The Relay Writing Exhibition is being showcased at Pudsey Library as part of the I Love West Leeds Festival during July. The exhibtion starts with a piece written by author Ray French and you can read it here:

This exhibition brings together writing produced by two very different groups. One is a long-established Writers’ Group, who meet regularly at Pudsey Library; the other a group of Refugees from the Time Together project, who meet at Central Library. We began the project one night in March when the two groups met for the first time. There was a marvellous spirit of openness, curiosity and empathy as people took it in turns to tell us about their lives in Yorkshire, Scotland, and Antigua, Iran, Iraq, Eritrea and Sudan; they swapped stories about their childhood, families and friends, compared experiences and shared laughter. The generous and open-minded attitude that was so evident when the two groups met shines through in the writing that is on display in this exhibition. Over the following weeks we met with each of the two groups in turn, getting them to write something, and then showing that writing to the other group at the next meeting, who would then discuss and think about what they’d read and use that as an inspiration to produce something in response: hence the name Relay. And so, over the next couple of months both groups produced a huge variety of writing. In fact the writing you see here is only the tip of the iceberg, this project has proved so productive that we have only been able to offer a small selection for the exhibition. If you visit the website at www.relayproject.wordpress.com you will find much more.

It was fascinating to see how well such a diverse group quickly found common ground, and it struck us early on how much of the writing dealt with family. Perhaps that should come as no surprise as families are, after all, a kind of hothouse for the human emotions, the place where we first experience the most powerful feelings – love, hate, jealousy, and intense loyalty. Our parents and siblings shape our life in profound ways and we spend years either trying to change the patterns of behaviour we learnt at home, or else repeating them either consciously or subconsciously.

Both groups also visited the Leeds Discovery Centre one afternoon, where we got a chance to look at a collection of fascinating exhibits from different cultures specially chosen for us by the curator (and you can also see photos of some of those exhibits at the Relay website). Both groups enjoyed the visit very much, and it provided great inspiration. Indeed one of those exhibits, a Polish doll, has inspired one of the written pieces on display here.

Each member of the Time Together group also worked with a mentor. These are volunteers, local people who give up their own time to try and help the refugees find their feet in this country which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is something to be celebrated. The mentors responded very positively to the invitation to write something themselves and have also contributed pieces to the exhibition and website. I’m delighted that they have done so, as the project could never have worked so well without their hard work, patience and empathy.

Although the work you see here has been produced by people ranging in age from their twenties to their eighth decade, and who hail from such seemingly different places as Britain, the Middle East, and Africa, some common themes have emerged: the search for identity; the need to belong; the power of memory, and the inspirational ability of the human spirit to endure all kinds of conflict. Writing that reminds us, yet again, that no matter where we grow up, or what our background, there are certain things that will always connect us. Zahra, a member of the Time Together group, responded in this way to a piece by Arthur, a member of the Pudsey Writing Group, about his memories of Leeds in the 1920s: ‘I liked reading Arthur’s writing about when he was a small boy because it reminded me of my childhood, even though there are more than fifty years between us.’ This, in turn, led Zahra to write about her memories of her childhood in the Iran in the 1980s. As E.M. Forster said ‘Connect, always connect.’

I often think of writing as putting a message in a bottle, you never know where it will end up, or who might read it, or what effect it will have. The poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote that the universe is made up of stories, not atoms. In today’s frantic and often confusing world it is easy to feel alone and disconnected, but any book or story that affects us joins things up – often joining up things or people that seemed to have no connection at first glance. Perhaps this is what Rukeyser was getting at.

One of the mentors, Ken, wrote of the effect that working with the refugee group had had on him, and I can think of no better way to end this introduction by reproducing a passage from that piece that sums up so well what the project represented, and why it has been such a privilege to be involved: ‘in the last few weeks I’ve sat in a room with a group of refugees who have lived with far worse than I could possibly ever imagine, and they treat each other with respect, they’re tolerant, they’re warm and funny… They’re quite the nicest group of people you could possibly meet. And they’ve given me the strangest thing, and I don’t really know quite how it happened. This group of displaced people, living in a foreign country, under so much disadvantage, who don’t yet feel they belong, have made me feel, for the first time in my life, as though I belong somewhere.’
Ray French

In hindsight, I suppose I have always enjoyed putting pen to paper. I remember vividly as a child writing to my two uncles, who were abroad on active service in the second world war. Childish words, deliberately spelled wrongly, to make them laugh. I even imagined that my work was so funny they would pass it around their mates who, in turns would gain pleasure, even solace, from my literary genius in the danger and turmoil of their lives. Doing my bit for the war effort, I told myself. . . .. or could it have been vanity?

