Notes from Meeting with Marcus Hurcombe, Richard, Jennand Another Unnamed Youth Worker

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Notes from meeting with Marcus Hurcombe, Richard, Jennand another unnamed youth worker on the 28th October 2011 5. 30 – 6.30 Victoria Park, Rawmarsh

This was before Marcus and Jenna did a ‘curry night’ with a group of ‘angry young men’. I had been instructed to come at 5. 30

I would have liked to have recorded this but ethics did not allow me as I did not have permission from all the youth workers present. This is reconstructed from memory and from notes. I arrived about 5. 15 and hung around outside. A young man was waiting and told me which bell to ring. Marcus buzzed me in.

Marcus said hello at the door and told me he had been meeting up with his friends from the 1980’s in his half term break. We talked briefly about the 1980’s and our memories of that time. He said he was heavily into music then. He often says he would like to go back to music but is not sure.

I introduced the idea of language as talisman. Marcus was sitting in the chair by the computer, and a younger woman – Jen, sat opposite him, looking at him. Richard another youth worker who I knew from East Herringthorpe was there too, and another young male youth worker. He sat slightly behind me.

As Marcus spoke all the young youth workers listened to him attentively. The room grew quite dark, and it was a while before the lights came on. They seemed to regard what he said as important. No one laughed and he held the floor, and the respect in the room was palpable. After a while, Richard, who works in music, joined in. Jen showed her tattoo and her trainers, with pink paces. The other young man was silent. This was their ‘in between time’ before the evening’s work, which on a Friday night before half term, would be busy.

I am not conscious of the rhythm of their days but got the feeling this was arranged for me, to get the ideas for the bid.

Marcus began by saying that the notion of a talisman reminded him of the Viking God, Thor. He talked about the concept of a talisman as a site of empowerment and a way of ascribing charisma. He said water contained memory. A talisman could empower, inform and give charisma. He talked about ways in which he had worked with young people to create simple talismans. Talismans involve images and are protective a source of resilience and survival.

Language as talisman – bike stunts

For example, the bike stunts were talismanic. They involved initiation ceremonies (passing through the threshold) and then they were about creating higher and higher jumps. They did a bike stunt event just after the riots to celebrate the fact that no one did riot, but also to give the older guys a role in the park. He said a load of young men (eg Brett, aged 21) turned up and he worried they would not engage – 21 year olds, but they did.The evening was wonderful. Marcus was nervous on that day particularly as the bike stunt equipment people came and all their gear was in boxes that seemed to be linked to gear from drugs stuff but it all went really well and nothing went wrong. It was in fact a great evening although risky. Marcus said he was scared beforehand.

(I was at this event. There were prizes for the highest stunt. There were different categories for each type of young person. The teenagers wore helmets. There was someone on the judging table and someone with a loud speaker. It was in August. As the light faded, the stunts grew higher and higher. There were also stalls with hot dogs and drinks. I met two young women who wanted to do film making with me. I still have their details. I also met an organisation concerned with protecting young people from drugs and alcohol abuse. I met Jenna the youth worker Marcus works with, and her partner, who was an artist. She -the artist- would like to work with me more as well. Jenna is from this area, and said I could work with the families if I wanted to.)

Marcus said bike stunts celebrated their culture. He talked about how each jump on the bike has its own name, and is like a tag. Bike stunts are about who has the highest impact. They are about passing through thresholds and re-branding identities. Richard, who works in Valley Park Youth Centre, in the recording studio context, said that music, film and art were all talismanic. He talked about choreography and dance as text. He would like to do arts based work using music, film and art.

The youth workers mentioned how on the night of the riots the police and the youth workers went to Parkgate and Meadowhall where there were groups of young people and persuaded the young people they had better things to do with their lives.

Rawmarsh – the site

They talked about encompassing Rawmarsh in a large space – it has the largest Youth Service in Rotherham, and as Marcus said, it is like a philosopher’s stone – all life is in Rawmarsh, however, it is also constraining, people will not go outside. It is also a charismatic space. There are a lot of hidden meanings in Rawmarsh. The youth workers talked about how the bike stunts were a form of language that was a hidden unofficial language of the area, like graffiti. They thought it would be good to have a comparative understanding of language that informed their work, particularly in relation to risk taking and masculinity. They said that they had worked to create a skate park and were also working with a landscape group called Groundworks to create a circle. They talked about resilience and survival.

