle networks.

The official consultation page outlines the areas of Beeston and Holbeck where the trials would apply. Both would see “point closures of streets in a local residential area to stop through traffic (‘rat running’), making the streets safer and quieter for those living there.”

An area bordered by Dewsbury Road, Old Lane, Hunslet Hall Road, and Beeston Road encompasses the Beeston pilot area.

In Holbeck, the streets affected include the

Recreations, the Colensos, Elland Road, the Eustons and the Tilburys.

Initial responses to the consultation showed much positive feedback. “Happy to see Beeston is finally getting some measure put in place, there are so many speeding cars around here, the area will look so much nicer with plants and flowering on the roads,” wrote one person.

Several respondents welcomed the proposals but called for more bike racks to provide more security against theft or to adapt to narrow pavements in Holbeck.

Other residents want further action. Another respondent commented: “I am happy to see the council is taking the health of South Leeds residents seriously, Beeston and Holbeck is usually forgotten about and less of a priority to the council, I hope this becomes permanent but there is a lot more to do in Beeston and Holbeck to improve our health and life expectancy living in these areas.”

You can have your say on the proposals at: leedscovidresidentialstreets .commonplace.is/schemes/ proposals/interventions/ details The introduction of low traffic neighbourhood schemes comes as the council is also running a consultation on the expansion of cycling lanes.

In addition to existing schemes on Elland Road and Dewsbury Road, cycling proposals for South Leeds include upgrading cycling infrastructure on Hunslet Hall Road, Whitehall Road, Water Lane, Sweet Street, Crown Point Bridge, the A61, Balm Road, Kidacre Street, Jack Lane, Beeston’s Ring Road and two improvements in Middleton.

Existing measures to stop rat running. Photo: Google Streetview

Sixty years on the diesel that pulled the first train prepares to leave Moor Road station, watched by ‘Matthew Murray’ in full steam

by Jeremy Morton

T

he weekend of 20-21 June was supposed to be the glittering gala centrepiece of Middleton Railway’s year-long celebration of its 60th anniversary, until the Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to it.

However, the amazing team of volunteers who run the railway couldn’t let the moment pass unmarked and a so a private, socially distanced, event was held. At 4:45pm on Saturday 20 June, sixty years to the minute since the first service ran, the diesel engine that pulled that first service pulled out of Moor Road station.

The Middleton Railway was built in 1758 and is the first railway authorised by an Act of Parliament and the first to have commercially successful steam locomotives, in June 1812. It has operated trains every year since opening in 1758.

The Middleton Railway Trust (MRT) also celebrates the role Hunslet played in building steam and diesel engines for the world. So as well as the diesel, an older, Hunslet-built steam engine, Matthew Murray, was in full steam for the ceremony.

The railway was one of the first heritage railway lines in the country and the first standard gauge preserved railway, opening in June 1960. It was started by a group of volunteers led by Dr Fred Youell, who taught Physics at Leeds University. Youell was a formidable character, inspired by work done on the Talyllyn

and Ffestiniog Railways in North Wales and by the classic Ealing comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt. His son Matthew told me that he was keen to join the railway preservation movement and Middleton Railway became his project as it the oldest railway in the world and it was on his doorstep.

Another story from the early days paints a picture of Fred Youell’s determination. In the 1960s the M1 motorway (as it was then) was being built through South Leeds and the planned route ran across the line of the railway. The engineers really didn’t want to have to build a tunnel for the railway and at a final meeting asked “Isn’t there any other way?”

“Yes” replied Fred, “We’ll settle for a level crossing!”

To this day the railway is still run by a dedicated team of volunteers. Matthew also paid tribute to his mother Susan who was the railway’s first secretary and served for many years.

“This area has changed massively, but one thing they managed to preserve is this railway” Matthew said. “First it was in a wasteland, now there’s roads, greenery. Before my father died twenty years ago, he was amazed at how it looked and how much South Leeds had changed, but it still has its heritage.”

Both Fred and Susan Youell wanted their ashes scattered at the railway, but at opposite ends of the line. It’s perhaps appropriate that to visit both sites the family have to take the

train.

In 1960 the railway could only operate on a short section of track and passengers rode in an old tram pulled by the diesel engine. But seven and a half thousand turned up take a ride in its first week. The short ride was free but for a donation you got a commemorative ticket.

The proceeds went to Leeds University’s RAG Week charity drive.

Although the railway lost its line running up to the end of Dewsbury Road, to the motorway, the line up to Park Halt was secured in 1969 after Broom Pit closed. The group explored preserving the pit, but with hundreds of working coal mines in the country there was little interest.

Running the train also served a second purpose. No trains have run since 1 January this year and so volunteers had to be certified that they could run a train service safely. Middleton Railway is governed by the same laws as the East Coast Mainline and every other railway in the UK. Now the

railway will be ready to open once government restrictions permit.

Speaking about the anniversary, Middleton Park Councillors Judith Blake, Kim Groves and Paul Truswell commented: “We congratulate MRT on reaching this historic anniversary. We take great pride in having such an internationally significant piece of history on our doorstep. It is a powerful reminder of our area’s rich industrial heritage and a tribute to the generations of dedicated volunteers who have made it such a valued part of our community. It is not only a brilliant educational asset, but also great fun!

“We have been delighted to support to MRT over the years and look forward to a continuing that close working relationship.

“We want to help it to cement its place as one of the city’s great attractions, and perhaps one day even extend the line to its original starting point in Middleton Park.”

The first week of operations, June 1960 Photo: Keith Terry / NTM Crich Collection

www.southleedslife.com

Website: www.southleedslife.com

July 2020 | South Leeds Life

Email: info@southleedslife.com

News 9

Locals clash over swans’ safety

by Ed Carlisle

L

ocal people have found themselves increasingly at loggerheads over the wellbeing of the much-loved family of swans, currently nesting in the Middleton Park lake – and whether their safety trumps the rights of those wanting to fish there.

The swans first made their home there – on the island in the lake, by the visitors centre – last year; they then returned this spring, this time building a nest for a new family. They are the first nesting family of swans there for over a generation, and have been a star attraction for those recently visiting the park.

However, this year has also seen record numbers of anglers fishing in the lake – often well over 10 at one time.

And the past month has seen a growing problem with the swans and especially the six cygnets (the baby swans, now just over a month old) becoming dangerously entangled in fishing line. The lake is also home to moorhens, coots and ducks.

With these incidents happening nearly daily, and sometimes twice daily, the RSPCA and Yorkshire Swan Rescue Hospital (YSRH) have

been repeatedly called out – and on other occasions, local people have stepped in to rescue the swans. Others have – alongside the Council’s Parks team – taken to gathering discarded or broken fishing line and hooks from the lake before they cause a problem.

There are now growing calls to better manage angling on the lake, with proposals such as limiting the number of anglers, more licence checks, and creating a designated angling zone in the lake; but the Parks team insist they don’t have the capacity to take on this policing role, and other bodies including the Environment Agency have also seen significant funding cuts in the past decade.

With both the RSPCA and YSRH reportedly saying they are unable to continue coming out, unless substantial steps are taken to address the issue, a widely-shared online petition has now taken off calling for an actual ban on angling there – either temporarily during nesting season, or permanently.

Search for Middleton Park on change.org Debating the issue on social media, comments include the following: “If there were other types of

Six cygnets on Middleton Park lake anti-social behaviour happening, the Council wouldn’t be saying ‘Well, we’ll allow it, because there’s no way of policing it'” (Sarah).

“Anyone who’s a genuine angler has no problems with (the idea of a temporary ban):

it will be the unlicensed youths that do this and harm the wildlife” (Claire).

“The pond is just far too small for all the fishing taking place: the wildlife have nowhere to go; at the end of the day, the pond is their home”

Pubs and clubs prepare to reopen their doors N

by Imran Marashli

ew government guidelines have complicated the reopening of pubs in South Leeds as establishments prepare to reopen.

While some premises are preparing to reopen immediately on Saturday 4 July, others are finding it harder to cope with the financial impact and feasibility of the new restrictions and have further delayed reopening.

Local residents will find that socialising will be a very different experience to what they were used to before lockdown.

The UK government announced on Tuesday 23 June that pubs, clubs and restaurants in England could reopen from 4 July.

The two-metre social-distancing rule was reduced to one metre, provided that extra protection, such as wearing face masks, were in place.

New measures for pubs, bars and restaurants include taking customers’ contact details and temperatures upon entry, only providing table service and ensuring social distancing is observed while limiting numbers.

But these conditions have created a mixed picture in South Leeds as some

clubs face financial and logistical struggles to comply with the new guidelines.

Numbers of people indoors are strictly limited and not all premises have car parks or beer gardens to maximise their capacity and income.

Venues also face losing revenue as live performances remained banned.

A government document states that they “should not permit live performances, including drama, comedy and music, to take place in front of a live audience. This is important to mitigate the risks of aerosol transmission - from either the performer(s) or their audience”.

The Hunslet Carr Sports and Social Club has been carrying out extensive refurbishment work since April. Over a 10-week period, new seating and carpets were installed in the kids’ room and games room, while the bar areas, doorman’s box and artists’ room, six toilets, two stairwells, a corridor, lounge and concert room were all decorated. Protective screens were fitted to protect bar staff, in line with the new COVID-19 guidelines.

However, the club’s committee found itself unable confirm an immediate resumption of business due to the restrictions’ financial consequences.

New screens at the bar of the Hunslet Carr Sports and Social Club

(Danni).

But these proposals and allegations have inevitably caused uproar amongst local anglers. Also on social media, responses have included the following: “Blown out of proportion; people have been fishing for 100 years there alongside ducks and swans, and this hasn’t happened before to my knowledge” (Simon).

“The park and the lake was left to the local folk; take away the fishing, and what next? The historic cafe, the golf house: all gone. Before you know it, there won’t be a park” (Alan).

“Here we go again: ban this, ban that, let’s put the kids back into the neighbourhoods causing issues. I have fished the place for over 30 years, and have been trying to get this issue resolved for over 2 and a half years now: there’s just been no maintenance. Until this pond is maintained properly, this issue will continue” (Chris).

Cllr Kim Groves (Middleton Park ward) has become involved in trying to resolve the issue, and commented: “I’m hoping that everyone agrees that the wildlife must have a protected environment – and we all know that change

“We feel if we open to these guidelines the club would be making a massive financial loss due to the number of staff having to be put on for table service, someone checking temperatures and making everybody sign in who comes in the club,” the club said on 25 June.

“Due to the limited capacity we would be running with the guidelines the government have set out we don’t feel we could provide the full service our customers deserve in these difficult times.”

The nearby Peggy Tub was also unable to announce it was reopening.

The emphasis on outdoor service prevents the Hunslet pub from using its core indoor facilities, while the need to use minimal staff makes table service unviable.

The Belle Isle Working Men’s Club had also been busy preparing its premises. In May, it decorated new trophy cabinets, cleaned the smoke shelter, jet-washed and repainted the benches, repainted the toilets, and cleaned the car park and foyer tiles.

