Research

I’ve lived here on this long road for twelve years, although I only really formed warmer relationships with my neighbours since I became a single-parent five years ago. Even those were only maintained by some conversations over the fence, the odd lend of something, nothing profound, and I often thought, at night and in the early months of being partner-less, that if anyone tried to break into my house, I didn’t even have the phone numbers to call for help next door.

My left-hand neighbour and I share a passageway, as well as the experience of single parenthood. She has five girls, almost all of whom have now left home. She is funny, practical, sage and is the well of so much love from and to her family that she could sink a ship with it. My right-hand neighbour has five boys, a few of whom are still at home with her and her husband, and a few years ago she became a member of lunchtime staff at my son’s school. We didn’t find many points at which to chat much, but she’d often walk around my house and visit my other neighbour.

During Lockdown we inadvertently sky-watched for Starlink together, all three households sat in our respective front gardens with a glass of something, chatting and laughing more than looking upwards. Last Autumn we all spent an un-arranged afternoon taking a collapsed hedge out together and recently we all got together in the garden to watch the football final and then to communally discuss what to do with my car which constantly broke down. We now have a common life that I am proud of, not just borrowing cups of sugar, I care, they care, we all care about one another with quiet understanding.

Our front garden abuts the route of a lovely walk with views all over the valley and so we saw a huge amount of people from the community, repeatedly taking their walk, over the Summer last year. It made me think about the two ends of this street, one long stretch of road lined with houses but divided by its two names and, loosely, by style of housing and socio-economic background. The part my neighbours and I live in is an area of 1930’s social housing and, as you get further down towards town, the name of this road changes and some of the houses get quite a lot larger, older, and grander, although there are also a lot of small terraces too.  One of them, far, far down the other end is a ‘hall’, gated with tall brick walls surrounding it, a grand portico thing, ornate gardens and a fleet of cars straight out of ‘Yes Minister’, all of which can be seen when the gates occasionally open to let a Jag in or out.

That difference in street name matters to many, I think, and it’s a shame we are divided by that symbolic fence. The sense of community we felt back last Summer has waned a little, people don’t do the Love Lane walk so often and we sit out the front far less. It led me to wonder how we could take advantage of the remnants of that upsurge in community enthusiasm, remarked upon up and down the country, and continue to get to know each other better, more deeply than a nod and a passing wave.

Years ago, I filmed reminiscence interviews with 60 elderly people around the district and witnessed the effect that being deeply listened to has on a human, it can bond us deeply within half an hour if we listen with compassion and interest. More recently, I was introduced to the 30’s and 40’s Mass Observation diaries by a nearby friend and fell in love with all the ordinary voices telling their ordinary, exquisitely descriptive stories of times gone by – previously unheard angles on lives we shall never know. I started reading Tony Parker’s moving oral history-based accounts of ordinary people in the 60’s, some more from the Studs Terkel archive and went on to buy a small, but not ordinary, recording device myself. I have made many recordings with people in my neighbourhood over the past month, experimenting with techniques spoken about by Tony Parker and Studs Terkel.

The recordings with my adjacent, immediate neighbours were especially lovely moments. The first was my neighbour with whom I share a passageway. It was an early experiment, I asked her some questions and just as soon as I pressed stop on the recorder, she began to talk freely, joyfully and memories of her childhood neighbourhood were flying out of her. When I recorded a later conversation with the neighbour the other side, I made extra sure she was comfortable with me and with the recorder, comfortable in her chair, I let the recording run, allowed some silence in and she spoke at length, gloriously colourfully and as though she was interviewed like this on a daily basis. Every person I interviewed was certain they would not have anything interesting to say, all were fascinating, and a few were moved to tears, not by the themes but, I think, through the process of being listened to so closely.

‘Where do you belong?’ was a question I have asked almost everyone, and it has been the hardest for people to consider and to verbalise. I don’t know where to begin with my own answer to it, but it gave people a chance to really think about place, identity, community, friends and, commonly, where they don’t belong anymore. It has led me to believe that belonging is, perhaps, a commitment we make to those around us that we decide to lead a common life with. I thought I wasn’t much like my neighbours but it turns out they think I am just like them and that I belong here and that’s bloody beautiful.

*With special thanks to Linda, and Eileen and Andrew (all pictured, along with Dave the spaniel), for supporting my research and generally humouring me and being very good neighbours.

My name is Anthony Gough and I am a visually impaired theatre-maker and a Director of an arts organisation called Engage 2 Stage. We set up originally back in 2017, and as a Community Interest Company last year in 2020. We produce work with, and alongside visually impaired people and I see our work not only as a way of connecting with visually impaired people or connecting the visually impaired community with the sighted community around them, but I see it as a tool to raise awareness. Also, from the perspective of using the performing arts to empower people, to give them a voice, to highlight their experiences and to show people that the arts is such a huge and adaptable industry and if people wish to do so and want to try and pursue a career in the arts then that’s something that’s achievable and something that is definitely possible.

I am visually impaired myself; I’ve got a condition called Congenital Stationary Night Blindness and that means that I have, overall, about somewhere between 20-30% of my vision. I’ve got about 50% vision in one eye and about 20% in the other, and at nighttime, obviously, because I have a night blindness, that bit of useful vision I do have becomes even less useful, so effectively, at that point, and in those kinds of dark environments I am more reliant on support and more reliant on people around me, supporting me.

