People Library

Out of the Darkness

One woman’s journey turning pain into power

Often, we get to choose how we shape our lives and the world around us.  Sometimes though, our lives are thrust into unfamiliar scenarios that we have no control over and how we respond in these moments is a true test of our character. It’s a real inspiration when you meet people who have not just overcome their own challenges in life, but are using their journey to help others facing similar mountains to climb.

Natalie’s world turned upside down at the age of seventeen, and for someone who was young and very active what happened rocked her life to the core. “When you’re young, you think that you’re completely indestructible, and you don’t really worry about your health.” She says, “I played football, I was a keen swimmer, I loved to dance and was really into performing arts and was generally quite happy.”

Describing the moment when her life changed, she says, “It was a simple thing really. I was just getting changed at home and stood up straight. I suddenly felt this shock go right through my body. I couldn’t stand up straight without being in agony.”

She went to see the doctor. “To begin with they just thought it was a sporting injury, that I’d hurt myself at some point without realising it and told me it would get better in a couple of weeks kind of thing… yeah, it never did.” she recalls.

In the following months she describes what life was like. “I could barely walk, sit or sleep without being in a lot of pain. To suddenly go from being a seventeen year old in the prime of my life to having all this pain, it was a real shock to the system. I had to give up all the things I enjoyed.  I just thought this isn’t normal for a seventeen year old, I should have healed by now.”

It took two years for Natalie to get a diagnosis. An MRI revealed that vertebrae in her spine were degenerating and she had several bulging discs. “It’s basically like chronic back pain and fibromyalgia,” she says, “I remember the shock of it being downplayed as a temporary sporting injury, to something that was now going to affect the rest of my life. The level of pain changes week to week, so there’s a lot of uncertainty which can be hard.”

She describes a sense of relief at knowing what was wrong, mixed with fear and uncertainty around her future. “Because it’s my spine it affects literally everything to do with mobility. I had to face things like: Am I going to be able to have kids? Am I going to be able to hold down a full time job? Am I even going to be able to look after myself?”  She opens up with honesty, “You sort of give up on your future because you think If I’m this bad now, how am I going to be in the next ten, twenty years.”

Now twenty six years old, Natalie has lived with her chronic pain for seven years and credits an enthusiastic back pain specialist with her current perspective on life. “I shared with her that I was weighed down by the pain and wasn’t going to succeed in what I wanted in life. I told her about my darkest times when I just felt like ending it. The doctor understood my concerns and she was the first person who really listened to me and made me feel like my experiences were valid. That I was normal. She spoke to me as an adult, not a child.”

The next thing the specialist said to Natalie was transformational. “She told me that I was trapped in a cycle of only seeing the negative. She understood why, but told me that I didn’t need to stay trapped in my own body, that I could still lead a very happy, healthy and successful life as a woman even with my condition. It was exactly what I needed to hear.” 

Natalie explains the shift in her mindset since this was spoken to her; a reminder of the power of our words.  “I think it’s good to not get too caught up in what might be and focus on what you can do in the present. I just take each day as it comes and try to manage what I can, without going back to the place where I felt isolated and defeated.”

Natalie currently works part-time for Made in Manningham which helps people set up community businesses. When she started working there her colleagues and management weren’t aware of her chronic pain but thankfully, through a culture of openness, she’s been able to share her experiences. She says, “Our conversations have made work life much easier for me and I think more organisations should follow suit to create a more accessible and flexible working environment.”

For Natalie, chronic pain has similarities to mental health because it’s not obvious externally what someone is dealing with internally. As a society we’re not really educated about it, and she explains how people fall into this grey area, often unable to perform many basic tasks but not disabled enough to be registered as disabled.

“People will say ‘you look really well’ and think I’m okay without realising that I’m just putting a brave face on it. It puts you in a difficult place in society where your disability/health condition needs to be seen to be accommodated. I want to be involved in creating an open conversation, so that those living chronic pain can be met with compassion, support and society will become more inclusive.”

Natalie is learning that change is possible for both individuals suffering with chronic pain and empathy towards them from wider society. It’s something that she’s been exploring during the pandemic after setting up a project called ‘Pain into Power’ with her sister, an online peer support group for women living with chronic pain in her city of Bradford.