By June, the games room was refurbished and a new carpet installed. Work has also started on refurbishing the concert room.

However, a committee meeting on the morning of Sunday 28 June deemed that reopening on 4 July was unviable. Discussions will resume on 18 July following the government’s next COVID-19 review on 15 July.

The Holbeck will be reopening its doors but not until 12 July. Slung

is needed, and this must be done by looking for solutions and working together.

“We have a choice to manage fishing and wildlife, so are discussing a number of actions to pursue before progressing any temporary ban”.

Those and other proposals now emerging include: • the formation of an anglers club to oversee the lake; • outreach work with young anglers and schools; • dredging and cleaning the lake; • and a dedicated phone number to report broken fishing lines in the lake.

To find out more or get involved, contact the local Parks team, search for Middleton Park at leeds.gov.uk or the Friends group at fomp.co.uk Swans are a legally protected species – and the same law prohibits them from being moved from their natural habitat in most cases.

Seasonable bans on fishing and other leisure activities are regularly put in place across the country, to protect birdlife.

Angling is a licensed sport, overseen by the Environment Agency and the Angling Trust.

Low’s management is expecting to lose £60,000 due to the months of lockdown.

The Holbeck's new role as Slung Low’s base for social care work means that it will not be the same space it once was, with the snooker room temporarily turned into a hub for social care referrals.

On the other hand, the Parnaby Tavern on Middleton Road is preparing to reopen its doors on Saturday 4 July, opening the entire pub and beer garden.

Visitors will need to download an app to order food and drink and prevent them from going to the counter, but this poses a problem for older customers who may not be familiar with new technology or contactless payments.

A one-way system will apply inside the premises and no functions can be booked until August at the earliest.

The Parnaby Tavern set to open on 4 July

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

10 News

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

There’s a snake in New Forest Village

The girls came up with the idea

by Wayne Dixon

A

snake is now residing in Middleton’s New Forest Village plantation, but this one is less worrying than your conventional snake, in fact it’s a snake made from community spirit.

The Snake is made up of over 130 decorated stones from the community and it was all the brain child of, well, a child (or two).

The stones are all decorated in various ways, with chalk, paints and various other ways.

It all started when Emma Prest who lives on the New Forest Village was walking with her girls and they found a

The snake has grown and grown

decorated stone and her girls came up with an idea, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could see them all together?” they asked.

The girls started to gather stones they had decorated and lined them up at side of the path and Emma promoted the idea online, soon there were over 130 stones all decorated and full of colour as the community flocked to join in the fun.

This was a simple, but effective idea, it brought a community together to develop a community art piece – it’s a few weeks old now, but if you want to add to it, feel free.

Woodland wanders in the Plantation During lockdown many of us have found time to discover new places to visit, right here on our doorstep in South Leeds. Please share your photos and stories with us, and we'll publish them! This image was taken in the Middleton Plantation (known locally as the Planny), a 100+ acre green belt area behind Bodmin Road and Sissons Road. It features ancient overgrown railway lines, streams and wild woodland paths to explore.

Coming back never felt so good

by Rev Lindsey Pearson

I

t was the 21st May when I went into St Mary’s Beeston to lead a service for the first time in 9 weeks.

It was strange – the church was a bit dusty but not looking too bad. I was there to do a Facebook live Communion service, assisted by Andrew, my husband and also a vicar. No one else was allowed to be with us in church – and that felt really strange.

I’d expected that – but what I hadn’t expected was just how special it felt to be back in St Mary’s. I’d always thought it was the people who made it special, and they do, but there is also something special about the building.

There’s been a church on this site for centuries: Beeston is mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086, and there was a chapel of some sort, but the church in its present form dates from 1885.

When I came here as vicar, 7 years ago, I thought it was a lovely church, well cared for and loved, and located in the centre of Beeston. I quickly discovered that lots of people valued the building – not just those who came but many more in our community.

St. Mary’s is a Parish Church

and that means it is there for polished until it’s gleaming! messages about people who’ve everyone who lives in Beeston, And from the 1st July St died during this pandemic. and you have a right to be Mary’s Church Beeston will be Andrew and I will be married here and an open from 2-4pm on continuing to do our Facebook expectation that you can have Wednesdays and 10.30am- live services on Sundays at christenings and funerals here 12.30pm on Sundays. Church 9.30am on the St. Mary’s page: too. One of the things we’ve members will be on hand to St Mary's Church and Beeston been exploring as a church is keep everyone safe. We’ve got Parish Centre how to make the building more hand sanitiser for you to use I do hope you’ll drop in, and I accessible for people in our and a one way system. You’ll be hope you’ll discover how parish. able to light a candle, sit in a special the Church is too.

I know that when the church pew, say a prayer, and write a St Mary’s Church is on Town doors are open people pop in – card for our Memorial Book: an Street, Beeston, LS11 8PN – maybe to see what it’s like, or album with names and opposite the Co-op. to light a candle, or to have a sit down, or to experience the peacefulness of the building. They may do that as people of faith or not. And all are welcome.

So I’m really glad that the Government is allowing churches to open again, initially for private prayer, and then for simple services. We’ve been busy getting St Mary’s ready for you to come in.

We’ve dusted, mopped, vacuumed, washed and Welcome back to the peacefulness of St Mary’s, Beeston

www.southleedslife.com

Website: www.southleedslife.com

July 2020 | South Leeds Life

Email: info@southleedslife.com

News 11

Local charity shops reopening

by Ed Carlisle

M

Slung Low stage a treat for local families T

here’s not been much theatre at The Holbeck club since it shut to customers and opened itself as an emergency food hub.

But on Friday 26 June Slung Low brought in children’s theatre group Wrongsemble to put on a show for local families in the club’s car park.

With actors on the back of a lorry and families sheltering from the sun in small tents on the carefully marked out tarmac. Slung Low rigged the sound using their headphone sets that they have pioneered at such outdoor shows as The White Whale.

Alan Lane, Slung Low’s artistic Director was at pains to point out that this wasn’t a return to regular performances at The Holbeck, but was purely a one-off.

“This was not a reopening of our theatre. It is a continuation of the work we do as ward lead for social care referrals in Holbeck and Beeston.

“Every day we deliver hot meals from Mecca Bingo to 20 families in our local area. 65 children. We’ve seen them every day for the last 2 months. We’ve seen how they have coped with the time away from school, the weather, the

impact of various legislation, the diet of sausage and chips 4 days a week and the endless tension in the air. And we’ve seen how their parents have managed with the same and the pressure they are under.

“So we decided over a month ago we would do something that might help. A date in the diary to look forward to, a change of activity, a moment of respite.

Yesterday we built an auditorium of sorts full of tents and bunting. And our dear friends Wrongsemble presented a show called Three on the back of a lorry.”

Families were invited personally, there were no tickets or even the usual paywhat-you-decide, and the show went down a storm with those present.

Feedback on Twitter included: “Wicked fun @SlungLow for great family entertainment by the incredibly talented and witty @wrongsemble for their production of 3, thank you.”

“I went to the theatre today @SlungLow @wrongsemble had a laugh - the world felt normal for a bit.”

“Hooray to @wrongsemble @SlungLow for bringing joy to children - sunshine , tents at distance and LIVE storytelling.”

“Really looking forward to @wrongsemble play at @SlungLow any time now. I’ve heard it’s in-tents! (Sorry)”

any of us have been having clear-outs, and have piles of goodies to donate to our muchloved local charity stores.

They are reopening as follows – please support them with your donations and your custom, to help them sustain their crucial work in our communities.

Note that all will be following strict Coronavirus rules – with 72 hours quarantine on donated goods, and measures in place to keep staff and customers safe.

And all expect a high volume of trade, so please bear with them.

The SLATE shop in Hunslet reopens on Tuesday 30 June – and will be open 10am-4pm Monday to Saturday. To donate goods, please arrange collection by ringing (0113) 270 4005 – please don’t drop them off at the stores.

St Vincent’s shop on Town Street in Belle Isle is already open, on reduced hours. Donations are accepted and processed each morning, before the store opens to the public. For full info, call them on (0113) 276 0576.

St Gemma's shop in Hunslet is reopening from Monday 29 June, and will be open 9am-5pm Monday to Saturday. To donate, request a collection via their website stgemma.co.uk, or by calling (0113) 255 7552. Their Beeston store

doesn’t yet have a restart date.

St Luke’s Cares in Beeston anticipate reopening their store in mid July, and will announce details online and in their shop windows in early July. Collections will restart in the following weeks.

Middleton Elderly Aid’s shop is also planning to reopen in mid July and has had “sneeze screens” fitted as part of its preparations.

Other smaller local charity outlets include: the Trinity Church shop on Dewsbury Road, the Beeston Hill United Free Church shop, the Salvation Army shop on Hunslet Hall Road, and the Church of the Nazarene shop in Beeston.

None have announced restart plans yet, but we will publish details as they emerge – and we ask all our readers to support them as they emerge from the lockdown.

Whilst shops are closed please do not leave donations outside.

Support available if you’ve become more dependent on alcohol or drugs D

rug and alcohol recovery workers at Forward Leeds say they are “here to help” people who have become more dependent during the pandemic.

Lee Wilson, Operations Director, Leeds said: “We believe some people may be misusing drink and drugs to cope with boredom, stress, anxiety about the future, about job insecurity and job loss. They may have troubles within their relationships.

“We would like people to

know we’re here to help them with any concerns or worries that they may have. Our friendly workers offer a full range of supportive services. They will work with you and develop a plan to deal with the issues you are facing.”

The Global Drugs Survey (GDS) found that more than 55% of British drinkers who responded reported an increase in the number of days they consumed alcohol each week during the COVID-19 lockdown, with 33% of people reporting an increase in binge

drinking.

Almost 44% of British cannabis users reported the number of days they were using products containing THC had increased, whilst over a third of benzodiazepine users said the number of days they were using had increased.

Having more time on your hands and being bored are given as the main reasons for increasing the use of THC and benzodiazepine, with secondary factors including addressing mood and worries.

Lee Wilson explained that

some people may not want to start to deal with issues or they may be worried about their safety or privacy. People may be thinking it wasn’t an ideal time to start dealing with this issue and they may also be worried about their safety should they begin counselling.

“We understand just how difficult things are at the moment and as a service we’re committed to continue to help those people seeking our support.”

Almost all appointments are taking place on the telephone,

or via online Zoom meetings for both one to one and group discussions. This allows people to access services from the comfort of their home and to interact with others who are also receiving support.

Face-to-face appointments are available when needed, with steps in place to ensure people are kept as safe as possible.

To find out more, please call Forward Leeds on (0113) 887 2477 or email info@

forwardleeds.co.uk for more details on how they can help.

The GDS special edition on Covid-19 has been developed to understand the impact of the pandemic on people’s lives, with a specific focus on the use of alcohol and other drugs, mental health and relationships.

South Leeds Life | July 2020

12 Natural Life

Kite flying W

ith a wingspan approaching 2m and a distinctive forked tail, Red Kites are becoming an increasingly common sight in the skies above South Leeds.

