A scornful sceptic once asked if anything good could come out of Nazareth. Cynicism and low expectation meant this man almost missed out on meeting the Messiah. Philip was an object lesson in the dangers of judging a book by its cover (or in this case, a person by his home town.)
I was rather like Philip. I was born in Barnsley and loved my home town, but the Dearne Valley, despite being the place of my parents’ birth, was something else. They ‘escaped’ from Bolton-on-Dearne on their marriage to the heady heights of Ardsley and I saw nothing good in these dreary Dearne villages to draw me back. Actually, at eighteen, as I set off to university among the dreaming spires of Oxford, I was quietly confident I would spread my wings and fly away altogether. The world was my oyster and I expected to like shellfish.
Like C. S. Lewis, I was to become a reluctant convert – not to Christianity, which I embraced at seventeen with a sense of purpose and destiny, but to the Dearne Valley. God called me back here to live and work in this area, and I was not best pleased with Him. I’d planned to live abroad, using my linguistic talents in exotic settings. How dare He have other ideas?!
God loves the whole world, and that includes Thurnscoe, Goldthorpe and my parents’ native Bolton-on-Dearne. I don’t remember a specific date when my attitude changed. I came to live in a terraced house in Thurnscoe in 1987, and I’m still here. At first, I was restless, reluctant, grumpy. I felt I had little in common with the majority of people and yearned for beauty, not the ugliness of shuttered shops and littered streets.
But beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. Slowly, I came to realise a community is made up primarily of people. It’s people who make a difference to places, who shape beauty from ashes, who care enough to pick up the litter and instil new values and hope to a place. It’s people who pull together on projects and infuse an area with positive vibes. It’s people who dare to dream who turn villages into places of welcome and acceptance.
I started volunteering in my local community – at the Dearne Enterprise Centre in Goldthorpe (now the Factory), at Houghton Road Centre and at Gooseacre Primary School in Thurnscoe. I discovered other people with passion and commitment; I discovered people who care. And one day, I discovered, to my astonishment and surprise, that I loved where I lived.
That’s why I am determined to celebrate this community, for this area is so much more than it is perceived to be from the outside. Can anything good come out of Thurnscoe, Goldthorpe and Bolton-on-Dearne? Most emphatically, yes! Regeneration can come, new birth that incorporates the physical locations, the economic health, the wellbeing of residents and the spiritual life of the area. Community spirit is alive and well in this place. The arts’ festival is just one way of recognising and celebrating that fact.
BMBC’s ‘Love Where You Live’ campaign is a reminder to us all that love has the potential to change everything. The Dearne Valley is full of people who care, who sow seeds of love into their communities day-in and day-out. Let’s champion creativity in all its glorious guises and celebrate community in all its fabulous forms and be a people who leave cynicism and despondency behind to embrace a positive present and a fearless future with a God who never gives up on us and who is able to bring good from every place as we work with Him in love and hope.