So, I am Manchester born and bred and Engage 2 Stage is based in Bury, Greater Manchester. We’ve worked alongside various organisations, The Bury Society for Blind and Partially Sighted People, for instance, and The MET Theatre in Bury, but we are always open to any kind of new partnerships and just say to people ‘do you want to go on this journey with us, this adventure with us?’ What’s been interesting about this past year and a half is that obviously so much has been going on, there have been so many different changes, so many different challenges that so many people have faced. This past year, we’ve gone into several new spaces that we never actually thought would be on the horizon; we’ve gone into filmic work, which as an arts organisation, we didn’t see ourselves doing. We contributed to a project with Manchester International Festival called ‘Playing Through the Looking Glass’ (Credits: MIF, Elizabeth Roney (Engage2stage), Blain Cousin.) and we’ve recently brought out a short film called ‘Lockdown Thoughts’ with Bury Library and Archive service (Credits: Elizabeth Roney (Engage2stage), Joshua Lord, Blain Cousin, Produced by Engage2stage.). We are also working on a film called ‘Our Journey Home’ (Credits: Elizabeth Roney (Engage2stage), Rachel Gillies, Production by Engage2stage.), which follows the lives and journeys of visually impaired people and important places and locations in their life. It explores what it is that they see as being their home, whether it be a metaphorical home or their location in terms of home or whether it’s a home away from home for them. So that process was interesting with a bit of filming between lockdowns last year.

I always see every new experience as an opportunity, so for me, The Roots Programme was an opportunity for me to not only get involved but learn about other people’s perspectives on things. I am always really interested in other people’s perspectives on things because, for someone who does have limited vision, I do find it interesting, although we may not always see eye to eye on politics or policies or on what we prioritise, for me what was interesting when I was talking to my peer on The Roots Programme was that our similarities far outshone any differences that we did have. It made those differences more and more insignificant really and that’s probably one of the things I am going to take away, that even though people almost go to war on party politics, not something I particularly like – it’s more divisive than a lot of things, but for me, I really felt that our similarities and that common ground should be a real focus because we can build our ideas from there.

My peer was very much into sport and how it can increase positive mental health and wellbeing, obviously our physical health and wellbeing too, but I saw similarities with how I saw performing arts – as a tool. Actually getting people connected, getting people talking, improving mental health and physical wellbeing as well as routes into employment, which is another important subject. Over two-thirds of visually impaired people who are of working age are out of work, that is something that really annoys me. I have seen first-hand how dedicated visually impaired people can be and how proactive they are in the work they can produce and I don’t think there is enough effort made in the communities surrounding the visually impaired. The employment and support agencies don’t work, they just didn’t understand the areas in which I wanted to work. I think that’s the case for not just me but a lot of people who want to go into certain areas, there isn’t a good enough understanding and I think it deserves a really good rethink and reform around how we make work actually work for people. I think that having a job, having a career and having employment is something that gives people purpose and we all need that.

Over the last two weeks, myself and my colleagues at Roots have been fortunate enough to spend our Saturday afternoons online with a group of 11 young people. Joining us from different pockets of the UK, with one even checking in with us from the Netherlands, we’ve managed to touch upon the complex themes of identity, community and policy in just under four hours. When we decided to host these focus group sessions, we wanted to get a general feel for how some of the activities we’d planned would play out between teens who had never met before. The level of engagement and critical awareness that we’ve witnessed over this short period of collaboration has filled us with confidence that our programme will spark meaningful discussion not only across socio-economic barriers but also between young people from different regions and countries.

The atmosphere of curiosity and compassion initiated by the participants created a space where everyone had the chance to use their voice and air their opinions. The themes that the group identified as key challenges for young people in today’s society were mental health and climate change. The group spoke with an unreserved openness that we weren’t always expecting, offering up their ideas about reform and action that would help to give the next generation the best possible future. They also spoke freely about their hopes and fears for their own futures, bringing to the surface how the uncertainty of COVID19 and its impact on their education was a growing area of concern. 

As a team, we’ve been reminded how important it is to trust the curiosity of young people and to support them in expressing their feelings around the issues that they care about the most. They have shown us that sometimes all it takes is a reason to come together, and that’s enough to spark connections over lines of division. We’ve left feeling determined that we can re-create this kind of dialogue over an extended period, on a much larger scale and with a greater number of young participants. It seems that our roots are only part of the story, what we can imagine together is where we’ll be turning our focus to next.

In preparation for the launch of our first Educational Exchange in February 2021, The Roots Programme is carrying out some preliminary research in the form of focus groups. This research will help us to shape our programme which aims to address social division amongst young people from different socio-economic backgrounds by bringing them together in virtual forums.

We are looking for 8 participants between the ages of 12 and 16 to take part in our research activities. We are hoping to have a mix of young people from state schools and private schools. Two virtual sessions will take place, the first on Saturday 9th January and the second on Saturday 16th January, between 1:30pm and 2:30pm. The content of the sessions will be based around the topics of identity and the challenges faced by young people in the UK today. 

Please contact us if your child would like to volunteer, along with any other questions, on maisie@rootsprogramme.org and include the below details in your email:

• Your name
• Your child’s name and age 
• The type of school your child attends e.g private, state or grammar/selective school

After expressing your child’s interest in participating, you will be contacted with more specific details about the format and practical requirements of the sessions. Each child will receive a £20 Waterstones voucher after they complete the two sessions as a thank you from the Roots Team for helping us to develop our ideas for the project.