This magnificently graceful bird of prey is unmistakable with its reddish-brown body, angled wings and deeply forked tail. As it soars over woods and open areas, its distinctive shape and 'mewing' calls making it easy to identify.

It was saved from national extinction by one of the world's longest-running protection programmes. It has now been successfully re-introduced to England and Scotland. Red Kites are listed under Schedule 1 of The Wildlife and Countryside Act. Red Kites breed between March and May. Mates pair for life and will use the same nesting site each year.

The Kite has excellent eyesight and hunts by soaring and circling over open country often at a considerable height and it also frequently adopts the strategy of gliding low over the ground.

Red kites were common in Shakespearean London, where they fed on scraps in the streets and collected rags or stole hungout washing for nest-building materials. Shakespeare even referred to this habit in 'The Winter's Tale' when he wrote: 'When the kite builds, look to lesser linen'. The nest of a red kite is an untidy affair, often built on top of an old Crow's nest. It is lined with sheep's wool and decorated

with all kinds of objects like paper, plastic and cloth.

In King Lear Shakespeare describes his daughter Goneril as a “detested kite.”

The first recorded use of the word "kite" for a toy that is attached to a length of string and flown in the air dates from the seventeenth century.

By the 20th century, the breeding population was restricted to a handful of pairs in South Wales, but recently the Welsh population has been supplemented by re-introductions in England and Scotland.

Red Kites were released on the Harewood estate near Leeds in 1999 as part of a UK conservation initiative. Harewood Estate was originally part of a partnership involving the RSPB, English Nature, & Yorkshire Water PLC. Their spectacularly successful reintroduction to Lowland areas of Yorkshire is now complete. The Red Kite now has a self-sustaining population, whose numbers are gradually increasing year on year.

At the last count there were over 300 Red Kites in Yorkshire.

Red Kites are 60-66cm in length with a wingspan of 175-195cm.

They weigh 800-1,300g. Their diet consists mainly of carrion and worms, but they are opportunistic and will occasionally take small mammals.

This photo was taken by Paul Johnson (Phoenix Photography) at RSPB St Aidan’s reserve on the River Aire.

Changing your furniture?

Donate it to support people with Learning Disabilities

Call us to arrange a free pickup

0113 270 4005

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

14 School Life

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

Online help for primary Children’s pupils make the leap to artwork inspires new secondary school T lamppost banners for Holbeck

L

ocal children at Ingram Road Primary School have helped design the artwork for new lamppost banners set to be unveiled in Holbeck later this month; after local Councillors and residents came up with the idea last year.

The design which features the slogan ‘Where Families and Community Bloom’, suggested by the schoolchildren, will be on seven banners at five key gateways into residential Holbeck: Domestic Street, Bridge Road, Nineveh Road, Holbeck

Moor Road and Top Moor Side.

The final design was created by Leeds City Council Creative Services who used two pieces of the school’s artwork that had been selected as the winners by the local Councillors. The project was funded by a wellbeing budget grant from the Inner South Community Committee and aims to reflect the positivity of children and families living in

the area.

Councillor Gohar Almass, (Beeston and Holbeck) said: “My colleagues Angela Gabriel, Andrew Scopes and I were delighted to choose from an excellent selection of designs from budding artists at Ingram Road Primary School.

“They’ve really captured the positive vibe of the area. I hope the banners will remind people commuting through or visiting Holbeck that it is primarily a place where families and children live and they are rightly proud of their community.”

en and 11-year olds across Leeds will get a taste of life at secondary school through a new online programme launched by AET and BeReady.

The partnership between BeReady and AET, one of the largest groups of academies in England and sponsor of Cottingley Primary Academy, has created the “Be Ready to Be Remarkable” programme, an engaging online learning resource designed to help prepare Year 6 pupils for secondary school.

The programme contains a number of engaging videos focusing on all aspects of school life, including how lessons run at secondary school, how to keep on top of homework, how to make friends, what sorts of activities happen outside of lessons, and what happens at break and lunchtimes. The animated videos designed to ease the transition to secondary school – which can be a stressful time for pupils.

The videos are hosted by the characters Maya and Daniel, two lively secondary school pupils who talk Year 6 pupils through all they need to know about the step up to Year 7 and a new school. These in-theknow teenage guides to life at secondary school are joined by a full supporting cast of diverse characters, from friendly new classmates to approachable and supportive teachers.

The initiative has been designed in partnership with

Let Daniel and Maya be your guides BeReady, an organisation that works with schools, universities and employers to help people gain qualifications, learn new skills and further their careers.

The programme is free and is available to all 10 and 11year olds who are starting secondary school in September at bereadygroup.org.

Kelly Bentley, Headteacher at Cottingley Primary Academy said: “I am delighted that our school will benefit from this valuable programme to help primary pupils understand more about secondary school.

Even without the Coronavirus,

this is a stressful time of year for our Year 6s as they prepare to leave us and go on to secondary school.

This programme will help reassure them so they can take that next step with confidence.”

Julian Drinkall, CEO at AET, said: “In these uncertain times we wanted to do our part in helping ease the transition to secondary school.

This programme demystifies what the future holds for them and helps them feel ready and confident to hit the ground running from their first day of school.”

Mental health support for children returning to school C

hildren and young people have been returning to school this last month, but with smaller class sizes and new room layouts, the school day will be quite different from what pupils are used to.

As they start to adapt to this new routine, the NHS in Leeds is encouraging parents and carers to look out for signs that their child is struggling with their wellbeing, particularly if they already experience mental health difficulties.

Signs of anxiety in young people may include avoiding spending time with family, having trouble sleeping, or changes in eating habits. Signs of depression may include not enjoying things they used to like doing, feeling tearful or upset regularly, or persistently lacking

motivation.

Dr Jane Mischenko, Lead Commissioner for Children and Maternity at NHS Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “It’s normal for children and young people to feel worried or anxious at the moment. We are all living with uncertainty during these times. While some pupils may be welcoming the return to school, others may be feeling anxious or upset, so we would like to remind parents and carers that help is available if they notice changes in their child’s behaviour.

“We’ve been working hard with our partners as well as the third sector, to make sure that if children and young people need support for their mental health, they still have access to support and services

during this period. The MindMate website offers information about the various services available in Leeds, as well as a wealth of resources on how to cope with common issues, like stress, panic / panic attacks, self-image and eating disorders.

“MindMate also has a variety of resources specifically for parents and carers, with advice on how you can provide emotional support to your child, all recommended and approved by parents in Leeds. We want young people and their parents or carers to know that support is still here for them during this uncertain time.”

Parents, carers, or a young person who needs support with their mental health, can visit the MindMate website www.mindmate.org.uk.

www.southleedslife.com

Website: www.southleedslife.com

July 2020 | South Leeds Life

Email: info@southleedslife.com

School Life 15

College of Building to Determined Dan offer new T Level reaches £20k with help L from Cockburn School eeds College of Building has been chosen as one of the 88 new providers to deliver T Levels from September 2022.

The College has been approved to offer a T Level in Design, Surveying and Planning; students will spend time at both its North Street and South Bank Campuses.

Launching later this year, T Levels are new technical courses equivalent to three A levels.

The two-year programmes have been designed with the input of employers and businesses to ensure content meets the needs of industry and prepares students for work.

Selected colleges, schools and other providers across England will start rolling out the first three T Levels this September, with a further seven offered in 2021 before the full 18 courses are available to study in 2022.

T Levels combine classroom theory, practical

learning, and a work placement. They will make sure students have the skills they need to progress and help rebuild the economy following the Coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department for Education.

In order to be approved to deliver the courses, the College had to apply to the Department for Education demonstrating a positive commitment from local employers and detailing the specialist equipment and expertise offered. This was backed by the College’s recent Good Ofsted rating in 2019.

Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, said: “Now, more than ever, it’s vital that young people across the country have access to high-quality technical education to provide them with the skills they need to succeed and employers with the workforce they need for the future.

“This third wave of further

education providers will help us supercharge the roll-out of these new and pioneering qualifications and it’s fantastic to have them all on board. They will play a part in a unique opportunity to shape the lives of thousands of young people.”

Nikki Davis, Vice Principal at Leeds College of Building said: “As the only General Further Education College that specialises in Construction and the Built Environment, Leeds College of Building is looking forward to working with local and regional employers to develop T Level opportunities for our students and their future employees.

“T Level students at Leeds College of Building will have access to state-of-the-art facilities, specialist teaching staff and excellent employer networks plus access to progression opportunities within Higher Level and Degree Apprenticeships.”

Daniel Morton, with his mother Toni Pearce, meeting the Countess of Wessex at the opening of the Children’s Cardiac Hybrid Theatre an 3TMRI facility at Leeds Children’s Hospital in March 2019

W

The new technical qualification will be available at Leeds College of Building

e previously reported last year on Cockburn School student, nicknamed “Determined Dan” having gone through brain surgery four times.

“I’m determined to fight cancer and I’m determined to help other people going through similar situations” he said.

Daniel remains in good health and he has been extra resilient during these difficult times and has been working very hard on his home learning work set by the school.

The fundraising, not just for equipment at LGI’s Ward 52 where Daniel was treated, but for wider support for patients’ families was boosted last year when the Kyle Asquith Foundation, another charity close to Cockburn’s heart, donated £1251 to the Determined Dan

charity. This sum was £1 for every child in school and £1 from Kyle.

Tracy Asquith commented: “I could not think of a better cause.

Daniel is such a brave young man to help others whilst dealing with his own illness. I congratulate Daniel for his good work and bravery.”

Cockburn School agreed to run a campaign to match the same amount at least, and over the past year students and staff have now raised a further £1251 which has taken the Determined Dan total to over £20k!

Rob Dixon, Head of School at Cockburn School said “Daniel is such a true model of our school values. We are all so proud of how resilient and aspirational he is.”

Toni Bradley, Daniel’s mum said “We really appreciate the

support that both the Kyle Asquith Foundation and Cockburn School have given not only Daniel personally but his fundraising efforts too.

“It’s really great to see a local school getting behind a local charity. Covid-19 has scuppered many plans for our events in 2020, so this just helps to keep the fundraising pot ticking over while we plan for next year...hopefully!”

And a final word from Daniel: “A massive thank you to the Kyle Asquith Foundation and my fellow pupils and friends at Cockburn for taking part in the non-uniform days, it really means a lot to me and has helped taken our fundraising over £20k!”

If you would like to donate please go to the Determined Dan Just Giving page.

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

16 Comment

In our view Black Lives Matter South Leeds Life welcomes the calls of the Black Lives Matter movement for an end to racism and discrimination. We know some of our readers will find some of the discussions uncomfortable.

A great strength of the Black Lives Matter movement is the call to educate ourselves. We all need to learn from history, but remember history is complex.

Whilst some activists blame slavery on “the white man�, it is clear that not all white men (or women) benefited from it. The huge profits made by 3,000 British slave owners were used to enclose the common land and build the mills of the industrial revolution. Ordinary people were driven off the land into the slums of the new cities, including Holbeck and Hunslet.

