By Matilda Webb
Excerpted from our new publication Gradients. Glimpses of Sheffield.
The rain falls slow
and heavy,
stinging your skin.
You shiver in time with the trees
watching a bouncy castle wilt
outside of The Peacock.
Sheffield swallowed this place
and spat it out again.
It cowers here
with the mocking words of the city centre
ringing through the hills.
You sit in a small kitchen,
a makeshift café
where people come to avoid eye contact
and berate the local dog walkers.
The tea is too hot,
scalding your tongue
and smarting tears from the corner of your eyes.
The noticeboard, a few yards away,
shouts about the atrocity
of proposed housing developments.
This is a community united by a lump of stone
and a political claim to fame.
Welcome to Stannington:
Please Drive Carefully.
