Pieces of me

On 15 March 2024, Gina, a friend, emailed me: "Look, The Psychologist magazine has focused on Swansea in this issue – made me think of your book." 

Pieces of Us was published in late 2023 by Cambria Publishing (direct excerpts below are shown in italics). It's the story of a neighbourhood, just north of Swansea's railway station, which was called Greenhill. A little remarked-upon part of Swansea which was a thriving neighbourhood, and a place with a distinct Irish-Welsh identity. Now, it's an innocuous jumble of roads and backstreets, mainly passed through by people in cars heading south through the city centre, or north to the M4, the suburbs and Carmarthenshire.

I grew up there, from 1966 until leaving for university in 1982. And I was ready to leave, fuelled by boredom, anger and a vague excitement. I lived in Portsmouth, London and Bristol, remembering much of these earlier years and recalling Greenhill as a place of unusually strong social cohesion. 

Recently, people had told me that things had changed. Drugs and crime had risen, and some people didn't feel safe. I was curious: what had it really been like, growing up there? And what had happened to it more recently? And why did I feel something like guilt? 

The thoughts were recurring, and I felt low and hollow. After a few months of dithering, I booked an appointment with my GP. 

"…And you mentioned something psychological?"

"This is a difficult thing…it's about my parents. I left for university, and I didn't really say thank you to them. For what they did for me. And I'm not sure what to do about it." 

There was quite a long silence. 

"You're talking about heartache", she said. And she recommended The Four Pillars, by Ranjan Chatterjee.

"I'm thinking of writing a book", I said, without much conviction. 

"Don't write a book" she said." 

***

When I interviewed the fifth person, Maddy, on 10 April 2019, I knew there was a story to tell. These people had something to say about themselves in that place at that time. Some had lived there as far back as the 1930, others in the subsequent decades, through to the present day. 

What surprised me when talking to the people in this book, was just how much they wanted to tell their own story about themselves in Greenhill. What started as a hunch was soon replaced by the obvious truth that this was a place where impressions formed were deep and had lasted a lifetime. As they recalled their memories, people changed. Some became quieter, grateful, humorous, focused, and some became angry, or confused, or bitter. What was clear was the strength of emotional connection to time and place for these people. They were grateful to have an opportunity to articulate what it meant to them. 

I felt a physical shift of responsibility, as I realised this project was not only about my own curiosities. I had a responsibility to capture and make coherent the stories of the people and the place.

Pieces of Us outlines how immigrant Irish integrated with local Welsh in the 1800s, accelerating the transformation of a largely pastoral part of Swansea into a densely populated inner-city labour source for rapidly-industrialising Swansea.

Their first-person testimonies explain how social cohesion developed through formal institutions, such as the catholic church, the primary school and the church' social club, as well as the many voluntary community groups spawned by these institutions. And by people talking in street-level informal spaces: on pavements, at windowsills, in and outside shops, in parks, and through planned and accidental meets which led to talks, enjoyment, and offers of mutual support, all of which produced more of the same. A positive feedback loop, in both senses.

This social infrastructure – the places that enable conversations – enabled the building of the social capital that held the place together, and which sustained for over 100 years. All of this in one of Swansea's poorest areas, where work and income was often precarious. 

'Characters' proliferated, and their stories were shared, further binding the people and the place: Iron Eddie, Norah the Flea, Dirty Edie, the Toffee Apple Lady, Ossie Vanstone the photographer, Father Kavanagh, Dr William Long and cholera, Canon Mooney and his shillelagh… And Griffith John, a Greenhill resident, who founded Wuhan hospital in China.

***

My relationship with the place became more complex as I understood more. Before I was born, my mother had given birth to Victoria, a stillborn child at 8 months of term. In 1961 there was little to comfort parents, except each other and wider family. When I came along, over two years later, on New Years Day, 1964, it would have been a relief, and the birth of new existential worries. And our relationship was always close, and sometimes wrung with ineffable intimations of separation that couldn't be articulated by either of us.

Dad (I'm pictured with him, above) was worried about work and money, as an unskilled, expendable labourer. And with his wife, me and my younger sister to think about. He was also a singer, very independent, a joker and a thin-skinned, sensitive man in an era of pull-yourself-together-and-move-on defence mechanisms. The 'teenage I' was an absorber, an observer, curious, and not decisive. What would I do with my life in this post-industrial shift from materials to knowledge, and this neighbourhood where no-one seemed to talk about change and development? My lack of focus unsettled him. He thought me aimless. I thought him over-bearing. Leaving for university was an easy choice.

And it was a good decision. University led to work, more study, academia and consulting. I met many people and found opportunities I'd never have encountered in Greenhill. Doors opened doors, and life went on. 

It was easy to leave at the time. When everyone knows each other in a small place, it can spread the generalised sense of being 'looked after' by a collective. It can also be cloying. And I was curious, about people, music, ideas, sport and beer. I left for Portsmouth in 1982, and was welcomed by a tall man in a pub who said: "In this country we speak English."