The history of slavery and of imperialism as it played out across South Asia is important, because it sowed the seeds of the problems we have today, with Black and Asian families disproportionately living in bad housing, with worse health and lower educational attainment. That has to change.

Surely we want public monuments to people and ideas that we can look up to? Surely we want our schools to teach the histories of all the people who now live in our country?

Over the last ten years South Leeds Life has sought to highlight struggles against racism and promote organisations and events that bring communities together.

The Black Lives Matter movement has reminded us not to rest on our laurels, but to work harder to properly represent all of our community, in the stories we cover, amongst our writers and on our Board.

The wonderful South Leeds community can only get stronger by us all understanding each others’ problems and fighting together for justice.

Your letters and comments Cockburn expansion plans Doesn't ÂŁ6.8M for only an extra 90 places not seem a little bit excessive? No matter the permanent changes to the land, which perversely is remaining in the hands of the council. Can't see the school ever giving it back, can you? And have you seen the slope they'll have to deal with...major landscaping involved as well as the removal of lots of mature trees (replaced by saplings) and the destruction of a right of way with no thought on the need to keep some kind of a path. Poor design thinking.

Agree the need for school places but is Cockburn becoming a bit of a behemoth here?

Alan Shaw There are lots of questions that need answering about this proposal.

1) Who is driving this? Is it the Council or the trustees / governors / management of the school‌ or is it both? From the outside it appears that the school thinks it can do just about anything it wants, let’s hope that the Council does not just go along with it.

2) If the need for extra school places is temporary what is going to happen to the former golf club land the school is taking / being given which is public land when it is no longer needed?

3) What is the justification for the Council seemingly giving away land to an Academy Trust?

4) How, if at all, is the school going to replace the sports facilities it is losing in the interim before the second phase comes into being, or indeed if the second phase does not get planning permission?

5) What alternative proposals were looked into for providing the extra school places needed which do not need such a big loss of public space?

There are so many questions and currently not many answers it seems.

Phil Goodfield

The cobbled path is an ancient right of way instead of allowing their kids to go to school and come home from school on their own. There's plenty of green space from the old golf course that people can walk around. It's 2020 not the 1800s. Go with the times.

Fingers crossed that they get the go ahead. I've got two boys already there and another starting in September 2021. I’ve had three kids there that left 3, 9 and 10 years ago. Cockburn is a wonderful school that has achieved so much.

Karen Head The car park will hopefully take cars off Gipsy Lane if the council utilise double yellow lines. Also designating Gipsy Lane as a ‘school street’ would get pupils walking or cycling. The football pitch I agree is not required.

Ian

RIP Sister Draper

My Mum has always sung Sister Draper’s praises, but I have never seen a picture of Since the school is having to her. I am thankful that I now have a visual accommodate far more pupils then it reference of the person that brought me should expand. The area is over populated into this world.

My Mother has always told the tale of my with the amount of people moving to the birth, especially when my birthday comes area. The school uses the park to run around.

There was a thunderstorm on the round during PE sessions. Parking on Gipsy Lane is horrendous due to the amount of morning of my birth in 1967 at 4.30 am, parents that drop off and pick up kids and I had the umbilical chord wrapped around my neck three times before I was born. As far as my Mum was concerned, Sister Draper saved my life, or at least prevented serious injury.

Beeston & Holbeck ward I’m so sorry to learn of her Includes Beeston from Cross Flatts Park to the Ring Road, Cottingley and Holbeck. passing as myself and many others owe our existence to her The three councillors are: skills. Rest in peace Joy, and Gohar Almass 07445 878 333 gohar.almass@leeds.gov.uk thank you.

Angela Gabriel 07946 632 468 angela.gabriel@leeds.gov.uk Paul Hindmarch Andrew Scopes 07860 400 645 andrew.scopes@leeds.gov.uk

Your Leeds City Councillors

Hunslet & Riverside ward Includes the city centre, Beeston Hill and Hunslet. The three councillors are:

Mohammed Iqbal 0113 226 8796 mohammed.iqbal@leeds.gov.uk Elizabeth Nash 0113 275 8594 elizabeth.nash@leeds.gov.uk Paul Wray 07528 512 649 paul.wray@leeds.gov.uk

Middleton Park ward Includes Belle Isle and Middleton. The three councillors are:

Judith Blake Kim Groves Paul Truswell

0113 378 9000 judith.blake@leeds.gov.uk 07891 741 832 kim.groves@leeds.gov.uk 0113 378 8811 paul.truswell@leeds.gov.uk

Sister Draper looked after me in 1976 and then again in 1977 .

She would turn up in her VW with her little dog she would say she had “Just dropped in too see if everything was OK� because it was after the time she had discharged me, but I think it was for the coal fire and the cricket she would watch with my husband that would bring her. I was a young mum at 19 and couldn’t have wished for a better Midwife when my son wouldn’t feed and I

had come home after five days in hospital.

I was at my wits’ end he was so hungry and crying. She walked into our house, sent my husband over to the chemist for a tin of SMA and fed my son a 4oz bottle which he didn’t come up for air and said “There’s nowt wrong with him duck, he was just hungry.� May you fly high with the angels Sister Draper and God rest your soul xxx Janet Foster Sister Draper delivered me at my Grandad and Grandma’s house in Middleton. She also finished a baby cardigan for my mum as I came early so she sat and did that while my mum was in labour. I can remember my mum telling how lovely she was.

Nicola Conway

Swans and fishing Many of these issues are not caused by thoughtless anglers, but are more about the lake being poorly managed. The anglers have been trying to get the weed cleared from the lake for two years or more, and I know that the staff from parks and countryside would like that too.

The problem so far, has been the amount of red-tape that is involved and the council’s unwillingness to act. The anglers offered to clear the lake of the most obstructive weeds but, were told that they can’t do that because of Health & Safety issues. It’s amazing that the council can provide “policing� to stop the anglers from maintaining the area but, cannot provide the manpower to maintain it.

Craig S Anglers have had a place in Middleton Park for over 100 years and have taken care to maintain the quality of life to the livestock within the pond and the surrounding area, but they can only do so much. I will also add that I have been a resident of the local area for 33 years and a fisherman for 10+ years and I have never seen the pond fall to the standard that it is today.

Jon

Join the debate Comment online; by email: info@southleedslife.com; or post to: 224 Cross Flatts Grove, Leeds, LS11 7BW. Letters may be edited for publication.

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

Top Tweets Keep up to date, up to the minute, by following South Leeds Life’s Twitter feed: @SouthLeedsLife.

Twitter is the 140 character ‘micro blogging’ site. It’s free and you can sign up at twitter.com. It’s a great place to find the very latest news.

Here are some of our favourite recent tweets: @gorse_ruth Amazing to see one of our talented students from @gorse_ruth playing for @TrinityLFC She has worked hard to achieve her goals and upholds our academy vision! Dare to achieve beyond what you are today! #proud #daretoachieve

@BeestonsMrs Calling all South Leeds residents! What’s your favourite recipe? What’s the story behind it? Do you want to be part of @BeestonsMrs @great_together recipe book?

Food tells stories. Food is a universal language. Share and learn đ&#x;¤— #moreincommon @eganfee Virtual high five @SlungLow and #LS11ArtGallery for a fantastic initiative. Get involved. Here’s my sons’ and the other artworks are fab!

@tajinder_virdee Amazing catch up with shanaz @HamaraCentre Joanna @SlungLow,Claire from Involve Hunslet @JanePattison2. 3 volunteer hubs in inner south supporting @LeedsCC_News Covid 19 response. Inspiring stories of staff and volunteers going above and beyond to help.

www.southleedslife.com

Website: www.southleedslife.com

July 2020 | South Leeds Life

Email: info@southleedslife.com

Comment 17

MP’s notebook

business who know that because they are still unable to open they will eventually cease to exist unless they get further involved, not least because this to protect ourselves for now is help.

by Hilary Benn MP community effort shows how the way in which each of us And we should also be s I write this, I’ve just the virus has made us think behave. We all know what the thinking about how to remembered that today I about what is really important risks are, and it is our create new jobs and lots should have been at the in life. responsibility not just to listen of them, including for Beeston Festival which is By the time you read this, the to the advice but to act on it. young people coming always one of the highlights of easing of the lockdown on the As the lockdown eases, and out of school and the year. It's a reminder of just 4 July will be taking place. We the process of winding down further and higher how disrupted normal life has are all looking forward to doing the furlough and self-employed education. been by this pandemic. things that we haven't been salary schemes begins, many Here's a couple of And yet we have found new able to do for the last three businesses will start to get a suggestions. We know ways to support one another months, but that does not take sense of what the future holds. that to get to a zero and do good. All over the away from each and every one I am pressing for further carbon future, we’ll have country, from the wonderful of us our responsibility to act in specific help to be given to to change the way we do Captain Sir Tom Moore to the a way that protects ourselves those sectors of the economy things. One of those streets and communities of and others. that have no chance in the changes will be to South Leeds - the latest Although we have seen a short term of getting up and replace gas boilers and example being the quizzes and significant and very welcome running again. cookers in our homes bingo sessions organised by fall in the number of infections I've been in touch with a with ones that don’t the residents of Parnaby and deaths, the virus has not number of these in the last burn fossil fuels and so Avenue in Hunslet – people gone away. And in the absence couple of months from music emit CO2. have come together to raise of medicines to reduce the venues and arts organisations Whether their Hilary Benn MP money for the NHS. severity of its impact or a to people who have put their replacements are powered by renewably-produced hydrogen A big thank you to everyone vaccine, the only thing we have life savings into opening a small renewable electricity or by is for the designers and engineers to work out, but we're going to need Hilary Benn is our Member of Parliament. He represents the Leeds Central constituency which covers a lot of people to make the new equipment and Hunslet, Middleton, Belle Isle, Beeston, Holbeck, Cottingley in south Leeds as well as the city centre, Hyde install it and the Park, Woodhouse, Little London, Lincoln Green, Burmantofts, Richmond Hill and Osmondthorpe.

Government to meet the cost.

Contact: hilary.benn.mp@parliament.uk, www.hilarybennmp.com The other idea is to do Constituency office: Unity Business Centre, 26 Roundhay Road, Leeds LS7 1AB; phone: 0113 244 1097 with HS2. Why don't we start building the

A

eastern leg from Leeds southwards? It would create employment and show that we are determined to prioritise new investment in the north as we start the long journey to recovery.

In difficult times we need big ideas. What do you think?

Oh, and here’s looking forward to the Beeston Festival in 2021.

The Pub - do you miss it now? You’ll miss it when it’s gone T

he re-opening of pubs is the latest example of our PM’s assurances that our ‘national hibernation’ is coming to an end and life will return to our streets. But, how quickly will we rush back to our pubs, and what will we find when we get there? Artist duo Andrew Wilson and Toby Lloyd investigate: Do you miss going to the pub? We do.

