Leeds Changes, But It Stays The Same, too

It’s been quite a week for a discombobulated, terrifying world. I’ve done something that grounds me: walking in Leeds and finding some joy and hope in its past and present.

It came as someone in Madison, Wisconsin wrote a blog post about my love of Leeds that says “what makes Nickson’s series stand out is the portrait of the city itself—a place largely off the beaten path for many crime readers—as it progresses from a regional center of the wool and agricultural trade to sprawling industrial boom town bursting with late Victorian optimism. They’re a unique option to read the life of a city through one of its native sons, through the imagined stories of its crimes.”

It came as a surprise, but a gratifying one. You can read it all here.

Sunday took me around what’s left of the Leylands, the area where so many of the Jewish immigrants settled when they first arrived here. Walking along Nile Street, it was easy to imagine the place as it would have been 120 years ago, alive with chatter in Yiddish, the constant buzz of sewing machines making suits in the sweat shops. The smell of baked goods, the unfamiliar foods, adverts in Yiddish. A world alive with ideas and things that people had brought with them. All gone now.

From there, to Sheepscar, another place that’s been mostly gutted. A few things remain, the old Victoria public house, of course, now something completely different. The Pointers in, now a restaurant. The old Newtown cinema on Cross Stamford St., which could hold over 700 people, Next to it, union premises.

Walking by there, I smelled baking on a Sunday morning and found a Middle Eastern supermarket, quite busy (although no houses are close). All kinds of halva in the bakery, plus so much more. I bought a U-shaped tune of meat (lamb?) baked in philo dough. Around me, everyone was speaking Arabic.

It was wonderful, a continuation, a renewal of a scene that would have happened half a mile and 120 years away. In some small way, it reaffirmed my faith in Leeds. Things so change, but underneath, so much stays the name in my city of immigrants.

Running through it all, the constancy of Sheepscar Beck.

Finally, Amazon has the ebook and hardback of Them Without Pain on a very good sale right now. UK only, I’m sorry to say. But if you’ve been thinkinig of buying it, or want to make it a Christmas gift for someone, this is the time. You can find it here.