Yesterday I was with some of the Friends of Bradford’s Becks, representing the Beck in the city centre as part of the, er, Ilkley Literature Festival’s contribution to this weekend’s Bradford Festival. Thanks to Geoff Roberts for this group photo of the contributors…
This was a poetry event, presented in Waterstone’s (in Bradford’s historic Wool Exchange), and hosted by FoBB chairman Barney Lerner (second on left). This year FoBB has published a book of poems about Bradford Beck, by a range of local poets, and has even recorded a CD of many of them being read. It’s all part of an ongoing attempt to raise awareness of the Beck, to speak of it in language even when it can’t be seen with the eyes…
It should be noted, though, that Eddie Lawler and I were cheating slightly, by (1) presenting song and narrative rather than poetry as such… (though nobody seemed to mind!), and (2) by offering “The Ballad of Little Beck” rather than a meditation on Bradford Beck itself. Eddie’s song written was for Salt’s Waters (a double act we have twice presented at Saltaire Festival), and features my narrative interjections about the ruined Milner Field House. (Soon to be part of a new downloadable audio tour available at www.saltswaters.co.uk)
Still, in an effort to direct our attentions back to the city’s main watercourse, Eddie and I headed outside following the poetry presentation (as heard by a small but appreciative audience). We set out to hunt down the trail of plaques that have recently been installed by FoBB to trace the underground route of Bradford Beck through city centre. This one below, located on Bank Street, is typical: it bears the FoBB logo and the name of a supporting sponsor (Feature Radiators) in opposite corners, with a striking visual in the centre. Each plaque has a slightly different choice of wording – this one speaks of the beck “whispering in the dark … waiting for a rebirth” — perhaps a return to daylight; a “resurrection from this rat-ridden cave”, as Eddie’s song Bradford Beck so memorably puts it…
The map below tracks the 15 plaque positions — and Eddie, his wife Olga and I tracked them backwards from number 15 (near the end of Canal Road) towards the first one by the Odeon cinema — which is built directly over the top of the Beck. We discovered, however, that only plaques 8 through 15 have so far been installed. We hunted high and low for the others, but they’re not in place yet.
Hopefully the others will be in place by September, when FoBB is planning a number of activities for World Rivers Day. Among them will be guided tours of the plaques route — and Eddie and I were scouting them out with a view to planning such a tour.
As this picture shows, the plaques can be unobtrusive — barely noticeable even, unless you’re looking for them — but that is part of their charm I think. They’re subtle reminders of the presence of something that is literally invisible… buried 2 or 3 metres beneath our feet. A tour will, I think, have to play with that question of the visible or invisible, absent or present… We will also be hoping, frankly, for better weather in September than we’ve had this weekend. Water is a wonderful thing, but when it’s drizzling out of the sky, it doesn’t half put a dampener on “festival” spirits…
xx