She explains her thoughts behind it. “We wanted to create a safe and accessible platform where women could share experiences, advice and support each other. When someone finds out they’re not alone in their experiences and feelings it’s really helpful, ‘It’s not about saying ‘ just think positively’, it’s about accepting who we are and learning how to thrive despite life’s setbacks.”

The demand took the sisters by surprise and the project is continuing to evolve.  “It’s inspiring because you realise you’re not just in your own bubble anymore, and it helps you out of the darkness.” Recently she’s been collaborating with Bradford-based creatives to put on workshops for members. “It’s easy to lose your ability to express yourself when you suffer with chronic pain, because everything is focused on your pain. I know for me though, that painting was my biggest escape when I started suffering.” She continues, “We’re exploring how creativity can be used as a tool for improving wellbeing. Doing something creative such as crafting, doodling or listening to music can help you express and process emotions which benefits your mental and physical health.”

Her experiences with her work and in developing the peer support project have given Natalie a fresh appreciation for her city. “Bradford gets a bad rap when you speak to people who don’t actually live here, but I love how it’s full of people from so many different backgrounds and a lot of people are coming forward to make a positive impact in this city.”

She often gets to travel across the UK with her work but always misses Bradford. “It’s hard to put your finger on it but I think folk are friendlier up north. There’s a rawness and vibrancy to the people of Bradford who just want to help people and make a positive difference.”

Chronic pain can easily isolate and cause an individual’s life to close down, yet Natalie has found a way to overcome this by seeing the positive, and by having honest and open conversations. The ripple effect of those words spoken by the back specialist are now reaching more and more people. “It’s kind of like an exploration and a journey together, the beauty of this project is that we’re learning together what works and what doesn’t. It’s been like a key to unlocking my own power and hope.”

She continues, “The mental or physical suffering doesn’t have to define you and it doesn’t have to imprison you. It’s about finding people’s potential and their inner power, because that’s what’s important.” It’s powerful lived experience and advice like this that could help many people.

When asked about how her view of success has changed in the last seven years Natalie concludes, “Success used to be getting a degree, getting a good job, earning lots of money and having a happy life – and that’s it. Now if I died tomorrow, and I could say that I’d made some kind of positive impact on someone else’s life or made a positive impact in society, then I could die happy. That is success for me now.”

You can find out more about the ‘Pain into Power’ project here

Story and Images by Tom Harmer

People Library

Out of sight, out of mind.

“There’s good and bad in us all, but Gypsy Travellers get painted with the one brush…”

A huge part of our identities as human beings is our individual culture and heritage, it shapes what we value and influences our approach to life. As time passes and society evolves these cultural identities are often challenged and threatened, each generation is given the responsibility to protect, teach and uphold them for the future.

Dublin-born Kathleen is full of warmth and strength. A Bradford resident and Irish Traveller, she’s incredibly proud of her heritage and aspires to uphold her culture and traditions, “It’s how I was brought up and how I brought my children up, and now I’m trying to get my grandchildren on the same track,” she says.

She traces her roots back to County Wexford in the Republic of Ireland, but Yorkshire has always been a massive part of her life. “I grew up on the roadside. We’d stay in Yorkshire in the winter, but then we’d move around all over the country in the summertime; the Midlands, Scotland, Wales, but we’d always come back to Leeds or Bradford in October, as long as it was Yorkshire.”

“There were no phones when I was growing up, so when my father decided it was time to shift, we’d just head to somewhere like Birmingham and find someone we knew,” She recalls the excitement of reuniting with friends from previous years and the joy of a community where “everybody mixed.”

Her upbringing was bursting with community, family, culture and food. “My mother always had a fire going, cooking outside in big black pots, hearty food such as bacon and cabbage, bacon ribs and stew,” she continues, “It’s all proper food and everybody would come over when they smelled our food,” she says, with a smile.