Communicative practices in Rawmarsh – traces of the inventory

They talked about the links between bike stunts and tattoos as well as graffiti as forms of initiation, having tribal qualities. Tattoos are a form of externalising what young people want. They also have tribal qualities. One of the youth workers held up her arm to reveal the tattoo of a key which went from her wrist up the inside of her forearm. She was very proud of this. She also showed her trainers. They had pink laces. This is important. She said these were talismanic. She also had a kind of badge on her jumper, quite ornate, like a football strip. She was off to another youth work site and these three things (tattoo, trainers, badge) would all protect her. We talked about footfalls and dens and trails. Marcus had stopped the dens in the park so they went into the woods. Marcus talked about reading the area, and the time capsules. He follows teenagers detritus into the woods and finds their dens, often evidence of drug dealing and ‘bad things’. He found a plastic bag hanging from a tree with Steve Pool when they went on their walk which contained the remains of a teenagers’ wardrobe and a piece of paper with a tiny scrap of paper with an address on it this had a postcode on it he traced this to an address in Rawmarsh and it was full of heroin addicts. He said it was a ‘bad place, full of very angry people’. He made up the young person’s life through the traces of their belongings. It was not clear if the young person (a girl, aged about 10) did exist and what had happened to her.

(Often Marcus tells these stories about extreme distress that the young people are in. I have heard him tell of young people being raped and badly abused and his role helping them come through. He is keen to extend his one on one work with young people. I sometimes find these stories hard to hear. One story, he told soon after my father died, in July, sitting on a spiral in Victoria Park in Rawmarsh, was of a young man who had drank half a bottle of whiskey. Marcus helped him recover. Sometimes he meets the young men he has helped and they are fine, later, which is a source of pleasure to him.)

He talked about celebrating young people’s culture and raising the profiles of young people. He talked about fountains and water containing memories. He talked about the suppression of culture and the need to be aware of communicating deep things. Like the teenager (this was when Kate went to visit some teenagers in the park and sat with a group of about 6 with our backs to the bandstand pillars) who drew out his necklace which had a medal from his Jewish grandfather from the war. At the time, he was sitting in a circle with his back to the bandstand. The traces young people leave behind were also about the suppression of their culture. Some of these traces are ephemeral.

He also talked of girls who wore strips, rubber wrist bands, which denoted particular sexual positions, a different colour for each one. A girl he knew had all these, and if she was available she would give the person the relevant band. Marcus is protecting her from this behaviour, but she is trying out this language. She has not actually engaged in this behaviour yet.

Performative practices

The youth workers talked about making forms using flick lights (flashing lights) and maybe having a stage where they could do bike stunts, to create a new language of empowerment. They could black out the stage and use day-glo. Marcus also talked about runic language and transitions and way-marking and path-finding. He talked about poetry and songs and how teenagers were not aware of communicating very deep things through them. Personal details were encoded within these songs.

He would like to do a project on that.Maybe focusing on poetry and songs and archetypes in songs. There is something about the suppression of culture in these communities which is important. The notion of traces, and an inventory of traces came up (in Said’sOrientalism he talks of traces that don’t leave an inventory, from Gramsci, but he says it is important, anyway, to compile that inventory)

He also talked about freestyles with the bike stunts and commenting on other people’s phrases as a local form of entertainment.

Richard talked about ‘Spider’ a young rapper talking as Spider and ways in which he has developed a rapping language. These statements are developing into music,

Marcus talked of shamanic language, shape shifting. He talked about how Spider had got that all wrapped up and had an unconscious use of cadence.

What could we do if we had money?

Marcus wants to create a magic circle, a safe speaking space for teenagers.

He thought a Mandela would be useful.

He talked of mapping hot spots in the park where key interactions happen.

Maybe creating an inventory of traces?

Ritual present giving

At the end I gave Marcus a brass singing bowl from Tibet from my house to say Thank you. Previously, on the spiral walk and the runic walk, he gave me woolly mammoth bone beads and a singing bell. It seemed to encapsulate the idea of language as talisman.