5 Gavin Bailey

Date: 26 April 2008
Where: at home, outside!
What: salads, my own recipe olive bread, lasagne from Delia’s vegetarian recipes (?), olives.

Amazingly it was still warm enough to sit outside at 5:30 on a Saturday afternoon. Did it mean summer was here? Would we be able to do this every week until September? Sadly not, but it was good to have at least one chance to eat in the garden.

My guests were from the UK, New Zealand and Ireland. We were eight adults and two 2-year-olds, who enjoyed their chance to play out and eat too.

We talked about the Dishinit project, and the bowls. This set of bowls were based on Picasso’s Guernica http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting), as a way of representing the destruction of Stoke-on-Trent’s industry. The decline of pits ‘n’ pots (and steel) during the 80s and 90s is a well-rehearsed story, but we should also remember the way the city’s fabric has also deteriorated. The population of Stoke decreased during this period, and even now it has one of the highest proportions of empty homes in England (see http://www.emptyhomes.com/usefulinformation/stats/2008breakdown.htm). Some streets and estates became semi-derelict, with houses waiting to be demolished. At the same time, industrial sites, and even Stoke City’s Victoria ground, have been left undeveloped. Drive around Stoke and see how much ‘brownfield’ space is left for the weeds and unofficial car parks.

Just as the destruction of wars and bombs brings renewal in its wake – see for example the new buildings replacing those destroyed by the Blitz or the 1996 Manchester bomb – so the tearing down of factories and terraces is an opportunity to rebuild and reconfigure the city. Renew, the city’s regeneration partnership should be ‘investing £2.3 billion’ over 15 years. So what will Stoke look like in 2020? We’ll have to wait and see.

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