I became involved with The Working Class Collective after interviewing Lisa for a podcast I did
on working-class writers (which you can listen to here). We spoke about the publication of The
Lockdown Diaries of the Working Class, and how important storytelling is in reclaiming working-
class identities and experiences.
Stories shape our lives. They allow us to make sense of ourselves and each other; we
learn to understand the world – and our place in it – through them. Storytelling has always been
at the heart of working-class culture, but our voices are rarely heard. The arts are saturated
with middle-class voices and stories that do not speak to the working-class experience. We, as
working-class individuals, aren’t given the opportunity to share or take ownership of our
narratives. Instead, our stories are told for us, and they’re rife with the cliches that come from
outsider perspectives. The truth of our lives isn’t shown; the breadth of our experience is
ignored. So, most of the time, we’re shown as caricatures. We might be pitied, loathed or
laughed at, but we’re never listened to.
The class ceiling is real, but there’s power in the collective voice. By coming together to
share our stories, unique as they are, we have more chance of being heard. I have little faith in
politics, but a lot of faith in creativity – particularly when it’s done in collaboration. However
you choose to express yourself, doing so is an admission of your own agency. It’s a statement
that says, ‘here I am.’ And to start having meaningful conversations around class, we need lots of
‘here I am’s’.
Our latest project, ‘Working Class Fantastic Spaces’ is a celebration of the places that
have shaped us. It’s a chance for us to speak about our homes and communities as they really
are – not as they have been shown in bad documentaries and daytime TV.
With that in mind, I thought I’d share my own fantastic space.

The River

My dad taught me how to tuck my jeans into my socks, like he did, before sliding on my welly
boots. We lived in our scruffs, forever outdoors. The tang of the farmlands seeped into our hair
and our pores, leaving us ruddied and ready for rest. We spent a lot of time down by the river,
which wound itself through the Dales and out to the Irish Sea. We occupied a small bit of land on
one side by making dens and a sign to stake our claim. ‘Bambi’s beck,’ it said, in a childlike
scrawl edged with stickers. Stars, smiley faces, hearts and butterflies. The iconography of youth.
My dad fished while I dreamt up imagined worlds, making potions in jars and pocketing
debris from the riverbed. Sometimes, he’d fillet a catch for our tea. He sliced whole salmons with
the dexterity of a surgeon, portioning them up to last a week or so in the freezer. With the
incision came a muddied, metallic smell that lingered in the house for days afterwards. I stood

on tiptoes to watch and asked what the little white blobs were that came out with everything
else. ‘Eggs,’ he told me. ‘It’s called roe.’
If he didn’t take a fish home, he’d let me touch its slippery body before putting it back
into the water. I’d watch, fascinated, as it returned to its silvery shoal. Minnows darted about,
circling my ankles, and I scooped them up in nets. In the shallows, the water was amber-
coloured, like ale. Precious. Jewel-hued. It even foamed in some places, when the current was
right, and I wondered whether it tasted the same as the foam on my dad’s beer. He’d always let
me have a sip, just to see me grimace.
In my memory, it never rained, although I know that it did. The Pennines have always
wreaked havoc on those nearby towns and villages, whether it’s January or June. The fields and
moorlands were wild and windswept. An untamed place, impossible to exhaust.