We Are Seacroft!

With my folks, I lived on top

Of the North East Gas Board showrooms shop

In a row of flats called Parkway Mews

From which we had outstanding views

Of the back of Ladbrokes’, the Pathfinder pub

And the brand new East Leeds Labour Club.

 

Our house wasn’t in so much of a street

As a labyrinth built from cold concrete.

Not posh like how it should have been.

They’d even gone and got the Queen

To come up on a 16 bus

And unveil a shiny plaque for us.

 

Such a shame the shopping centre

Didn’t turn out how it was meant to.

Lovely shops and a brass band stand

Was what the men in suits had planned.

But the whole world turned its back and scoffed

As the heart was ripped from our Seacroft.

 

In the busy indoor market hall

There was nowt I liked except the stall

Where I could spend my weekly wage

On ex juke box records from a golden age

By Bowie, Bolan and by Slade

Within half an hour of getting paid.

 

And then the stall where they sold bread

Was another place I’d go to shed

A bit more of my hard earned cash

On a sausage roll and just a flash

Of a smile from the girl who used to thrill

My teenage heart as she rang her till.

 

Sometimes we’d go to the Derrisford caff

For a bottle of Coke and a bit of a laugh.

We’d waste so many afternoons

In the mother of all the greasy spoons.

Talking rubbish. Talking soft.

Of a romantic world beyond Seacroft.

 

The blokes would come home pissed and late

From the Cricketer’s Arms and the Monkswood Gate.

At least the ones who had a job

And could put aside a couple of bob

For Friday’s Tetley’s and their homeward stop

To buy their kids some chips and pop.

 

At the Universal Bingo Hall

Pat and Sheila had a ball.

‘It’s the weekend. Let’s go wild

With a packet of fags and a glass of mild.’

Win the jackpot? No such luck.

And they’d still have to scrub and clean and cook.

 

Nan and Grandad loved it there.

Lush green gardens. Fresh clean air.

Such hard times when they thought back

To their pokey terrace amongst the smokey stacks.

With home grown veg and a pigeon loft

Life was good in this new Seacroft.

 

Now a huge big Tesco fills the space

Where a caretaker would shout and chase

Us off for doing bugger all

Or sometimes kicking our football,

Or sometimes sitting on the steps

To the shoppers’ car park’s murky depths.

 

It may have seemed to other folks

Seacroft was fit for only jokes

Of drugged up youths and crumbling homes

And icy wastes where stray dogs roamed.

But the folks I knew, I’m proud to boast,

Were good as gold and warm as toast.

 

It broke my heart. You could hear my sighs

From South Parkway to Kentmere Rise.

The Centre’s shops and flats were gone

But its soul and spirit linger on.

We should stand and sing with our arms aloft

‘We’re not just Leeds. We are Seacroft!’

 

Note:

Seacroft is a sprawling estate of social housing on the eastern edge of Leeds. In the 1960s they added to it a grey concrete white elephant which served originally as a thriving shopping centre with entertainment facilities and residential units, but over thirty years it saw a gradual decline into an almost dystopian state and the decision was made to demolish it and replace it with modern shops, which I suspect will eventually go the same way. Looking back, it was never a pretty place but a lot of people have fond memories of it.

I wrote this poem in 2013 for a friend who was filming a documentary of the same name. He recorded me reading it and used it as a voiceover to accompany some still photographs I had taken. He also included some old television footage of John Betjemen commenting upon the place as he walked around it shortly after its completion. I brag that in this documentary I got to read one of my poems but the former poet laureate didn’t.

Also … the photograph is one I took myself.