What is it that we miss exactly? A warm and welcoming place where everybody knows your name? Or a cosy environment, away from home, away from work, where you can sit and be anonymous?

Lockdown has been a challenging and difficult form of social isolation for many people, especially those who live alone. Whilst increasingly inventive ways to protect ourselves against the psychological risks of isolation have flooded the internet, these options have not been available for all, and noamount of zoom can substitute for ‘real’ human encounters.

Whilst pouring drinks at a Broadcast Bartender event we hosted, Councillor Angela Gabriel outlined the value of pubs as a tool to combat social isolation, asking: “Where do you go?

Do you go to the supermarket and hope someone will talk to you? No, we’ve got to say that there are spaces that you can go in and have a conversation.”

When pubs reopen we will have to remain ‘one meter plus’ away from each other, we may be asked to prebook and check-in as we arrive (don’t forget your boarding pass!), which

Lloyd & Wilson’s constructed bar, without people is it just a mausoleum for yeast? (&Model, East Parade, Leeds, 2015) could mean supermarket-style queues, and table service instead of approaching the bar to order our drinks.

Pubs, under physical distancing rules, are now starting to sound more like restaurants for beer, which might feel like being on a dance floor with no music, or attempting to watch porn with blue dots covering all of the action.

We may well be able to drink alcohol within a building we have known as a pub – but is this really what the pub experience is about?

With a history that traces back to the Roman Tavern and the Anglo-

Saxon Ale House, the Public House is undeniably an establishment which has formed a large part of the British identity. But what a pub actually is, provokes precisely the sort of fierce, yet playful, conversation you’d expect to have in a pub.

Some examples: In 1943 Anthropologist Tom Harrison said, “Unlike other social institutions where we might be considered watchers of political, religious, dramatic, cinematic, instructional or athletic spectacles, in the pub, once a man has bought, or been bought, his glass of beer he has entered an environment in which his

is participator rather than spectator.”

“A pub with no people in it is just a mausoleum for yeast,” claims pub landlord, Bill Skehan, “It’s the people that you miss. It’s a big family ... the staff, the neighbours, the people who drink here.”

Tim Martin’s J.D. Wetherspoons pub chain is extremely popular, in 2019 alone making a net income of £72.8million over its 900+ venues.

But to both of us it feels more like going to the supermarket, as if ASDA has come to your fancy-dress party dressed as The Grove Inn. This is perhaps unsurprising given Martin’s unashamed affiliation with the

Walmart business model, buying in bulk and pushing down prices to monopolise the market.

This attitude can also be seen in Martin’s response to the lockdown where he refused to pay his staff until government support arrived, whilst also advising them to get jobs at Tesco until it all blows over.

For what reasons do we decide to part with our money down the pub?

Will the restrictions remove these elements, the joyful arguments, the laughs, the surprising interactions, which make the pub special?

What are we compromising when we can only move around via the one-way system, only interacting with the people we have arranged to meet in advance from a crowded private table in an otherwise empty building?

Under the new guidelines will it be any better than drinking at home or in the park?

Perhaps we could all become our own landlords, creating a pub from inside our own homes and inviting friends round instead? This is something we’ve done in the past, and we know from the experience that the pub you build is only as good as the people who are drinking in there with you. More often than not, these are not the people you already know.

But if we decide to stay at home, what will happen to the pubs? If they all go out of business, where will we go when the virus is no longer here? Will they all get turned into luxury flats?

And will we ever be able to rebuild the culture between people that these buildings once held?

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

18 Comment

Why we must say no to Cockburn School’s land grab

by SG (full name supplied)

I

t was a very sad day last year when South Leeds Golf Club announced it was to close.

Although I have never played golf I walked the course with my dog for many years. As a responsible dog owner I was welcomed by the greenkeeper with a nod and hello on a morning before the golfers got started with their game. I appreciated the opportunity to walk there.

There are spectacular views over the city.

The Club opened in 1906 and was re-designed in 1923

by Dr Alister Mackenzie, a world famous Golf Course designer.

Undulating greens were part of his signature style. He wrote that the chief object was to imitate the beauties of nature so closely as to make his work indistinguishable from nature itself. His designs were notable for their sensitivity to the nature of the original site. I guess considering information gleaned from Ken Burton’s recent piece regarding coal mining in Beeston, he would have had to redesign a landscape scarred by pits. He certainly achieved creating something really lovely.

Sometimes I would walk on

the golf course in very heavy rain to avoid players and my dog would bounce down the green to land in the enormous puddles. As children we would rush to the golf course if there was snow to sink ourselves into the deep drifts. As an adult I took my own children to play in the snow with their sledge. So much fun whizzing down the hills and slopes.

I wish something could have been done to save South Leeds Golf Club, but unfortunately I only knew about their troubles after it was too late. Local schools could have benefited so much from teaching this sport to children. After the closure local people were worried about the golf course, but we were delighted to hear from the council in March 2020 that it would be incorporated into Middleton Park and rewilded.

Rewilding golf courses has been quite a thing throughout the UK recently and the environment and wildlife have reaped the benefits.

During lockdown the rewilded land has been very popular for locals walking for exercise, walking dogs, picnicking and meeting friends. It has been a peaceful retreat too from the

many bikes that now crash about in Beeston Wood. It has been invaluable for those who would struggle up the hill or feel uncomfortable walking in the darker environs of the wood. It has been a fantastic addition to Middleton Park.

As we all know easy access to green space is vital for mental health too. Walking

During lockdown the rewilded land has been very popular with locals there a week ago with my daughter we took lots of photos as it was just so beautiful.

There are many mature trees on the land and if you walk here regularly you will also know that there are lots of moles! Moles are not a protected species but as British wildlife goes moles are definitely one of the most interesting and mysterious mammals we have. You have to step over lots of moles hills.

Apparently their underground work improves soil health and can increase plant diversity.

The network of tunnels they dig can improve soil drainage by preventing too much water

building up on the surface.

Until last week I was delighted that the moles’ habitat was safe from development and the moles were free to run amok, as before they must have been a real headache for the golf club.

This grassland near the woods provides an ideal habitat for them.

So it was a shock to hear this week that Cockburn School would be making a land grab so that they could build a car park.

The new car park would actually be built on their own site but 7.4 acres of the rewilded land would be levelled to provide a hard PE court and an additional football pitch for the school.

In fact there is no need for a new car park at the school because staff should be encouraged to cycle, take public transport or car share. It has just been announced that a new rail station will be built at the White Rose Centre which is only a 20 minute walk away or very short bus ride. New cycle paths are being extended up Dewsbury Road too. It seems the school has forgotten about the Climate Emergency.

If the school still feels it prefers a car park on its site

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

rather than a PE court, they should consider making use of John Charles Centre for Sport.

Do they know that it is only a 15 minute walk to this sports facility through the woods from the school?

A hard sports area on the rewilded land will block access to the soil beneath for burrowing insects such as solitary bees and the ground above to soil dwellers such as worms which will be starved of food beneath it. Moles eat earthworms and so they will also be starved of food and their grassland habitat destroyed.

Cockburn School already has a 3G sports pitch. Do they really need another pitch?

To achieve all these plans the school also needs to take ownership of a historic cobbled path. This little lane provides a

corridor for wildlife and provides the public with a less challenging route in and out of the woods. The school tried to alter this path before but their plans were rightly turned down at the time. I do not feel this path is safe if it becomes the private property of this school behind an electric gate.

Their bulldozer plans also require the removal of over 30 mature trees. Do they actually mean more than 30? It is interesting to note how they are intent on levelling the undulating land and describe the feat before them a challenge.

Dr Alistair Mackenzie’s plans were notable for their sensitivity to the nature of the original site. I think we can best describe Cockburn’s plans in contrast as insensitive as you can possibly get!

A big thank you to our supporters for keeping the news independent S

outh Leeds Life is committed to bringing local news to the people of South Leeds written by local people who know the area.

We know times are tough and not everyone can afford to pay for their news, so the website and the newspaper will both remain free.

Gold sponsors:

Silver sponsors:

Bronze sponsors:

Forever.

However, producing the news does cost money. We work hard to keep our costs to a minumum. There are no fancy offices or expense accounts and most of our writers are volunteers. We do need to pay our editor to hold things together and we have print

costs, of course.

We don’t want to be in hock to one big funder, whether that be a grant provider, the council, or a private company. We don’t want to feel we are under any editorial pressure, real or subconscious.

We value our independence and feel

we can best protect that by spreading the number of funders as wide as possible.

That way if one funder or subscriber takes umbrage at our coverage of a story and withraws their support it won’t cripple us.

We sell advertising and can sometimes access small grants, but the bedrock of our finances are organisations and individuals from our community.

We trust ourselves to you, the South Leeds community.

If you are involved in an organisation or company that would like to become a sponsor please speak to us.

We are also asking readers to consider joining the pound-a-week subscription scheme. For a £4 per month you will be credited on the website and have our newspaper delivered to your door.

Please sign up online here: steadyhq.com/en/southleedslife Thank you!

Standard sponsors:

Pound-a-week subscribers:

Asha Neighbourhood Project • BasementArtsProject • Beeston Festival • Beeston In Bloom • Beeston Community Forum • Beeston Hill United Free Church • Ciaran Bingham Foundation Trust • Cockburn John Charles Academy • Cockburn School • Cottingley Primary Academy • Friends of Cross Flatts Park • Friends of Middleton Park • Health For All • Holbeck Together • Hunslet Carr Residents Association • Jamyang Buddhist Centre • Kyle Asquith Foundation • Leeds Wood Recycling • Middleton Railway • Sharp Lane Community Centre • St Luke’s CARES • The Tech Ladder • The Tetley

Peter Barber Vivienne Bate Karen Beckford Pat Benatmane Hilary Benn Amanda Binns Elaine Bower Asa Britton Andy Brown AD Brown David Bushell Ed Carlisle SJ Carlisle Barbara Cavell Alex Coleman Rachel Cunningham Rachel Darton Bruce & Debs Davies Mark Day Clara de Diane

Audrey Dickinson C Fletcher Cath Formby Angela Gabriel Al Garthwaite Julie Gill Pip Goff Keith Hitchiner Lynda Holliday Becky Howcroft Ken Ingram Pat Jackson Frances Jones Rosalinda Kincaid Toby Lloyd Imran Marashli Alys Marsh Kat Middleton Hazel Millichamp Judith Murton

Adam Ogilvie Mark Parry Lindsey Pearson Ian Pickup Andrew Price Abbie Randall Ruth Saxton Andrew Scopes Alan Shaw Bob Shaw Scott Smith Mary Spencer Linda Stanley Steve Thompson Sarah Thornton Rebecca Townesend Lauran Warren Andrew Wilson Peter Wood Paul Wray

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

20 Historical Life

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

1842 Children's Employment Commission visits Middleton

by Jim Jackson

I

n the 1830's there was a movement towards social reform, especially towards the employment of children in the burgeoning industry of the early industrial revolution.

In 1833 Parliament enacted the Factory Act which prevented the employment of children under nine from working in textile mills.