Apart from picture books, the Dandy annual at Christmas and a yearly Sunday School price for good attendance, books did not feature in my life until I was eleven years old and started bringing my text books home from Grammar School Sadly the childrens’ classics eluded me. My parent, like many others of that era, were only very basically educated so “our library” was practically non-existent. Indeed, I could nearly count the number of books in the house on the fingers of one hand; People of All Nations” a one thousand page black and white tome of weird, wonderful and wicked pictures of different cultures and tribes – where I knew exactly which page to turn to, a bible, a dictionary, a soft backed book on the Royal Flying Corps, in which my father had served in the 1914/18 war, prior to the formation of the Royal Air Force, and my very favourite, an instructional book on card games. This substituted as a music book which I would place opened on the sideboard, where I played everything from nursery rhymes to great concertos on the ‘piano’ we did not have, and which I so passionately desired.

Whilst there were few books and, sadly, little encouragement to read, we, as children were never short of a story. My mother, with her wonderful imagination, would tell us delightful, funny or even sad, tales which she made up as she went along. Could it be the imaginative mind which I inherited from her that I turn to for inspiration in my pursuit of authorship?

Whatever, something drives me on, and does there really have to be a reason – other than that I enjoy seeing my thoughts and words in print? Yes, it is obviously vanity!

Molly Johnson

Mona was born in Sudan and has written about her experiences of moving to UK and how she found the landscape ‘fascinating’ because it was so ‘green and rainy’ – she even liked the grey skies. A lot of the British people in the Relay workshop found this strange because the idea of reliably hot weather sounds gloriously appealing. Then Mona told us about the Haboobs that happen in Sudan.

A Haboob is a swirling sandstorm that engulfs everything in its path and looks absolutely terrifying. You can see for yourself how scary it is from this video Mona found on YouTube.

Khalid has written this piece about his Mother and her extraordinairy life. This work was shown to the writers group in Pudsey who all agreed that perfect English is not necessarily the main ingredient in telling a powerful story which has been written in another language. Too much attention to grammar and spelling and the emotional heart of a story could easily find itself lost in translation. Khalid has achieved a great balance here and produced some work which is poetic and has great clarity.

“In the very hot summer in my Country, Shade your eyes from the blinding Sun and look in to the distance you will see about fifty to sixty ancient houses made of clay and set in to green landscape . Don’t think it is mirage.

This verdure is the colour of the Berry and fig trees which are their presence similar in age my Grand Father. They state says there is a life here also. I remember I was going to my Grand parents house with my mother when I was small. I threw stones at these trees. In response to my cruelty, they gave me what they had, the figs and berries. After when I grew up I learnt this proverb from them. Humans must be like these trees.

If you look at the style of the houses and river, how it crosses the village, you can see that the builder of this village obviously was Samarian or Medyn or maybe Babylonian.

As I remember I was in my grandmothers house and she told me that on rainy night my mother signalled her arrival to the world in this house by her shouting . My mother, like all the woman from the third world countries had to live by the correct rules decided for her, a mans by the power was full. He was the ruler deciding what a woman must do or not, even the clothes she wore.

Her destiny was decided before she was born. But my mother when she grew up was brave like a modern woman. She defied these old rules and she chose her life for her self. A famous Russian writer, Dostoevsky, says that the strongest memory is a child hood memory. What ever happened to me or will ever happen, the memory of this day can never be removed. This day was when my father returned home suddenly and took my mother to the other room for few minutes.

He said “Khawar the revolution will start. I leave this children with you.take care of them in my absence you will act on my behalf. There is a great duty for me. Its the day that I have always dreamed of, we will fight against this regime for our children and the others. We must give them freedom. And about you I spoke with my comrade. They accept that you will start your duty as a messenger” I heard them after this fantastic conversation they came out of the room. My father called all of us together. we are four brothers and one sister. He kissed all of us and said” my little kids do what your mothers says” Tears ran down my mother face and she said ” they will do ” my father said “I will be away from home for some time ”

After he said farewell to us, he took his bag and he left and he didn’t came back. Since that time I did not have the joy of seeing my father even once?.

