You Should’ve Seen Us

£6.95

Paul Mills’s latest publication, You Should’ve Seen Us, brings together the poems he has written in response to footage from the Yorkshire Film Archive, with still photographs from the films.

from ‘Coronation Celebrations, Harrogate, 1937’

You could have been part of the May Queen’s retinue, joined the teams of girls stitching costumes, led at the Junior Maypole. But No. You liked the fairground best. Being anywhere and nobody much suited you.

And the crowd – those left out, or happy to be just herded – you loved being among them and invisible: showground fodder. Hotel porters, chambermaids from houses with high ceilings, married farm labourers, smell of hay, horses, wool and sweat: everybody posh gone off to London

During the 50 minute presentation, audiences hear Paul’s poems, spoken by himself and actors. Some are commentaries, others imagined voices of people in North Yorkshire from before, during and after the Second World War, so that a picture emerges of a period of cultural change.

In stock (can be backordered)