Following this was a campaign to offer similar protection to children, and women, employed below ground. This effort was led by Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper (later the Earl of Shaftesbury). Strangley, it was not until 1875 that Parliament prohibited children being employed as chimney sweeps.

A Royal Commission was set up to enquire into the employment of children and women in mines.

The Commission was led by several commissioners and subcommissioners who gathered

Child working underground evidence, by interview and visits, on the conditions for women and children in the mining industry.

The appendices to the report contain summaries of findings and statements from interviews with named people involved in the industry, and of children employed.

The commission report was the first to use illustrations, some of which are are shown here, which probably helped the report make a decisive impact.

The reported conditions shocked much of Victorian society, especially the revelation that women miners

wore trousers and, as conditions were often hot, sometimes worked naked from the waist up in the presence of men and boys. Following the report, parliament passed the 1842 Mining Act, which made it illegal to employ a female to work underground, or a boy under the age of ten.

Following the 1842 act, generally more children aged 10 and up were employed down mines, and there was gradually more use made of horses or pit ponies. Children and women were still employed in collieries, but above ground.

The sub-commissioner

covering Leeds and Bradford was William Raynor Wood Esq. and his findings are included in Appendix H to the report.

Middleton Colliery was visited and two adult employees and 12 child miners were interviewed along with the local school teacher. The adults interviewed were: Thomas William Embleton (the Viewer or Manager), Charles Wailes (Bottom Steward) and George Wormald (School Teacher).

Conditions at Middleton Colliery, especially its education provision, impressed Commissioner Wood: “There can be a little ground for doubting that the general standard of education, comfort, and happiness throughout the district might be raised to a level with that which prevails at Middleton, by the general introduction of similar measures, wisely planned and judiciously administered.”

Throughout the general sections he holds Middleton

Colliery up as an example to other mine owners in the area.

Middleton did not employ young children or women, and the colliery provided educational facilities. It might just be a coincidence that the Proprietor of Middleton Colliery at the time was a man of the cloth, The Rev Ralph Henry Brandling.

Children were usually employed down mines as "hurriers" - pushing or pulling the waggons full of coal from the coal face to the bottom of the shafts. Children were often employed not by the mine owners, but by the miners

themselves under a contract with the children's parents.

Commissioner Wood reports on holidays and how the child miners enjoyed their leisure time. The children tell of spending time "laking" [playing] at various games, chief of which seems to have been Nor and Spell, sometimes called Knurr and Spell, - a game involving hitting a "nor" (ball) with a stick to see who can hit it the furthest.

This is an extract from a longer article, with extensive quotes from the 1842 Report itself, which can be found at: www.fomp.co.uk/history

Two children ‘Hurrying’ a coal truck

The story of a family and a Singer Sewing Machine (Number: 2261060 490260) as told to Ken Burton

T

he year is 1886, in a small town called Wolverton near Northampton lived a thirteen year old girl, Miss Edith Rock, and Edith had just completed her limited education.

However, she had shown an interest in all manner of needlework, and was very adept at all she attempted. to encourage their daughter’s independence, her parents bought her a 'Singer Sewing Machine'. The model was known as a 'Table Top', it was dual-working, the operator could work by hand or have it hands free and work by a treadle from underneath.

During the late 1880s and early 1890s the machine was in constant use, consequently with progress, Edith rented two small rooms, the front room as a Haberdashers (Drapers Shop) and the rear room where the machine was installed for her work.

In 1897, Edith now aged twenty-four had met and was marrying a certain Edwin Mackerness (Ted). He helped Edith acquire much larger premises, now owned not rented, in Church Street, Wolverton. Another 'Singer' was purchased, and a young lady was employed to help with the sewing and serve in the shop, though only Edith herself would use the 'Table Top'. The machine always in use, the dressmaking progressed, and the Drapery Shop continued to flourish, a printed card for this business still survives with the machine.

In June 1901 and Edith had a baby boy, the clothes for him being turned out by the machine. Six weeks later

her mother-in-law produced a baby girl. Bearing the same surname, and being christened 'Edith' there were now two Edith Mackerness' to feature in the life of the machine.

As the years passed the second Edith was taught to use the machine,

20s and the machine, now back to producing lightweight civilian clothing, mostly it was undergarments, with the occasional 'Made-to-Order' dress for 'Better Off' customers.

By 1938 the first Edith Mackerness had reached her mid-sixties and with

The hundred year old ‘Table Top’ Singer sewing machine the only person allowed, apart from the first Edith.

Through the First World War our machine is churning out military undergarments. On into the Roaring

failing eyesight and arthritic hands decided to retire. The machine was passed on to the second Edith, now Edith Rollings, married with a daughter born in 1933, and living close to

Wolverton at Stony Stratford.

So the machine now has a change of venue, change of ownership, and less work, it being mainly for domestic use only for family and friends. Fabric was hard to get hold of during the Second World War, but Edith managed to find some ‘Parachute Silk’. She used some it to make a dress for her seven year old daughter. The white fabric was brightened up with coloured binding at the neck and sleeves, with a matching coloured sash; this I remember well for I am that seven year old daughter, now aged eighty-six.

I moved to Leeds (Beeston) in 1980 and in 1983 the 'Singer' came north after my mother, the second Edith, passed away aged eighty-two.

Following in family footsteps I had been taught to use the machine in my teenage years, it had been many years since I had seen it let alone use it, and the first thing to gen-up on was how to thread it. Leeds being a city with connections to the clothing trade most of my friends had a sewing machine, but more recent models, with a bobbin, mine had a shuttle and there lie the difference. The shuttle was about 1¼ inch in length, pointed at one end, looking just like a toy open rowing boat. To accompany the shuttle there are several small spindles about an inch long, any one of which could be clipped into the shuttle.

The shuttle had a row of holes on one side with a bar below them, and when threading, the thread needed to go back and forth from hole to hole, and then under the bar, there was a

set sequence through the holes and if you got it wrong nothing worked.

Fortunately, the second Edith had written out instructions on a sheet of paper (now brown with age) and once these were adhered to the 'Singer' was back in action; not making garments any more but altering and shortening, skirts, trousers, etc. and on one occasion making curtains and sewing on 'Rufflette Tape'.

All went well until the late 1980s, when I went to purchase more needles, only to be told they were shortly becoming obsolete.

The salesman had just seven left in stock, so I took all seven (of which there are still six left). Then in the early 1990s it was realised that the machine, though sewing was not locking and a pull on the thread meant that all that had just been stitched immediately came undone.

A resident in Beeston, qualified and renowned for sewing machine repairs was called in. He could find nothing wrong with the mechanism, when he noticed I had threaded the machine with a fine 'polyester thread'!

Apparently it was all that I had been able to purchase, but the 'Singer' had been designed to work only with Sylko Grade 40 and the new polyester threads were much too fine.

Unfortunately, Sylko was no longer in production, the Company having gone out of existence.

So at last, after 100 years and probably a lot more, the machine has gone into retirement, not dead, as its still workable, with the right equipment, but forced into sleeping.

www.southleedslife.com

Website: www.southleedslife.com

July 2020 | South Leeds Life

Email: info@southleedslife.com

South Leeds Lives 21

Goodbye to Sister Draper – Joy Astall

by Rev Lindsey Pearson

M

any people have died in this Coronavirus pandemic, and one of the great sadnesses is that we haven’t been able to come together to say goodbye and to give thanks for their lives.

And when it’s someone who has been a big part, not only of our family, but also of our community, that is especially sad.

Joy Astall was one of those people who touch many lives.

Originally from Warwickshire, she came to Leeds to train to be a midwife – and never left! Joy was a District Midwife for over 30 years.

deemed to be OK for a while so Joy regaled the new Dad-to-be with how well her team had played while Brenda gripped the arm of her chair ever harder!

When neither she (nor the chair) could stand it no longer she suggested to Joy it was time they went upstairs – and baby Clare was born 20 minutes later! Leeds won by the way.

Joy thought she’d helped to deliver over 1500 babies in the community, not including those when she worked in hospital!

I’ve only known Joy for the last 7 years since I’ve been Vicar at St Mary’s, but I quickly saw how big a

Happy birthday Joan: 100 not out

her clearing out the old bedding plants, or pruning the roses.

Joy loved children – her nephews and nieces all remember going on holiday with Auntie Joy. And all our church children knew her as Auntie Joy – she and Brian were always giving them little presents and encouraging them in all they did.

She encouraged many people: Peter our organist remembers Joy encouraging him when he was learning as a youngster.

Joy did so much more; our cake stalls at St. Mary’s, and at the Beeston Festival usually had a number of Joy’s cakes on them – she made them by the dozen! And

Joan Kershaw celebrating her 100th birthday

by Jeremy Morton

J

oan Kershaw’s Beeston home was full of friends, family and flowers as she celebrated her 100th birthday on 15 June.

Joan has only recently returned home after breaking her hip on Christmas Eve, but this is the first thing to slow down what has been a busy and eventful life.

Apart from raising a family that stretches five generations to great great grandchildren, she worked

Joy, on the right in the blue dress, with one of her mums and ‘babies’, Marjorie and Mark. Joy became part of their family and enjoyed many holidays with them.

She was known to many families all over Beeston and Holbeck, and in Middleton too, when she covered Mary, the midwife there. She would drive around in her little orange VW Beetle, often with her corgi, Wilhun – named after two Leeds Untied players: Billy Bremner and Norman Hunter.

As a midwife Joy had a very special role – Sister Draper was well-loved by her mums. She was loyal and dedicated, staying with her mums until their baby was born, even if it was well after the time when she was due to stop working.

At that time most births were at home; here’s one little story – Joy was an avid Leeds United fan, a season ticket holder – I gather there would sometimes be a call out over the tannoy during a match for Sister Draper, when one of her mums had gone into labour and she was needed.

She went to one mum, Brenda, after an afternoon match between Leeds and Man City. Brenda was

part of the church she was. She took communion out to people who couldn’t get to church, and would accompany me to Sunnyview each month for the service there.

Joy married Brian on 10 December 1983 at St. Mary’s and they developed an interest in gardening. They were asked to look after the church garden, later taking on the St David’s garden as well.

Through their hard work we were awarded gold awards for 18 years in a row, spring and summer, in the Leeds in Bloom awards. And when judging day happened they would be there in the garden to show the judges around, not only helping the church to win Gold but also contributing to the award for Beeston in Bloom, which they’d joined.

In the last few years Joy was getting to be a bit unstable on her feet but she didn’t like to give up.

Even when she and Brian had stepped down from being the church gardeners, you’d still find

she was a great knitter. She discovered that I often wear fingerless gloves in the colder weather, and she kept me regularly supplied. And our Church Magazine was sent far and wide to people Joy had met on holiday and kept in touch with.

Joy was a good friend to many, a loving wife to Brian, a loyal servant of the church, a hard worker – a ‘doer’ as someone described her.

She will be greatly missed.