To this day, Kathleen carries on this value of generosity and hospitality, always preparing more than enough food to share with her community. “Anyone elderly we feed, I send dinner up and down everywhere. I don’t have a plate left because most of them don’t come back. So now I’ve bought them all plastic plates to send them up.” It’s clear that this camaraderie is a key influence in forming such close-knit Traveller communities.

There’s a deep sense of communal living in both Kathleen’s home and the site she lives on, she explains, “We’re strong on family values, everyone keeps an eye out for everyone’s child and we take care of the older people, we’d never send them to care homes.”

As the youngest of twelve children, with ten brothers and one sister, she speaks fondly of her own childhood. “Day to day it was just nice, you know, we weren’t playing computer games like today. I was like a tomboy and we played out all the time. It was a better way of life and it was a healthier way of life.”

As travelling communities begin to settle more, she feels the children are missing out on experiencing a variety of life, and explains, “It’s not good for children to be cooped up. When you live roadside you mix with different cultures, it helps to teach morals.”

By the age of eighteen, her parents had stopped travelling and chose to settle in London. “They haven’t been on the roadside since. When you’re settled it’s a different way of life but you never forget the traveller’s life. As long as you have food and water, you don’t need nothing else.”

Another cornerstone of the Gypsy Traveller community is the skill of self-reliance and problem solving. “Travellers are self-taught, you know what I mean, they don’t go to colleges. You just do whatever you put your mind to.  I want every traveller to have the chance to provide for themselves.”

She explains how boys begin working like men aged thirteen, and by seventeen they’re ready to go and do their own thing, “so long as they get a licence and a real motor they get up and go.”

For girls though, there were different expectations. “When I was growing up, girls didn’t leave home, they stayed at home to get married.” She reminisces, “When I got up in the morning, my routine was to make a cup of tea for my parents, then wash through the cans (milk churns) and windows outside. It was different to the boys, because I had to do the housework.”

Kathleen moved back to Yorkshire when she was nineteen years old to get married. Sadly, her husband died aged only twenty-eight, leaving her to raise their children on her own. “I’ve never considered getting re-married. I don’t think anyone would have looked down on me or anything because I was young and had young children, but they’ve got more respect for me now.”

Kathleen then explains the importance in the community of keeping loved ones’ memories alive and shares how they value life and death in equal parts. “We mention everyone we’ve lost everyday, so they’re not forgotten about. My brother died forty-five years ago and we talk about him every day.”

Once a year, Kathleen visits a cemetery in Ireland, underscoring these values. “It’s a respect thing. All our ancestors are buried there. People come from all over Ireland and England on one specific day, and we all stand by their graves – it’s like a blessing.” She continues, “Our people belong to us, when they die they’re more important than when they were alive.”

Bradford is renowned as a space of sanctuary and safety, welcoming communities across the world to make it their home. For centuries, the vibrant tapestry of Bradford has been woven together with the diverse threads of the Irish Traveller community, whether it has been a pit stop for those who embody a nomadic lifestyle, or somewhere to call home. When asked about her own experience, she says, “It’s like home. I’ve been here since I was 5, I’m 57 now, so 52 years I’ve lived between Leeds and Bradford.”

Kathleen lives on the Mary Street site in Bradford, designated for the Gyspy Traveller community. “We used to stop here years ago when I was about eight. It was a potato yard and it was all built up, all along here there were shops and public houses, whereas now it’s all gone and it’s industrial.”

“Since then they’ve opened up a sand quarry across the way, and a tip behind us.” Like many in Kathleen’s community, a prevailing sentiment of being overlooked persists. “No one can see us because we’re blocked in these walls and we’ve got enough cameras, we’re like being on ‘Big Brother’,” which seems to perpetuate her feeling of being out of sight and out of mind.

Explaining the history of where she lives, she says, “This site to start with was looked into for a housing estate and they said it wasn’t fit for humans to live, but yet they could make a traveller site on it – so what is the difference? The fact that this site is managed by environmental health tells me everything.”

She continues, “We’re full of sand twenty four seven, everybody on this site has got issues with their chest breathing. You can’t breathe in the night, it’s like you’re choking because of the sand” and then the additional impact of living behind a garbage facility, “we’ve got flies everywhere, it’s not nice when you’re eating.”  

