10. Mexborough

... being an examination of the virtues of staying close to home.

I have read a lot lately about the idea of staying close to your home rather than spending time and money on travelling quite so often. There is a recent book (and podcast), Local by globetrotting cyclist and adventurer Alastair Humphries, in which he restricts himself to exploring the ordnance survey map containing his house. Perhaps the idea came to him during the pandemic, a period in which we all saw a lot more of our local areas, but thinking about staying local leads to the realisation that we will all eventually draw our horns in as declining health in old age begins to exercise its grip.

At 62, my health is not yet significantly declining. At my age many people are looking toward a retirement which features possibly as much international travel than they enjoyed in the first flush of adulthood, but this time in more comfort. Youth hostels will be replaced by hotels and backpacking replaced by cruises. I know this because I have been to the retirement seminars given by financial companies looking to interest me in investing your money with them. At one, I was shown a graph projecting the amount of money I may hope to have over time, along with the probable line of my descent into decrepitude. The moral is that I probably won’t need as much money in my eighties as I will through my sixties, as I won’t be able to enjoy it the older I get.

But I’m not convinced. I really can’t imagine enjoying a voyage on a cruise ship with a load of old codgers who really do enjoy that sort of thing. I’m really not interested in globetrotting all all. I’ve seen enough of the world on the television to meet my needs.

Instead of developing a wanderlust, I really have become increasingly interested in the smaller world around me. This probably marks me out as another kind of old codger. The kind who potters about in the garden, seldom ventures much further away than the nearest seaside, and does most of his socialising, shopping and sojourning within a few miles of his house. Then again, perhaps I have always been a bit like that, I have always enjoyed watching local bands, non-league football, and taking holidays in Filey. However, I feel that this tendency has developed more markedly in recent years, with a mix of factors, including getting older, and changing the area were I live all coming into play.

I moved to Swinton, South Yorkshire in around 2002, all for the love of a good woman. It took a bit of getting used to at first. I had always been a city dweller, living sixty miles down the road in Hull for all of my life, bar the three years I spent at Newcastle University in the early 80s. Living in Swinton was different. Unlike Hull, which has a definite centre with a range of places to go and things to get involved in, Swinton features only a few shops, a few pubs, and not very much else. I turned to the surrounding towns for a sense of where I belonged, looking to what was happening in Rotherham. Sheffield, Barnsley and Doncaster. Each of these places seemed to have its own character, its own scene, and its own ways of advertising events and places. This made finding out about what was happening there difficult, particularly in a time before social media had really taken off. Worse, each of them was a significant distance away, meaning I had to had to drive and not drink, or be tied to inconvenient public transport or expensive taxis to get home at the end of an evening.

I first drifted towards Rotherham. which has a fairly vibrant arts scene. The Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance and the industry of a music loving man by the name of the Rawmarsh Masher, meant that there was often something on. The ROMP poetry at the Bridge Inn built up by the local poet Gav Roberts was another attraction. Inspired by these two, I got into a band, Pocketful O’Nowt, and started to develop a bit of an interest in poetry.

Then, through the band, I discovered Barnsley, and the world of the Bar Steward Sons of Val Doonican led by the tireless Scott. I performed at his Rock and Roll Circus, we wrote “Lost in Chuffing Space - The Musical” together and I appeared in a string of madcap pantomimes every Christmas with him for many years.

I met Stan Skinny through in an improbable situation in which he was appearing at a poetry event in Salford, where I was the compere. Stan was living in Sheffield at that time so I started to take some interest in the events he organised there, such as the Tesco Chain Store Massacre.

And Doncaster also exercised its pull with its Right Up Our Street, and the excellent Doncopolitan magazine. But I only really began to discover Doncaster through the pull of Mexborough.

Just a mile or so from Swinton, Mexborough was once a thriving mining town, and before that a centre for potteries. A town that had nurtured the talent of former Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, and celebrated booming voiced actor Brian Blessed. A town that now seemed down on its luck, in a way that was really familiar to someone like me. My Dad had grown up on Hessle Road in Hull, and the architecture of Mexborough’s High Street reminded me of that, both places feature many grand buildings which have seen happier times when the fishing industry was at its height in Hull, and when mining brought industry and prosperity to Mexborough.

Like Hull, Mexborough seems to have a real sense of pride in its past, and a defiance about its arts scene, which I feel I have seen grow over the years I have spent here. The gallery spaces pioneered by Pete Olding, the Cozy Cinema, the Heritage Society and it’s blue plaque trail all add to the fantastic character of the place. As for poetry The Pitman Poets open mic ran by the formidable Tony Goodwin in the early 2010s attracted the interest of a lot of would-be wordsmiths, including me. Many of its regulars were drawn to the Read to Write sessions set up by the Mexborough poet, Ian Parks, who brought a touch of erudition and a sense of literary context to our poetry, something which I at least, had left in the schoolroom, in an attempt to seem fresh, relevant and reckless¹.

Ian is a Mexborough man himself, who returned to the town in the mid 2010s after some three decades away. Through his poetry, you get the sense that he never completely left, with the place coming up time and again, by name in some pieces, and through an unmistakable flavour in many others.

This series of articles and many of those in the 60 Odd Poets substack were born in the atmosphere of Mexborough and owe no small debt to Ian. The poem below says something about my feelings for the place. When I re-read it in preparation for this piece, I was taken by how grim it might seem, but also by how there is, perhaps between its lines, a defiance and a determination to transition into old age without recourse to cruises and other unnecessary globetrotting.

Mexborough

When I first arrived in Mexborough 
Autumn was already established, 
sap and sunlight were in decline, 
gone was the freshness of spring 
and the joy of summer. 
The days were unremarkable 
and the nights oppressive

When the doors closed at Tesco
I saw myself reflected in its dark window
A man who should be elsewhere 
Doncaster, Rotherham, 
Sheffield or even Barnsley.
Where crowds congregate 
in shopping centres, football stadia, 
and theatres
for warmth, excitement, connection, 
and relevance.

Now, as winter approaches with cold inevitability,
I know that I shall remain in Mexborough 
having realised
that all I need is here.

1. I hope that I still am fresh, relevant and a bit reckless, but would like think that with the help of Ian, I have added a tiny bit of culture to the mix - or maybe I’m just being a tiny bit pretentious.