Welcome To Notts

on’t let the bastards grind you down” was one of the key quotes from the 1960 Albert Finney movie Saturday Night & Sunday Morning. Finney’s character Arthur Seaton was an angry working class young man who was intent on escaping the drudgery of factory work and the limited opportunities afforded out to people born in the area where it was filmed, Radford, Nottingham.

He was a rebel in the mould of Alex from A Clockwork Orange only without the ultraviolence. In fact, many say that Malcolm McDowell stole Finney’s schtick for his role in that film.

The reason we mention this now is because we just spent a week living in Radford to find out what it was like there and whether or not “the bastards” had actually grinded anybody down or not. We’re sorry to report that they have and that the area is pretty much mincemeat.


rom the 1970s, the trade industry in Nottingham began to crumble and fall apart. Thanks to industrial disputes and foreign imports big factories like Player’s and Raleigh began downsizing and laying people off.

These two factories used to be based in the middle of Radford but now all that’s left are derelict car parks. The terraced housing that was home to the workers and their families was replaced in the 60s and 70s by open plan modern housing estates with plasterboard walls. Reason? The old houses had outside toilets. The coal industry, famously torn apart in the early 80s by the miner’s strike, used to employ thousands of people in pits all across Nottinghamshire. Now though, there’s only a handful of small mines dotted around the county.

Because of the lack of decent employment opportunities in Nottingham, crime has gone through the roof and it’s estimated that crimes like burglary are FIVE times the national average. Recent high profile gun crime cases, where teenagers have been shot in broad daylight, have also added to the city’s woes. House prices are down by 14 per cent (the worst in the country). The hospital has a deficit of £20m and forecast job losses of 1,300. Because of the acute poverty and disadvantaged people living in Radford, a development fund of £55 million was granted to the area to help develop the community. The only evidence we could see of this was fancy new accommodation for the city’s transient student population. Thanks!

What follows in this issue is what we saw after a week of living on people’s floors in Radford and the neighbouring areas of St Ann’s, The Meadows, Brockstow and Sneinton.

We watched and listened to some pretty depressing things, but the people we met were friendly and helpful. The aim of this issue? To show how poverty doesn’t just exist in far flung places that celebrities visit to generate press for themselves. Sometimes it’s just down the road.

 

Photo by Alex Sturrock

St Ann’s housing estate, near Radford, 2006.