At the last Granby 4 Streets Market, local community organisation Writing in the Wall presented some of the work done at a series of events they’ve been running for us lately. These events were about people getting together and telling their Granby stories. Getting a shared sense of the history and the rich culture of the place as part of working on its future, specifically working towards what we’ll do with the Four Corners, where the shops used to be at the corners of Granby Street and Cairns Street.

Hazel Tilley, on the right here, in Cairns Street.

Everything that was read was powerful and real and truly rooted in the place being written about. And one, this poem, struck me so powerfully at the time, painting such a vivid picture of what the Granby people have had to go through to get to where we are now, that I asked its writer if she’d let me publish it on here. She said yes.

A rant about the bins
(And how other people always seem to know the best way for us to live)
By Hazel Tilley

“So, houses are knocked down, because someone who’s never walked down Granby Street
knows how to improve our area, and the best way for us to live.
And people are moved out, because the shops are closing down
And the area’s neglected.
And the other people, the ones who know the best way for us to live, smell money
So, they ignore the history of each brick and slate and skirting board,
Of each life spent in each house. Continue reading →