Gentle Action in Middlesborough: A Pari Center success story.
Claire and Gordon Shippey, a young couple from Middlesbrough visited the Pari Center in October 2001 to take part in David Peat's course New Science, New Paradigms. Middlesbrough, situated in the northeast, was the first town in England to owe its existence to a railway. In 1830 the world's first railroad, the Stockton to Darlington line, was extended to the head of the River Tees estuary and the site became the coal-exporting port of Middlesbrough. With the discovery of iron ore nearby, ironworks were built, followed by steelworks. The town boasts the world's largest working transporter bridge of its kind, 850 ft long, built in 1911. Its other claim to fame is that the explorer Captain James Cook was born in Marton-in-Cleveland now part of Middlesbrough and the town houses the Captain Cook museum.
Like so many of the towns and cities in northern England it was home to the type of traditional heavy industries (chiefly engineering and steel) that all but disappeared during the tumultuous Thatcher era. The town, which has grown rapidly over the last ten years to a population of around 200,000, has had to face chronic problems of unemployment, crime, drugs, and the disintegration of community. Some parts of the town have become garbage-strewn areas of abandoned and burned-out cars, places no longer safe for children to play. It is one example of the deterioration that has become the fate of so many cities all over the industrialized world. In many cases inner-city areas are allowed to decay to the point where property prices drop to such a level that developers can buy up entire neighborhoods forcing out the existing population in order to create trendy shopping centers or enclaves for the affluent. And so the cycle of community destruction continues as the original inhabitants are forced to move further and further out to the periphery of cities.
The area of Middlesbrough in which Claire and Gordon live is five minutes from the town center - a traditional working class area of row housing with back alleyways separating the rows of houses. The houses are family owned and the residents are employed by the town council or work in shops or factories or at the local mosque. Gordon is a Support Worker (working with people who are physically disabled or have sensory loss) and Claire works as a Production Operator in a factory. Over the past two years there has been a large influx of immigrants and asylum seekers, chiefly from Iraq and Libya, into an area that has one of the highest unemployment rates in the UK - a situation primed for racial conflict. The Shippeys and their neighbours are not people with a great deal of formal education, have had no previous experience in political activism and certainly do not have friends in high places and yet, by bonding together, were able to bring about important changes in their community.
In the year 2000 there had been prolonged heavy rainfall in many parts of England leading to widespread flooding. The area in which Claire and Gordon live was twice hit by flooding. Gordon described a sound like an explosion (it was the manhole covers being blown out of the drains by the force of rapidly rising water) and then a few minutes later water gushing through both his front and back doors. When the local council seemed slow to take action - in terms of clean-up, testing for contamination in the drinking water, prevention of further flooding - a few neighbors got together and demanded that their elected representatives listen to them. Gordon and Claire were amongst the first activists. A series of "flood meetings" were called at which the council dismissed the flooding as a freak happening, a one-off, even though the residents produced evidence from the environment agency that showed the houses had been built on a flood plain and had had problems for over forty years. The problem was exacerbated by inadequate drains, the lack of drainage in a nearby park and new houses being built in the area putting even more stress on an already over-burdened and outdated drainage system. "Our problem was," said Gordon, "that at these meetings we were not a cohesive group just a few individuals who were easy to ignore."
Then in October 2001 Gordon decided that he wanted to take David Peat's course New Science/New Paradigms in the village of Pari in Italy. Gordon and Claire were struck by the order and cleanliness of the village. In Middlesbrough they lived in a row of houses located between two main roads. As Gordon said, "While Pari is an island surrounded by green, we are in a sea of roads." The couple noticed that house keys were left in the doors and people gathered in the square to talk. Pari was a place where everyone knew each other. "I felt ashamed," said Gordon, "when I think our block is only half the size of Pari yet we didn't even know each other's names. What hit me most and changed the way I felt about my hometown was when David showed us a video of Pari's Sagra (the annual autumn festival). We could see the way that people had worked together. Little did I know but my wife was having thoughts about how to get our flood message across and also tackle other problems. Claire just said, 'Let's get to know others in our block and start a formal group of some kind. This way we can get around councilor apathy and other issues.' We talked till late into the night. One thing that struck us was that we had made social connections with others at the course within the short period of a week. So we thought perhaps the same thing could be done in our own area at home - that perhaps within a short time we could band together and form a group. Looking back to 2000 (before Pari) I think it was implicit in all of us to bond together after Mother Nature had paid us an unwelcome visit! However Pari helped to unfold that thought in Claire's mind."
"When we got back Claire's work prevented her from getting the group together (she works the night shift) so I took it on with the help of two others, Nassian Hussian and Jason Stead. I had thought that we were being too naive and most people would tell us where to go. We went round from door to door talking to people and lo and behold I was surprised to find that everyone agreed that action must be taken. We got in touch with the councilor for our ward and got the use of a local center for meetings. We already had a specific area mapped out and a name for the group - TAMS (Talbot Street/Alleys/Marton Rd/Southfield Rd - the immediate streets most badly in need of community action). We felt the flood issue was the best way to get a group together - the flood strengthened the bond. After that we could start sorting out all the other problems."
One of these problems was the shared back alleys between the rows of houses. Not only did they house the garbage cans but were also strewn with trash - including burnt-out cars - that residents from other streets had dumped. The alleys were also a haven for drug dealers. Gordon describes how things began and progressed.
