Articles - Miscellaneous

A Day in Leeds with just 50p

Earlier this year a few dozen people from Roundhay churches took part in an exploration of social justice issues using an approach called the One City Project - OCP. As part of the OCP, participants had the opportunity to experience a day in Leeds with just 50p for lunch and nothing much to do. (I had last done this 10 years ago so I was interested to see how the city and my approach to the experience might have changed).The day's retreat started with prayers and a briefing from Nigel (the OCP co-ordinator) in the shady courtyard at the back of Holy Trinity Church on Boar Lane. I set off in the already high temperature of a mid-June Saturday at 10am.

First I passed Anthony's restaurant, molecular gastronomy for around £50 a head à la carte, plus wine - then, under the Dark Arches, over Victoria Bridge along the south bank of the River Aire. I found a copy of previous night's YEP, free read; past the new yuppie flats - PRIVATE, RESIDENTS ONLY, CCTV - back over the river to Leeds Parish Church (on a baking hot day a haven of cool and rest); on to the bus station, another oasis (free cold drinking water in the gents); across to St Anne's centre (I bought lunch for 50p here 10 years ago), not open on Saturday; past the Playhouse to the Emmaus House, where previously homeless people live and work.

On a grassy bank nearby was a group of rough sleepers/street drinkers according to your choice of jargon. They were very affable. I declined a cocktail of sherry and cider at noon. They recommended a 50p lunch from a dodgy meat stall in the market - a bit past its sell-by date but usually OK they assured me.

It was a long, hot walk to St George's crypt. I met a Big Issue seller; a Mars Bar was his lunch suggestion - at least you know what's in it he said; over the footbridge to Swarthmore Square, just me, a young couple carrying their possessions in plastic bags and a wasted man in ragged clothes asleep on the grass. I am afraid to spend my 50p, then I would have nothing; now back into the sanitised city centre - shops, restaurants, and cafés - no good to me with just 50p; another visit to the bus station oasis where I buy and, very slowly eat my 38p Mars bar at 3pm - 12p change. I fell into faltering conversation with a woman from Srebrenica - her teenage son interpreted a little for us (I wondered if his dad was one of the 7000 massacred there 10 years ago, when I last shuffled around Leeds with 50p. They seemed sorry for me being on my own on a lovely summer's day). I tried to negotiate with a market stallholder for the purchase of a 15p bread roll with my 12p change, nothing doing so I gave it to the Big Issue seller.

I spent most of the last hour sitting in the railway station without a ticket for my destination; then homeward bound, back to Holy Trinity at 6pm to collect my keys and credit cards.

David Everett

30 August, 2005