***

The city didn't understand the dynamics of this urban asset called Greenhill. Over the decades, housing clearances removed streets and dispersed some Greenhill people to other parts of the city. Shops were bulldozed to ease road widening, and thousands of everyday conversations instantly disappeared. Physical infrastructure was improved for traffic, environmental and financial reasons, by men from elsewhere, who couldn't possibly understand the social and cultural longer-term impact. At the same time, global trends had their own affect. Technology promoted individual activities, new generations wanted more beyond their home patch, and cars and commuting grew. In the USA and UK, civic engagement steadily declined from the 1950s through to today. 

In Greenhill, as the social infrastructure was weakened, conversational opportunities reduced, relational ties frayed, mutual support declined, and… conversations reduced. A different type of positive feedback loop. The area slowly lost its Irish-Welsh cultural distinctiveness. People moved out, poverty remained, crime rose, and economic investment in the area became a necessity and continues. 

***

I worked in leadership, creativity and innovation and travelled around the world. I visited Wales often, putting one step in front of another, through births and deaths, while running a business, and continuing to study. Fragments of memories surfaced as I returned home for family visits. And were crystallised as Mam and Dad were divorced, then ill, then gone. She, far too young, in 2002. And he, along with much else, in 2016. 

It had been easy to leave the place, but as the decades passed, I realised that you can't leave a place that's in you. Writing the book brought access to other people's experiences of being there, leaving and returning. Many had moved on with their lives, while bearing their earlier and mixed memories. Some still lived there, though the place itself had changed much. Some had left but were stuck in a psychic limbo, angry, sad, tenacious.

"You were asking a personal thing earlier. I think one of the reasons I'm interested to do this book is there was a little bit of me that always felt slightly guilty for leaving."

"No, no you shouldn't", said Tom, feeding his chickens. "It's the way of the world… But really, you're probably feeling a little bit of hiraeth, right. A little bit of the longing." 

Hiraeth, the word dating back to the very early Welsh records, and meaning a longing for an unattainable person, place or time that can't be revisited. 

Writing the book harnessed the wild horses of my attention. It brought a broader clarity of my parents' lives: their unexpressed hopes, fears and joys, embedded in their historical and cultural contexts. It made me more understanding and more forgiving. Of them, and of me. Stories can do that.

It took time for the memory-dust to settle and writing the book clarified the dis-ease that took me to the GP. It's clearer to me now that my unease about leaving Greenhill isn't about guilt and regret. It's more about loss. As I became myself, privileged by new opportunities, I lost a shared language and the bond changed with my parents. As the decades passed, I understood better the swirl and significant moments of my parents' lives. The sharper understanding brought the relief of clarity and a pain from knowing there was no return journey. This rupture of personal development can be especially severe for people from the working class – and it isn't mentioned in the university brochures. 

***

It takes time and effort to return to the everyday after an intense creative act. While I changed my view of the people and the place of Greenhill, the work also changed me. I wonder what will come next. But I'm certain about the topicality of the book.

"A gentleman living opposite me died. We didn't even know he was dead. And we don't know if he's buried to this day. We're just assuming that he is. And, I mean, they've lived in that house for about 5 years, haven't they?" 

…said the woman from the local Greenhill community group. And In April 2024, The Economist magazine headline stated: "Why are so many bodies in Britain found in a decomposed state?" 

Theodore Estrin-Serlui is a London-based pathologist and is talking about people who die alone and aren't found for some time. He's suggesting that body decomposition can be a proxy for social isolation in Britain. And this rate has increased rapidly between 1992-2022, even as mortality rates were falling. Family breakdowns, rising separation rates, changing social norms, the age of individualism and access to the internet have all increased social isolation among certain groups, especially older men.

Pieces of Us also confirmed two insights I'd encountered through research and practice in my professional work.

First, anyone can have ideas, but implementation is a social and political process. And trust, interpersonal safety and pleasure are the basis of social capital, which underpins collaboration and innovation across business partnerships, mergers, integrated healthcare systems, digital interest networks, street WhatsApp groups, neighbourhoods… Nothing happens without this social capital, yet it is regularly under-appreciated, as organisations emphasise the technical language of delivery, outputs and outcomes.

Second, Covid-19 showed that we can collaborate very well, when the need is urgent and shared. However, in our tired, post-pandemic state, many people reverted to habit in 2023 when the UK economy was struggling, money was tight, worries considerable, and we lacked the galvanising, shared state of a collective crisis. From my experience, many people were harder to contact, less socially active and less exploratory. Threat provokes a defensive state, and can easily lead to auto-pilot, fragmentation and caution. 

***

Over more than 100 years the people of Greenhill created and sustained a stable, safe and better place to live, for different people with different interests, who also wanted to make better lives for themselves, their children, families and friends. This shared, elevating sense of purpose wasn't written down or the result of a senior leadership strategy. It evolved through a million conversations, until it just became how they lived. It was unremarkable and remarkable.

These places are ghostly with memories

Of joy and guilt and regret.

The formers of me that are present

And others of me I forget.

The trick is to somehow accept it,

to accommodate multiple mes.

The child, the dusted, feral youth

The father, the husband, to-bes.

If not we bury our selves in

small rooms of diminishing space.

We lose our joy and our gladness

Our zest and our vim and our ace.

Your work in creating your future

Is to grant a benevolent home,

to those who are rattling within you

who'd otherwise rattle alone.