Quote Slugger McBatt="Slugger McBatt"From an outsider looking in, in that I haven't lived in Wakefield for twenty years, I think Wakefield is doing pretty well. I live in a city that is extremely similar in terms of population size, industrial history, and administrative importance, and Wakefield beats it. Apart from the big cities, which are getting by on coffee outlets and fancy pubs, it is common to hear about town and city centre centres dying, with proper shops being replaced by poundshops and charity shops. Wakefield is just like everywhere else, but still it opened its new sy shopping centre, and the top of the precinct near the cathedral is still a glorious place to be on a sunny day.
She waffles on about Sandal Castle and the Chantry Chapel. I spent a lot of my childhood playing at Sandal Castle, and it is better preserved now than it was then, but she needs to learn her history. My understanding is that Sandal Castle was largely uncovered not long before the seventies, so rather than letting it crumble, the city unveiled it and preserved it for the city. What does she want: it rebuilding in breeze blocks?
The Calder bridge hasn't changed in decades, and so what does she expect with the Chantry Chapel? Blame whoever designed the access into the city all those decades ago, not the city now.
To me, the city has hardly changed, and that is no bad thing. Any problems it portrays in the city centre are no different to anywhere else in the country. It's a sign of the times. I can remember my mother doing the weekly shop in Hillards off Northgate. Who would go into the city centre to do any shopping now, other than for treats and browsing?
As for the rhubarb festival, if they were selling the stuff from little stalls in a twee little back street in Camden, with signs written in chalk, she would be cooing over it, waffling on to her mates about how authentic it is.
Your past is what makes you. The fact that she is ashamed of it tells us more of her own self-image that it does about Wakefield.
My message to her is this: I've written things that have been read by more people and in more countries than you ever have, and I'm proud to put Wakefield in my biography. It made me the person I am: a Yorkshireman who likes drinking bitter, who looks after his brass, and likes spending his weekends watching rugby league. I go to London sometimes and meet high and mighty types who I know will think I am an uncultured oaf, but you know what, I don't enjoy their company. They drink wine I don't understand, guffaw a lot and talk about rugger. I can deal with that. Why can't you?'"
Well said Neil. Much rather read your works than the bile she spouts.
She certainly does not know her history. Sandal Castle being "allowed to go to the whippets" - it was one of the finest examples of a Motte-and-bailey Castle and is famous for the Battle of Wakefield in 1460 where the Duke of York was killed. Much of the Castle was destroyed by Cromwell after the Civil War as Sandal supported the Royalist cause so it wasn't "allowed to go to the whippets"
I was born and raised in Wakefield and I'm proud of the fact and and not afraid to say where I'm from. I'll bet when asked she says she is from Leeds. Thats why I like Jane McDonald, proud to be from Wakefield and tells everbody that she is.
Wakefield and Proud.