"After we formed the TAMS Association people began to talk to each other and children started to play outside. An older lady (89) said that the last time she saw this kind of thing round here was 35 years ago. We have met with local government officials and police and, as a collective, we have managed to push forward our idea of turning our burnt-out alleys into places where we can live and have parties. We have put forward other proposals, such as hanging baskets of flowers and blocking off the main road. We are now at the point of changing the area into a kind of village within a town. We had a good response from the shops in the area and the University of Teesside are willing to work with us as a number of houses are rented by students. Also the Member of Parliament for the area was impressed with the number of people who turned out to our meeting."
As in all large towns and cities, the police force of Middlesbrough is overstretched. A government pilot project was introduced to install street wardens who liaise with the police and, to some extent, play the role of the old "neighbourhood bobby" patrolling the area, keeping an eye on children, talking to people, assessing problems or damage and reporting back to the police. They are recognizable by their green jackets and carry walkie-talkies. The head warden was part of the action plan that TAMS put together that brought about the following changes.
1. The residents decided to clean up the back alleys and move the garbage cans to the front of the houses.
2. TAMS made a video and photo presentation of the state of the alleys to stir the town council into action. Included in the display were cartoons drawn by local children presenting the problems through the eyes of a child particularly the drug dealing that took place in the back alleys. The result was that the council agreed to put up gates to block traffic coming into the area and generally preventing unwanted outsiders gaining access.
3. The residents cleaned up an abandoned woodwork shop that had been used for drug dealing. They are applying for a grant to use it as offices.
4. The community hope to convert a piece of waste ground into a play area and name it after one young resident, Rosie, who had worked hard to catalogue all the garbage in the area. This was presented at the meeting that led to the alley gates being installed.
5. The promotion of the warden system together with a traffic report written in 2002 with the cooperation of the wardens.
6. The links established with the University of Teesside which, it is anticipated, will grow stronger when ward boundaries change this year bringing the university into the TAMS ward and an adjacent ward. Recently the members of TAMS have been invited to a 'Fear of Crime' exhibition night at the University where 'Crime Meets Art'. Also the University Culture and Creative Industries Development Department have invited TAMS to become involved in an Aniatronics Exhibition by David Williams. (Aniatronics is a type of digital animation)
The larger and more costly issue was the ongoing problem of flooding. As TAMS began to get coverage in the local newspapers and on the radio stations the council finally admitted that there was indeed a problem, that the flood system didn't work, that people in the area had suffered and now lived in fear of health problems from contaminated water. In fact the residents, led by TAMS, had been left to clean up after the flooding - a job that took six months to decontaminate the area.
Gordon says that there is still a great deal of work to be done. He and his fellow members of TAMS recognize that flooding won't always be preventable but feel that the least the council could is to have defensive measures in place - global warming isn't going to go away and flooding is certainly going to recur. TAMS approached the council with an action plan that included asking for grants to fortify their homes against flooding only to be told that privately owned homes are not eligible for grants (untrue). In coming up with this action plan TAMS contacted two inventors about flood defense - one who had invented a type of plastic board that vacuum seals doors and windows and the other who had developed a fabric that sticks to air bricks.
Gordon feels that, as chairperson of TAMS, he being given the run around at the Town Hall meetings. For example, he took a day off work after being invited to meet the town council. When he arrived for the meeting he was asked to return as the council first needed to consult its lawyer. On his return he was asked to leave immediately without being given the chance to speak. He complains also that members of TAMS are not being given sufficient notice of meetings nor allowed enough time to make their point at council meetings or are told to "shut up" when topics are raised that the council have no wish to address. A more serious charge of harassment directed at the Vice Chair of TAMS (that resulted in his resignation) has been leveled against one of the councilors.
TAMS is proud of the work it has done in raising the consciousness of the community about this forty year old flood issue and support is increasing all the time yet the fight with the town hall does not abate. One of their biggest achievements Gordon says is that, "TAMS is proud of being a mixed-faith community (Christian and Muslim) of all ages. We have found new friends and we talk in the alleys and streets. This sounds so simple but it has changed so much, anyone can call on anyone else in case of trouble or flooding. The great thing is that we have something which large parts of the world find difficult to bring about - this kind of mixed community, Our interracial group is working well and the council sees us as united - in other areas the pressure groups are either all white or all Asian. Perhaps what is needed to solve the world's racial problems is for local bonds to be made first rather than at the national or international level. Who knows? I wish I did. As for the future. Even if -and it's a big if - TAMS folds we still have our friendships and a community and that's more than any grant can give you. One evening recently over a bottle of red wine I was reading over what David Peat had written about Gentle Action. He used the metaphor of tiny ripples in water producing a big effect. It suddenly struck me that this was in fact a reality. It was water (the flooding) that had caused us to move into this area of community and Gentle Action. In retrospect the flood was both good and bad - good because when we came to Pari it gave direction to our thoughts at just the right time."
How do Gordon and Claire deal, in terms of Gentle Action, with the provocation they must feel? "We certainly feel frustration," says Gordon. "But as members of a group we have each other to talk to. Interdependence is the key. Also we decided from the beginning that whatever our feelings were at any given moment we must always keep in mind the wider picture. We must keep a steady support when dealing with issues - particularly when we are running up against the old order of things like the Council. We are like water eroding away at a coastline over time but it's not just an external erosion but also internally, within ourselves. It means we are more flexible, more open to new ideas, we question things. We are not a token group like so many others. That's why the higher-ups do not like us. I believe that humour is also important - it breaks down barriers and leads to creative new ideas, like our flood defense measures, which started as a joke and ended up being a successful enterprise. By our actions we have changed not just the environment but also ourselves."
