Friday, 14 December 2007

Community. Centre.

Estate Yorkshire in frost. The light fractures the trees, or is it the other way round. Ellie crunches across the estate part-seeing, sort-of knowing the unfinished scrawling on the walls, the mutterings in the corner shop, a charred tyreless car up against a house, the litter half-swept.

Alone or not, people walk in an isolated way here. Nothing seems rendered. But there's a hope of garden outside these flats, and Merry Christmas being sadly insisted at the window.

She said, before, most days I'd just go to Morrisons, every day, on the bus, with me little boy, getting out of the house, it were like prison, nobody to talk to, and go to Morrison's on t'bus, walk round, wander round aisles, have a cuppa tea and come back, at least you got out.

I was walking dead most of the time, I just couldn't be bothered cooking. We'd come to the community cafe and we'd both eat well for a quid.

I help out here now a lot of the time. There's a big women's social isolation problem in this area. The group that's here now, quite a few have found themselves single parents, they come here and find there's a few more in the same boat, and they support each other.

14 Dec 2007 20:00:42 | Vignettes

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