Traffic

Ink and Watercolour sketch of The Science and Media Museum in Bradford (with Bradford 2025 banner).

Its 5 days later, but still I don't think I have quite taken it in. Bradford is the UK's City of Culture 2025. I haven't stopped grinning since I heard. If you are from Bradford, you don't need anyone to explain why this moment matters so much to Bradfordians. If you are not from here, then I think the best way of explaining it is this. Imagine the musical Annie. Bradford IS Annie. We are the plucky, amazing, unwanted kid that gets up each morning and sings 'Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow. You're only a day away'. And we are fabulous, tenacious, funny and ballsy. And we wait for Daddy Warbucks. And we wait. And we wait. And Daddy never turns up. Until last Tuesday, our Daddy Warbucks moment finally arrived.

This is why my best friend Jenny (who is not prone to fuss and nonsense. She's the sense in our 'Sense and Sensibility' friendship) burst into tears at city park when the news came in that we had won. Yeah. She's the one that they kept showing on the telly.

It means a lot. It means so much. It means we get to count. It means we get to shine. It means our young people get to wake up and think 'good things can happen here' instead of thinking they have to leave. Or worse, that they have to stay but that nothing much good will ever happen for them.

It means our diverse family of citizens will get to shout about what brings us together and what makes us all proud. I am not going to begin to tell you our city doesn't have problems. Of course we do. But what City of Culture allows us to do is get the space to tell your that we are more than those things. And that we are more than you think we can ever be. We have a chance now to bring you in and tell you our amazing stories. Before Tuesday (if you are not from Bradford) you thought you knew us. You do not. But you are going to delighted to discover why we love it here. The underground arts scenes. The youth culture. The food. The history. The architecture. The creative bloody minded brilliance. The everyday humour and resilience. The way the stone of the buildings here glows in the sunshine. The way ‘hi love’ is a catch all, not a sexist put down. And yes, the hills. You will love the hills. Which is a good job because, I’m not going to lie. You can't go anywhere in Bradford without going up a bloody hill. Look, when you visit, because you are now definitely going to come and vist, right? Well when you do, you are going to find out for yourselves just how awesome we are and always have been.

I could bang on. But I will leave you with this thought. In 1864 John Ruskin (top dog Victorian art sniffer, genius, yet deeply problematic dude http://preraphernalia.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-trouble-with-ruskin.html) came to Bradford to give a talk on architecture. He had been invited to come speak, because the great and the good were thinking of building a big, massive, building. To celebrate themselves and their wealth. (They would go on to build the Wool Exchange, which to be fair is rather wonderful. It houses Waterstones now. When you come to town, don't forget to go buy a book there). Anyway, John Ruskin turns up and the great and the good are expecting a speech, advising them on the kind of architecture that they should go for to impress the world. Only John decided instead to give them a stripping down. You can read his speech. It's in print as an essay called 'Traffic'. In 'Traffic' John addresses these great mill owners and industrialists and lays it on the line. Because John was pretty angry. He was speaking at a time when Bradford was the richest city on the planet. Let that sink in. And what he basically said was 'loves, you are fucking loaded. And you are obsessed with folk thinking you are ace, but you are shallow and transparent in your greed. Your workers have nothing and it really will not do. So, here’s the deal. You can keep putting your money into your own pockets and building monuments celebrating yourselves, and it will work for a while. But when your money runs out, what will be left? Not much. Or you could put your money into lifting up the people of this city. You could pour your wealth into them. And when the money runs out, what will be left? A beautiful place with resliliant people who will go on to build even more beautiful possibilities’. The great and the good ignored John and built their palace to their mercantile greatness. Sure enough, when the money ran out, and industry failed, the people of Bradford were left high and dry (with a really nice bookshop). Now, in this moment, when our tomorrow is finally here. It makes my heart sing to know we’re going to be putting the money into our arts and culture to support our people to shine. You wait, we will build things that amaze and that last. I think if John Ruskin was still alive he would have cried at City Park too.

Blog