We’re looking at ways to mark her life and we hope that when circumstances allow we will have a celebration of her life at St Mary’s – and we hope all her family and friends will be able to come.

We’re also having a collection to buy something in memory of Joy at St. Mary’s – possibly something in the garden.

If you’d like to give in memory of Sister Draper, our Joy, please drop it into St. Mary’s or get in touch on (0113) 272 3337 and I’ll give you the bank details.

God bless you, Joy, rest in peace.

for most of her life and carried on with voluntary work after she retired.

“I’ve been through a lot in my life, I used to do a man’s job in the war” she told me.

“I was a Maltster at Tetley’s Brewery.”

Before that she worked in textile mills in her native Skelmanthorpe, near Huddersfield.

Having moved to Leeds in 1944, she taught weaving at mills in the city after the war. She was also a conductress on the No 1 Tram, running from Lawnswood to

Beestonand later worked in the NHS developing X-ray plates.

Following retirement, she served as a Trustee for Leeds Children’s Charity for 30 years.

The charity ran a holiday home at Silverdale in Lancashire for many years and still provides holidays for disadvantaged Leeds children.

I asked Joan what the secrets to a long life was “Hard work, having lots of friends and a little brandy in my tea every night.“

A positive from the crisis, or ‘keep taking the tablet’

by Barbara Cavell

H

aving put off joining the 21st century for the last few years, the Covid-19 epidemic made me take the plunge and buy a Tablet. This is how I am coming to terms with it: It’s easy Mother, they said So easy you can do it in bed Grab your tablet, No, don’t eat it Strangely enough we want you to greet it!

It’s easy Mother, they cajoled Just listen to us and do as you are tiold This is your post, your book and your bank You’ll never need to get out of bed to be frank It’s easy Mother, they persisted Shoving the thing in my hand as I resisted Click on, tap in, get on to Zoom Stop crying, you’re a War Baby and you are not leaving the room

It’s easy Mother, they said, waving a stick of chocolate and resorting to bribery We’ll put you in touch with a woman from the library This freaked me out as I had a book that wasn’t mine Would that women end the lesson issuing me with a fine?

It’s easy Mother, they lied As they coaxed me from under the bed where I’d gone to hide I was struggling trying to download an app So I took to the phone and got advice from a chap It’s easy Barbara, my new friend enthused But at this point Lady Barbara was not amused You’re overthinking it, it’s all in your head I heard him say, as I got lost in the duvet and pretended I was dead

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

22 Cultural Life

Opera North launch From Couch To Chorus A

nyone who has been missing their usual singing group during lockdown or who fancies having a go at mastering opera from the comfort of their living room can look forward to this summer’s launch of a new digital choir by Opera North.

• Four Weeks • Four Voice Types • Three Operas • One Virtual Choir Starting in July, From Couch to Chorus will comprise four weekly sessions over Zoom with participants being taught operatic excerpts by a Professional Choral Director, with input from members of the Chorus of Opera North.

Each hour-long session will be specifically prepared for soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices. No previous experience or ability to read music is required and help will be given for those who are not sure which session to join.

I do! I feel like part of a group even though I don’t recognise any of the other people. I was really missing having a good sing so really appreciate what you’re doing” said a participant of Sing ON. A variety of resources will be used to help people master the basics of opera quickly and easily, whether they have previously sung with a group or not, and a Zoom recording will be sent to the participants after each workshop. Open to all, the sessions will work on a pay-asyou-feel basis.

Jacqui Cameron, Education Director at Opera North, said: “With this project, we aim to give everyone a taste of what it’s like to be a member of an operatic chorus, learning exciting repertoire and developing singing skills as part of a group. In these times of social distancing, we’re not able to hold the sessions faceto-face, but we know from our

Opera North perform Kiss Me Kate. Photo: Tristram

By the end, the choir will be able to sing choruses from Bizet’s Carmen and Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, as well as the rousing Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco.

In the final workshop, singers from all vocal parts will join together online to perform a full virtual chorus.

The idea for the project grew out of the popularity of Sing ON, weekly face-to-face singing sessions which Opera North held in a variety of venues around Leeds prior to the current restrictions.

The Education team have continued to deliver these online with the feedback showing how much they have been appreciated by people who might otherwise feel lonely and isolated during lockdown.

“Thank you so much for the wonderful Sing ON sessions which I’ve been Zooming on Mondays. I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy singing on my own in front of a screen but amazingly

experience with Sing ON, that participants still find it uplifting to be part of a virtual choir.

“Holding From Couch to Chorus online will give people a chance to sing with friends who live in other areas and who they may not be able to see at the moment – and to make new ones from across the country and further afield.”

To participate in From Couch to Chorus, people will need to sign up online at: www.operanorth.co.uk/whatson/from-couch-to-chorus/ Here where they will also find an option to contact Opera North’s Lifelong Learning team if they would like help in determining their voice type.

The sessions will be held on Mondays and Tuesdays over four weeks from Monday 20 July to Tuesday 11 August with the online performance on Wednesday 12 August.

From Couch to Chorus and our wider education programme is kindly supported by the Emerald Foundation.

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

Beeston artist wins national competition

by Jeremy Morton

I

f having your work displayed in an art gallery and winning a national competition makes you an established artist, then Ellie Harrison is an established artist.

Nine-year-old Ellie Harrison from Beeston created her picture of a spaceman looking back to Earth following a YouTube tutorial, but choosing her own colours. The painting has been displayed in the LS11 Art Gallery and won first place in a national competition run by UK toy retailer Bargain Max. “I like to paint landscapes and things that are colourful” Ellie explained. “I saw this lady on YouTube called Serena and she did something like the spaceman but I changed the colours.”

Ellie loves arts and crafts and when the lockdown started parents Rich and Jules converted part of their garage to create a mini art studio for her.

Ellie’s first attempt at the spaceman painting wasn’t entirely successful.

She explained that she had used paper rather card, used the wrong tape to create the sharp lines of the spaceman’s torch beam and put it in a frame before it was dry so it smudged.

Dad Rich talked it through with her using the growth mindset tools promoted at Beeston Primary School. Ellie had another go, learning from her earlier mistakes and made her beautiful painting.

Ellie Harrison with her winning picture Having sent it to Slung Low for the LS11 Art Gallery – local artworks displayed on lampposts around LS11 – they suggested entering the Bargain Max competition too.

Ellie is largely self-taught and has always drawn and painted.

She has also developed her skills at school.

“We do art every week at school. It’s not as much as I’d like it to be, because I’d like it to be in every lesson.”

She also loves sewing, knitting and crafting models from cardboard boxes and

other items from the recycling.

Art clearly runs in the family as Mum Jules has also had a picture displayed in the LS11 Art Gallery.

The competition ran by UK toy retailer Bargain Max, saw over 500 entries with only 15 shortlisted and 3 winners then picked. Ellie’s entry was well received by an industry judge for its brilliant contrast of colours and thematic timing from recent space events, the Space-X launch of astronauts to the International Space Station.

A spokesperson for Bargain Max commented: “All three winners’ entries were superb. Ellie’s spaceman was an excellent painting and was a shining light in uncertain times. We’re really pleased to have been able to give families an opportunity to get their kids excited about our competition.

“Thank you to all parents who helped their children enter the competition and to all the children who entered, well done!

A massive congratulations to our talented winners!”

To view all the finalists creations, go to: www.bargainmax.co.uk/artsand-crafts-competition You can find a map showing all the artworks in the LS11 Art Gallery at slunglow.org The whole family are enjoying the lamppost gallery, as Jules explained: “It’s lovely to walk round and see them all. We had a walk up to Beeston Primary the other day and there’s some really lovely ones up there.”

As a postal worker, Rich enjoys seeing the artworks as he does his rounds.

The final words go to Ellie who said: “Anyone can give it a go, don’t be scared of showing people what you can do. Some people will like it and some won’t, but that’s up to them.”

“Everyone can see what you’ve done, rather than just your family. I feel proud that it’s on a lamppost it feels really nice that other people can see it.”

Theatre company seeks new members, must be aged over 60 L

eeds theatre company The Performance Ensemble is on a quest to grow its company and gather 1,000 stories from the city’s older population that will ultimately create a piece of theatre for the Leeds Cultural Festival in 2023.

The Performance Ensemble is a company of performers over the age of 60; they create high quality contemporary performances from their own life experiences.

They are now looking to recruit new members and collect more stories that will help them create unique performance events with the

experience of age.

“There is no prerequisite – you don’t have to have experience in theatre or the arts, but you must be over 60 years old” explains Artistic Director Alan Lyddiard.

Some of the company members work as actors, writers, and dancers but others joined the company as a firsttime experience; all are from a range of different backgrounds and diverse cultures.

“We celebrate the fullness of life and explore vulnerability, resilience, and ageing,” Alan continues.

“I want to work with people in

what I call ‘the space between professional, amateur and community arts practice’, concentrating on shared knowledge and experience; when you are older you have many things to contribute and each of us will learn from the other.”

Alan was a theatre and film

Photo: Sara Teresa Photography

director for 40 years and formed The Performance Ensemble in 2014 when he was 65. It now has a core company of 35 people and a wider membership of over 100.

For more information and to get involved email alan@the performanceensemble.com or call 07846 575 377

www.southleedslife.com

Website: www.southleedslife.com

July 2020 | South Leeds Life

Email: info@southleedslife.com

Sporting Life 23

From Woodhouse Hill To Parkside Hamara Centre restarts outdoor I activity sessions

by Ken Burton

n the 1860s a cricket team named "Evening Star" played cricket on a pitch on Hunslet Moor, this team later moved to a ground on Woodhouse Hill, Hunslet, the home of another cricket club, the "Peep Of Day CC".

Woodhouse Hill was an enclosure adjacent to the Cemetery Tavern, now the Parnaby Tavern. Sometime later "Evening Star" changed its name to Hunslet Cricket Club, this club became an important Yorkshire Club and Australian teams played at Woodhouse Hill in 1868, 1878, and 1880.

Woodhouse Hill Cricket Ground held two first class cricket matches, in July 1869 Yorkshire County Cricket Club played Cambridgeshire, while in 1872 a United North of England Eleven took on the United South of England Eleven.

At a Special General Meeting of the Hunslet Cricket Club held on 21 May 1883 the Committee resolved to grant two local teams, Albion and Excelsior, the sum of £30 to form the Rugby Club, Hunslet, based at Woodhouse Hill. At the same time the name of the Cricket Club was also changed

Active Leeds streams live classes L

eeds City Council’s gyms and other sports facilities remain closed for the time being, but Active Leeds has launched a programme of live streams.

The instructor led classes are available free to anyone who downloads the Active Leeds app to their smartphone or tablet.

They offer a wide range of activities to keep you active in your own home.

In the meantime staff are working on risk assessments and procedures to ensure that once government guidance allows them to reopen, Leeds will be ready.

To ensure that leisure centres can safely and securely reopen, it is likely that they will need to reopen in phases.

to the 'Hunslet Cricket and Football Club'. So started Rugby in Hunslet.

On 6 October 1883 Hunslet played Hull 'A' on this ground.