After that, at least once a week my mother she was going to the city or mountain as a messenger in the revolution. For all this dangerous and hard work she was still a mother completely. After several month of the

revolution she became a weak and her face changed at least 15 years older than her age, after the comrade in the mountains told her that my father had become hawk in the mountains. He become light for the rising generation. But my mother continued her duties with this tragic news, she didn’t stop.

One day my mother was travelling back form the mountain for a time she was very cautious and so she feel I ambush. some one had betrayed her. She was arrested whilst carrying documents from the revolution. They transferred her to the prison. For more then six months we lived without a mother also, we stayed at our uncles house in her absence. The revolutionary comrade after much hard work freed my mother. When she returned home she was very weak.

A few weeks later she decided to leave the village and we moved to the city. there the revolutionary comrades rented a house for us and they paid the rent. It was not obvious for me and my brothers why my mother decided to leave the village. By the time we knew the regime destroyed the village and taken the village people prisons. The excuse for this was that the village people had helped in the revolution. This was always the government plan, to destroy the village and take the to prison. We stayed in the city until the revolution had a victory and the regime was removed from power. The revolutionary comrades came to our house occasionally.

I think there is no poem or story or novel that can tell the tragedy of my country. If you look at the near, you will eyes fall to the new village. You can find all the services, health care, schools, paved streets.

The revolutionaries named the new village after my mother (KHAWAR )to show honour and respect to this revolutionary woman.”

This story is about my experience of working in Zambia during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. It is a factual account of what happened to the lives of ordinary people, during a crisis when its major export commodity, copper, declined in price. During these years, the country was a so-called ‘front-line state’ in the war against the regime in the neighbouring state of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). This compounded Zambia’s difficulties, as what copper could be mined was difficult to ship out. All of Zambia’s economy depended on this one product and the consequences affected everything from the price of bread to car parts. It had similarities to what has happened to local communities in the UK when a coal mine closed, or a steel mill shut – only worse and on a national scale. Sometimes I was not simply an observer, but a participant. This situation could be taking place today, in another developing country, in another city. One thing remains the same. It is the ordinary people who are the major victims, through no fault of their own, trapped in an endless cycle of poverty. It is they who suffer most.

In many African countries, the first to suffer from the onslaught of food shortages is the ordinary villager or poor urban dweller. Whether this is caused by natural causes such as famine, the devastating ravages of war, corruption by their politicians, or the collapse of a major export, they are so often the first casualties. In any African country dependent on the sale of a major commodity, this can set off an escalating chain of consequences. This is what happened in Zambia during the late 1970’s and 1980’s, although the country eventually recovered. But similar events have taken place in other developing countries and even today, global news reports show these tragedies are still occurring.

