On Sunday, we hosted a Sharing Stories event at The Old Woollen in Farsley. This was the culmination of the Hidden Stories project that I’ve been working on since the turn of the year and I was over the moon with how it turned out.
We had community engagement ranging from a 5-year-old boy to 89-year-old June Pearce, who worked as a mender at Sunny Bank Mills in the 1950s. It meant the world to me to perform the poems that I’ve written as part of the project in such a unique setting. And we managed to raise £600 for Ukraine in the process.
These are some pics that I took right at the start. So, whilst they don’t capture the energy of the event, they at least showcase what a brilliant job SBM did with the venue…
I just wanted to shout about the project and say thank you to both Sunny Bank Mills and LEEDS 2023 for inviting me to take on the residency. This is the kind of gig that you dream of as a poet and it was brilliant to become so immersed in my new family home of Farsley.
Special thanks also to the Pudsey & District Civic Society, Benjamin Mills, Peter Carlill, and Springbank Primary School. Can’t wait to see what’s next…
Matt Abbott Poet 
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