She’s concerned, and so are other families and parents, for the future wellbeing of their children.There have been positive talks about moving the site and it probably will happen at some stage but not for a few years yet.

The multicultural nature of Bradford is one of the main reasons Kathleen has been able to call Bradford home for so long, because she feels more welcome here amongst other minority groups than in other parts of the country.

For example, the Asian community, “Indians and Pakistanis, they’re tret like us. They understand our way of life and we understand theirs. This town is full of lots of cultures and they’re more comfortable with us than, say, the white community. Some don’t understand us and just think ‘ah, it’s the stinking gypsies’.”

On one hand, society is becoming more accepting and inclusive of previously excluded minority groups, yet on the other it is seemingly trying to erase a way of life for the Traveller community. “We don’t want to change anything. We just want to get on with the life that we’ve always led,” Kathleen says.

A charity worker who works alongside Kathleen and the Gypsy Traveller community says, “In my 20-year career of working with some of the most marginalised communities, I can honestly say that the Gypsy Traveller community face the worst discrimination and racism. I would like to say that they have also been the most welcoming and inspiring to me in my work in challenging people’s inaccurate views and perceptions.”

Kathleen then shares numerous instances of discrimination and stereotyping she has encountered as an Irish Traveller and how she’s always had a feeling of being an unwanted outsider in society, “There’s good and bad in us all, but we all get painted with the one brush,” she says.

Unjust stereotypes brand Travellers as thieves that “live in a jungle and run around with no shoes on”. There is a real sense of persecution and fear within the community. Kathleen describes feelings of being unsafe and vulnerable as soon as she leaves the site, creating a feeling of never truly belonging.

She believes media representation is partly to blame for reinforcing stereotypes and failing to acknowledge the community’s positive actions. Her community’s charitable support for vulnerable people in society go unnoticed, such as large country-wide donations to food banks and children’s hospitals.

“It’s disheartening that our positive efforts rarely receive recognition; the spotlight always seems to be on the negative aspects of our community,” says Kathleen. One shining light however is the boxer Tyson Fury. “He’s pushing all the limits and he knows where he comes from. Every traveller, it doesn’t matter what they’ve got, they don’t lose their morals, they want to keep their culture,” she says. “He’s just like us, he’s all about his family.”

Preserving Traveller tradition is important for Kathleen, particularly due to external influences threatening the continuity of her rich, cultural heritage, but at the same time Kathleen recognizes the need to modernise, specifically in education and work.

Kathleen says, “I never went to school when I was a child because I’m telling you we were roadside. Here today, gone tomorrow.” However, when she became a parent, ensuring her own children received an education became a priority. “I think everyone should have the right to read,” she says.

Another cultural shift Kathleen has been part of, is supporting her daughter into further education and now championing her choice to go to work. “It’s only in the last ten years this has happened,” Kathleen explains. “Before that women didn’t work, they didn’t leave home. They done what had to be done at home, like housework. They looked after the younger ones or whatever.” There are still many women in the community that don’t work, but more and more women are going out to find a vocation, and Kathleen feels it’s a good trend. 

As Kathleen passionately shares her life as a Traveller, although some aspects of culture are changing, it’s clear that nothing will ever change her identity. The strength of the community is in how they value and look after each other and pass on their traditions from generation to generation.

However, she feels the world around her is becoming less tolerant of her way of life, trying to brush this traditional way of living out of sight, and out of mind. “It’s a culture and I don’t think they’ll ever stop it, but they’re doing their best to try,” she continues “You can’t think you’re better than anyone else, we’re all the same. It’s not right to look down on someone else.”

Conversation must be had to create positive social change and support greater understanding of the Gypsy and Traveller communities and unite in the face of inequality. Bradford and our wider society have an opportunity to challenge perceptions and be open to understanding the Traveller way of life. Surely we can find a way to live alongside each other, celebrating our differences, looking at those with a different way of life and thinking about how society can champion their cherished traditions. 

Story co-written by People Library Mentee Nathan McGill and Storyteller/Mentor Tom Harmer

Photos by Nathan McGill