In Zambia, the decline in revenues from copper, which were exported world-wide, had a gradual but inescapable effect on goods brought in from outside the country. There was an inevitable shortage of foreign exchange and with an infrastructure lacking in the means of manufacturing even the most basic of commodities, shortages became endemic. The once quite splendid and well-stocked supermarkets of its show-piece cities, became eerie wastelands with shelves completely empty, stretching from the front of the store to the very perimeter. Occasionally shelves would appear with a bizarre selection of non-essential items, like jars of nut-meg or low voltage light bulbs. These would be carefully placed in a single-line along the front edge of the shelf with an almost military precision. Nothing was on top or behind the isolated row; it had an almost artistic significance, as though preserved for a post-modern exhibition. Supposedly something to display was better than nothing and demonstrated an irrepressible desire on behalf of the shelf-stackers to make themselves useful. As hopeful shoppers walked the isles, vigilant for a rare item others may have missed, they too eyed the artistic display of things no-one wanted. Maybe the initiative of the shelf-stackers really did have an entertainment quality. Beyond this bizarre encounter with the super-market world, the tragic reality of shortages became a daily event.
Whenever something in demand appeared, it was rare for it to actually get as far as being displayed. A network of informers would have somehow discovered its arrival and the store would be besieged by demanding shoppers removing it as fast as it hit the shelves. It was possible for the goods never to reach the shelves, instantly transferred from loading pallet to shopper’s basket. An informal communications network appeared to become established to communicate with anxious city residents about the location of essential supplies.
In many instances black-market hoarders intercepted even this communications route and stripped goods out only to sell them at inflated prices at their own premises. When news of a long awaited product spread, queues formed at the doors of the store. The penchant for order in queues so thoroughly displayed by their colonial masters in the past century (but did they ever really queue here?) was absent. It more often resembled a mob with the premises under siege.
The carnival atmosphere which is seen so much in African life, whether in bars, or in the bantering of groups waiting for a late train, was absent in this urban struggle. For many it was no longer selecting the best price for a basic necessity, their struggle had descended into a fight where there would be few winners. This was not a natural order. For many living in the surrounding townships, urban living was about day-to-day survival.
When even their meagre income could not wrestle the necessities out of the system, it stripped away their dignity. There was no one on their side. What they scrambled for was achieved by someone else’s loss.
When goods arrived at a local store, organized protection arrived too. Police were often in attendance with long batons brought into effect to keep at least some sense of order. It resembled a life and death struggle with shouting and threats between those latecomers struggling to get in front of the mob and the early arrivals keeping them back. The police inevitably tended to slowly lose ground as the throng grew in size. When the doors finally opened, it was a surge of humanity that clamoured for the goods. Hours of pent-up frustrations were suddenly released, the expectancy of a single loaf of bread, hope that the anxiety of the long wait was worth it all. There was scrambling and pushing as scarce commodities were grabbed before the supply disappeared. On occasions the doors were actually never opened, for fear of the crowd releasing their anger on the shop assistants. Goods were passed through the security bars into a sea of waving hands. There were casualties with people being trampled underfoot and babies were reported to have been crushed to death while strapped to their mother’s backs.
The tragedy in all this was that many of the products under siege were staple foodstuffs capable of being grown commercially. Why bother with growing locally when money was there to fly everything in? Villagers in remote districts hardly new what was happening in the larger cities. They grew staple products for their families, with perhaps enough surpluses to sell at the local market. But even they were not so remote from the international commodity price of copper. A global situation had somehow come home to shrink their cooking oil supplies and paraffin for their lanterns. Medicines at their local hospital started to vanish. How was the local village chief to explain what was happening to communities who barely knew what copper was?
Although initial shortages, which affected most people on a day-to-day basis, were foodstuffs, increasingly the whole fabric of the industrial and service sector began to suffer. Garages ran out of spares for the average car; machinery ceased up for the most basics of running repairs. Even the copper mines, the single most lucrative export earner located in the north of the country was not spared. This was indeed expensive and essential machinery, but still resulted in two hundred ton ore moving trucks incapable of moving due to non-existent spares.
For some there were profits to be made from the misfortunes of the many. An underworld of thieves, hoarders, black marketeers and ‘informers’ grew up with the aim of gaining a percentage by either supplying goods or knowing someone who could deliver. Lusaka was both the administrative and business capital with every foreign embassy and non-governmental organization being represented. The Copperbelt towns of the north although smaller, still maintained a moneyed elite amongst the supervisory ranks of the miners. This resulted in many businesses and individuals with enough money to pay the premium demanded for hard to get goods. The embassies had so-called diplomatic bags to bring products in by. Such methods could by-pass customs and get what would be labelled as ‘luxury goods’ – a tactful description for obtaining anything not available locally. The commodities which came under this heading made up a bizarre category and included vehicle tyres and car parts.
But for the many of the city’s residents, it was the network of informers and tip-offs, which supplied their needs. It seemed that if something was needed there would always be someone, somewhere who could get it – for a price. As usual it was always the average working person who lost out in the scramble for scarcities. They rarely had the money to pay a black market price and their free time would be spent scouring the markets for anything which might have been overlooked, or waiting at a store for hours at a time hoping that a delivery would arrive.
During the trauma of endless shortages, I was never aware of widespread disruption with street protests or even violent displays against political leaders or those accused of hoarding. Perhaps everyone thought they were part of a collective responsibility for the mess the country was in. Or more probably, the old African quality of acceptance in the face of adversity was keeping the rumblings of discontent in check. It was to prove a dangerous balance.

Roger Barton
Pudsey Library Writing Group