Worcester Wanderings: finding a community in the Faithful City
Back in 2017, a couple of years after graduating from Coventry University, I had several important questions to answer. Where is my life heading? What career path do I want to take? Do I want to move out of my parents’ house?
All huge questions. And let’s face it, who has all the answers when they’ve only just left university? Having said that, the answer to the third of those questions was a fairly straightforward, yes! That then led to another question: where would I move to?
Having researched several options, I opted for Worcester. It’s close enough to my home city of Leicester (about an hour and half in the car) so I could still come back if I wanted, has a beautiful cathedral and other buildings, and the River Severn is a stunning scene in all types of weather. So far, Worcester has ticked all the boxes!
What I discovered in my early days arriving in the Faithful City was a creative scene that was coming into its own. I’d been writing poetry and novels on and off since secondary school, but moving to Worcester was a move that really unlocked my passion for spoken word. The main reason for that is the support from fellow poets on the scene.
You only have to go to one of the many open mic nights held throughout the city during any given month to see first-hand just how tightly knit the Worcester writing community is. Whether they are regular performers or just taking their tentative first steps onto the stage, there is always a great reception and, perhaps more telling, instances where audience members will consciously go up to the poet in the interval and say a private congratulations.
My confidence continued to grow and in 2018, I published my debut poetry collection, Dark Nights into Brighter Days with the launch event bringing in a crowd of more than 30 people. That was and still is one of my proudest moments!
I consider myself fortunate to have met so many supportive poets and now close friends – one of whom was one of my groomsmen at my wedding and my wife is a poet herself (a former Worcestershire Poet Laureate no less!). And I would not have met them had I not taken the brave step to move to a new city and attend an open mic evening on my own. Looking back, those were probably two of the bravest decisions I have ever made!
I still have lifelong friends back in Leicester and the city will always be special to me. Yet the move to Worcester has certainly helped me find a whole new community that I previously never knew existed. We aren’t just ‘poets; we are a family that supports one another through the good times and the challenging ones. Covid-19 was a prime example of that; when in-person open mic evenings were put on pause during lockdown, the spoken word community utilised Zoom to keep them going. Looking back, we needed those events more than ever.
Making new friends and forming new connections is not always easy. As someone who experiences anxiety and doesn’t cope well in crowds, I know first-hand that it can be daunting. Even the move to Worcester was one I made after months of researching and asking myself whether I was doing the right thing. It also didn’t help that despite social media and technology,
there was little in the way of a platform where I could find meetup groups or social events for newcomers to the city.
Taking that step is courageous. Even if it’s joining a Facebook group about a specific topic or hobby, that is still progress and something to take heart from. The No More Solo app is another example – even if you just find one person with similar interests, you can be proud of that!
In the time I’ve lived in Worcester, I have seen several examples of the city community working wonders. We are fortunate to have a host of charities and organisations doing fantastic work in bringing communities together, something I am proud to be part of as a companion for isolated adults at Better Together.
If you are in a similar situation like I was when I first moved to Worcester, or just want to find your own circle, my advice would be to keep going, keep an eye out for activities taking place in your local area, and even if it’s just sitting in a café for a bit, you never know who you might meet just from being out and about.
