I've written on my own blog before about Hebden including I think why I came here, why I love it. I suppose now, after three and a half years or so, I look at it with a little more perspective, but love it no less. Times have changed around us, as they are wont to do. The government has changed colour, people have less money to spend, and things seem a little crueler to me. The gap between rich and poor is quite stark in Hebden. Ok, maybe the rich aren't all rolling in it, but there are those who can afford to shop in the nice little shops of hebden, which sell things you might want, but probably don't need - and those that can't. I can't really afford it, sometimes I do anyway - but my not being able to afford it because of debt, and because I spend too much on booze, is quite different from not being able to afford it because you haven't got a job, or all your money from your minimum wage job has gone on rent, food, bills, clothes, travel.
Part of me wonders if that's the reason for random acts of mindless violence - smashed windows of shops full of things you can't afford - clearly aimed at a market which doesn't include you. Or attacking the station, as the place which takes people to their well paid out of town jobs. Another part of me knows that it's just as likely to be mindless violence fuelled by cheap cider and too much testosterone.
I wonder if it's a coincidence that Hebden Bridge's pubs are struggling, with it's higher proportion of worried well middle classes, perhaps more likely to take notice of government campaigns to reduce drinking. How many pubs is it feasible for a small town to sustain, healthily? But Sowerby Bridge and Todmorden, with their slightly different demographics - are opening new pubs, and are busier than ever. Are there any fewer young families there?
There's a tension between some "locals", and those who have settled from elsewhere. I'm not surprised really. Ok, without the influx of new people and money and faith, the town may have rotted on the vine. With no mills, no jobs, no money - people would have scarpered and made of the place a ghost town. But the regeneration of the town is imbalanced - with too many people feeling like they are the cannon fodder in the war of tourism, selling people expensive luxuries, or watching them pay over the odds for things in shops they can't afford on the salary they are paid. If people will pay it, then why should the shop cater to those who can't. And so it is both the shop and the customer who are to blame for the exclusion of those local workers from their own environment. Ditto the so called "right-on-ness" of the town. I love that many people here are liberal minded, accepting, environmentally conscious, a little different. But some people don't want to be different. And I understand why you might resent your home being turned into a by-word for things you aren't comfortable with, or don't believe in.
Still. I'm glad the place is everything that it is. It's what makes it home to me. I love the valley, the architecture, the creativity, the openess, the politics - and I love the tops - which were a wonderful surprise to me really when I moved here. I came for the town, and discovered the country. Great big open skies, and the mists that rise in the mornings. Beauty and seasons like I've never experienced in my life. If I have hopes for the future, it is that things can be more balanced. That people put more back into the town, and start providing a bit more of what people need alongside things they might want. I'd like to see the community association have a strategy for saving older pubs the way it has approached the town hall and the picture house. I'd like to see them try and bring together all aspects of the community and look at how the town can be helped to represent all of them, and dilute some of those perceptions of difference.
Another HB post:
http://thewillowtwisted.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/dont-stop-being-so-hebden-bridge/
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