Hunslet announced their arrival in the next season by beating Leeds St. John's, later to become the Leeds Rhinos, in the Third Round of the Yorkshire Cup.

ground disappeared to building development and much later under the M621 near the Stourton junction.

A site of 10.25 acres for a new ground was found and purchased at very little cost, it was waste land in Hunslet Carr and the owners were the Low Moor Iron & Coal Company of Bradford. They had to shift

Hunslet players ahead of their last game at Parkside Photo: Steve Calline via hunslet-heroes.co.uk Better fixtures drew larger crowds and brought more revenue to the Club and the result was the landlord wanting to put up the rent, this led to a search for another ground. A stand had been erected at Woodhouse Hill in 1884. This led to the last cricket being played here in 1888. The

2,000 tons of rubbish here to create what would become the Parkside Ground to which the Hunslet Cricket and Rugby Club moved in 1888. They brought and erected the stand which had only seen four years service at Woodhouse Hill, but it was to be 1901 before a Pavilion was built. Adjacent to

the Rugby Pitch was a Bowling Green and Cricket Ground and the surface at Parkside had the reputation of being the best in the game and was often used by touring Australian teams as a training ground. The first game at Parkside was played on 11 February 1888 where Hunslet, later to be know as the Parksiders, beat Mirfield.

The part of the ground named Mother Benson's End was named after the old lady who washed the players’ kit and lived in one of the Low Fold Farm cottages that were situated at that end of the ground.

In 1959 Hunslet Cricket Club left Parkside, the cricket pitch becoming Hunslet's Training Ground. In 1971 vandals burnt down the stand at Parkside.

The last game to be played at Parkside was against York on 21 April 1972.

The year 1972 saw Parkside sold to an industrial developer for about £300,000, Parkside was then demolished and industrial units built in its place on what is now Lenton Drive.

From 1973 and for the next seven years Hunslet became tenants at the Leeds Greyhound Stadium in Elland Road. They eventually relocated to South Leeds Stadium.

A

s restrictions begin to lift, Beeston’s Hamara Centre are starting to run small midweek group sessions whilst following government guidelines.

All sessions are designed to help with wellbeing both physically and mentally. The aim is to reduce stress and anxiety.

There are Community Gardening sessions for women on Mondays and Wednesdays, 10-11:30am. You can learn new skills as you help create a new garden at Old Cockburn Sports Hall.

The Family Bubble is described as “a space to bond, a time to share, a place to love and a place to care. A group for family bonding with a helping hand.” Meet in Cross Flatts Park at the Maud Avenue entrance Monday 2-3pm or Tuesdays 1-2pm.

Walkie Talkie is a chance to get physically fit with walking and mentally fit with talking.

This is a gentle relaxed walk in

Cross Flatts Park, meet at the Maud Avenue entrance on Tuesdays 10-11am.

Finally, for now, Active Tennis for women is fun packed, all round, cardio workout. Meet at the Maud Avenue entrance to Cross Flatts Park on Tuesdays 3-4pm and Wednesdays 12pm.

To take part in any of these activities you must book a place in advance by calling Dal on (0113) 277 3330 or 07541 934226 or email dalveer.sohal@hamara.co.uk All sessions will be run in line with government guidance on social distancing.

Cross Flatts Park

www.southleedslife.com

South Leeds Life | July 2020

Twitter: @SouthLeedsLife

24 Sporting Life

Facebook: facebook.com/southleedslife

Bringing Basketball to the park

by Imran Marashli

A

lot can change in a year. In 2019, Loran Lewis founded Let’s Do More CIC when he was a sports officer at Leeds City College. Little did he know that his personal project would lead to something far bigger than he had ever imagined.

One year on, Leeds LDM finished second in its first season in the Junior National Basketball League – a competition it entered a year ahead of schedule.

After uniting Chapeltown’s Mandela Jrs and the Beeston Ballers, Leeds LDM has expanded its sessions to Seacroft and is aiming to climb the divisions by applying for a place in the National League Conference next season.

“It’s grown a lot. I never had any intention of having a basketball club,” Mr Lewis reflects. “It was supposed to be sessions where kids could play, have games now and then and have a team in the National League.

“We’ve got such a demand and talent that I haven’t got a choice but to put them in the league. It’s taking up most of my life now!”

The mission to use basketball as a vehicle for positive change is taking its next step. In partnership with the charity StreetGames and Active Leeds, his aim is to get

Loran Lewis leading a training session before lockdown 200 children involved in basketball and to distribute 200 free balls to local primary schools across Leeds.

He is also looking to organise basketball sessions in Cross Flatts Park during the summer holidays, despite the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sessions were originally held at Old Cockburn Sports Hall.

Now that the club has moved to Cockburn School, Mr Lewis is planning to introduce memberships and to double prices from £1 to £2.

Under current guidelines, only five children are allowed to train with one coach and indoor

basketball remains on hold.

“I don’t think it’s fair that restaurants, cinemas and bars can open but we can’t do indoor basketball. There’s so much social impact that indoor basketball and sports have that’s being neglected,” he says.

“The kids that we work with are some of the most vulnerable with regards to COVID, isolation, and family members getting ill, so we want to give them an outlet.”

StreetGames is a charity that seeks to positively change disadvantaged young people’s lives through sport. Young people from poorer

backgrounds are less likely to take part in regular physical activity, facing greater mental and physical health challenges and lower life expectancy.

They deliver their work in partnership with locally trusted organisations such as Leeds LDM, which has already distributed 10 basketballs and intends to continue throughout the summer.

“It’s all about kids getting involved in basketball,” Mr Lewis explains. “There wasn’t any basketball in South Leeds and limted basketball everywhere else.

“Once you give a kid a ball, they’re more likely to pick it up

and start shooting, you don’t need coaching. If we can give that to 200 kids that wouldn’t otherwise have had a ball, we’re doing our job.

“If you can go towards the kids rather than the kids coming to you, it breaks down that barrier, especially for the parents. I’m trying to be a more of a community-oriented club.

“I’m not going to turn away a kid that can’t afford £2 – it’s as simple as that. I’ll never turn away a kid because they can’t afford a session.”

New sessions in Cross Flatts Park are due to start during the summer holidays as part of the #LetsBall campaign.

The target is to have 200 children in the 8-12 age range taking up basketball in collaboration with local primary schools.

Leeds LDM has worked with the local police, Leeds City Council, Sport England, StreetGames and Yorkshire Sport to make this and other projects happen.

“People are seeing what we’re doing and realising basketball could be something here. People are giving us recognition,” Mr Lewis enthuses.

“LDM was initially an organisation to raise aspirations – it just so happens that I’m doing it through basketball now rather than through mentoring.”

With the coronavirus

pandemic preventing indoor training and large gatherings, Mr Lewis has adapted by using Instagram to share lessons and tips.

“We can’t hit the numbers we want. But that’s why we’re trying to do outreach work and go to the kids.

“This is why I want to get something at Cross Flatts Park,” he continues.

“There’s two huge basketball courts, but it’s being wasted.

We’re going to be doing a lot of work over the summer and trying to utilise the space.”

Mr Lewis has ambitions to widen access to basketball – particularly to girls and younger age groups – as well as to recruit more volunteers and maintain the standard of the U16 team.

“I want to get a girls’ team together. That’s something we haven’t done very well this year.

We need to do better,” he admits.

Basketball’s relative lack of coverage and funding in the UK is compounded by the lack of female role models to inspire young women to play and coach, something Mr Lewis is keen to reverse.

But after the huge strides Leeds LDM has taken in the past 12 months – culminating in a 113-26 win over Barnsley Leaders in its final game of the season – there’s no telling how far the growth of basketball in Leeds could go.

Jamaica are coming home ... to Hunslet

I

t could be said with ample justification that Jamaica, who will be based in the city of Leeds during next year’s Rugby League World Cup in England, are “coming home”.

Prop Steve Pryce whiled away part of the journey back from Wembley in 1997 speculating on what kind of team could represent a hypothetical Jamaica side.

Pryce, who was born in England of Jamaican parents, and who is a member of Hunslet’s Hall of Fame, recalls: “My team-mates Mick Coyle and David Brook thought I was joking, in fact Brooky said the team would be made up entirely of wingers!

“I’ve reminded him about that from time to time because, having thought up the idea – with names such as Roger Simpson, Sonny Nickle, Alan Hunte, Basil Richards and Craig Richards, plus me and my brother Geoff Pryce springing to mind – I began to turn the fantasy into fact.”

A few phone calls and chats – plus a holiday trip to Jamaica – helped generate concrete interest and a West Indies side was pulled together to take part in the York Nines in the early 2000s, with Gateshead Thunder Head

Coach Dean Thomas taking charge and Hunslet’s Roy Sampson acting as his assistant.

West Indies, with the likes of Hunslet’s Jamaine Wray, Steve Elms (who is now a singer, with appearances on such as X-Factor), Gateshead Thunder captain Joe Brown and Michael Brown in the side, won that competition to signal that the team really could have a bright future.

The Middlesex Nines was also contested, and West Indies subsequently played their first fullsided game at York outfit New Earswick All Blacks, when Alan Hunte helped out with the coaching.

West Indies’ only 13-a-side international, when South Africa were beaten 50-22 at London Skolars in October 2004, included Wray and fellow Hunslet Hawk Danny Herbert, while Alex Rowe (who joined the south Leeds outfit before the start of this season) grabbed two tries.

The next step was a trip by Jamaica to play the USA in a historic friendly at Jacksonville. Pryce, who was in that team, which was captained by Wray and which also included Hunslet’s Danny Thomas, remembers: “It was

really emotional for me, singing the Garry Schofield,” says Pryce. “I don’t name. I put a ‘v’ in front of it and said, Jamaican national anthem – as it was think he’d played for around three ‘it’s my benefit, Schoey, I’ll be skipper with ‘God Save the Queen’ when I later years but he was in great shape for the today.’ He was tremendous about it! played for Great Britain Masters – in game and showed all his old skills, “It’s fantastic, now, to know that fact I don’t mind admitting that I burst including fantastic long passes.

Jamaica will be in the city for the World out crying.

“And I’ll never forget how, Cup in October and November next “That fixture really got Jamaica beforehand in the changing rooms year. I could never have imagined, on Rugby League going and the team when he was pacing around and was that trip back from Wembley in 1997, went on to play Hunslet at the South clearly ‘up’ for the contest, I when the side was only a figment of Leeds Stadium, where we also trained, approached him with the team-sheet. my imagination, that a Jamaican team when players like Craig Richards and He had a ‘c’ for captain against his could have come so far so soon.” the legendary Des Drummond helped with the coaching.

“And I was delighted when, as part of the development of Caribbean Rugby League, West Indies took on Hunslet in my benefit match in 2005. That was a fabulous day, with such as St John Ellis and David Plange turning out.”

Another former ‘great’ came out of retirement for the occasion. “It was Jamaica’s ‘Reggae Warriors’ are coming to the World Cup and will be based in Leeds