So, that industrial rubble out there:
Perched high over the Vale of Scarsdale, dominated by a magnificent 17th-century castle, the Derbyshire town of Bolsover is proudly kept; so too are the former mining villages that surround it. But the neatness and prettiness on a bright late-August day occlude the fact that the area has suffered since the pits closed. Opportunities are few, unemployment high. Buses are infrequent and expensive. A worrying amount of violent and sexual crime is reported to the local police. Much of what once gave these places their identity has drifted away. In the nearby village of Pinxton, a mural has just been unveiled on the gable end of the village hall. “It is,” says Paul Steele, who worked with the parish council to commission it, “about everything Pinxton has lost” – its railway station, its mine, its porcelain factory. This is classic “red wall” territory: Dennis Skinner lost his seat here to the Conservatives at the 2019 general election.
Steele is the managing director of Junction Arts, the local community arts organisation. “Bolsover has essentially no cultural infrastructure,” he tells me. No theatre, no music venue, no further education. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t creativity. Of course there is.
Those rich southerners should pay for a drag queen reading here. Bitches love drag queen readings.
“A worrying amount of violent and sexual crime is reported to the local police”
– “He left coal dust where he touched me, officer. That’s how I know he’s an unemployed miner.”
And all that cultural devastation has been achieved in less than Three Tory Years! The proud achievements of The Skinner Paradise Eternity have been swept away. As if they never happened.
The headline is quite enough
Arts funding in England is a thin gruel that organisations are forced to beg for
So they bloody should !
I was reading yesterday about some huge nationwide arts project that apparently has swallowed £120 million. I had never heard of it and it seems to have been doling cash out to trans people of colour outreach workshops.
People leave the land and move to where the mills, factories, businesses are.
People move to where the work is.
Said businesses close and the people stay put expecting work to come to them. It doesn’t.
people stay put expecting work to come to them. It doesn’t.
But that’s the fault of the Evil Tories (TM)
They should be funding the Trans Outreach Workshops for the poorpeople in these benighted spots.
It’s ok everyone, if they get more dosh showered on them, they’ll put on ‘a summer children’s festival for nearby Chesterfield, where its office is based..’
Just what the locals need!
Nothing says you’re serious about tackling unemployment and crime like a fully funded cultural arts program.
“Opportunities are few, unemployment high. Buses are infrequent and expensive. ”
Well, this goes to show how fantastic cars are. Even poor people in low density areas have ditched the bus for an old car. Isn’t that great?
“No theatre, no music venue, no further education. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t creativity. Of course there is.”
What are the arts that people actually care about? There’s TV (streaming or freeview) that has never had so much choice. There’s movies, either streamed or at the local Cineworld, which is in Chesterfield 5 miles away. Books? Amazon will deliver almost anything, cheaply to your Kindle. Spotify has almost any music. Beyond that, there’s going and seeing a top band or a musical, at which point, you take a trip to Sheffield 35 minutes away.
This is replicated across the country and people are fine with it. If they really wanted plays, or Korean movies, there would be theatres and art house cinemas in every town. What you get instead are arts in a few places, like Bath, Cheltenham, Bristol and people either live there to take advantage, or they travel in to use the service.