City Life | 9 April 2008

I must declare an interest from the outset. I was born in Wakefield. I have never been especially forthcoming about my birthplace, not because I am ashamed of it, but because few people know or care much about this little city. Wakefield’s points of reference, ranging from the Battle of Wakefield in 1460 to rhubarb, a maximum-security prison and Sir George Gilbert Scott’s imposing cathedral, are not sufficiently etched on the public consciousness to allow conversation to flow easily or constructively. Even our esteemed business editor had to have his arm twisted a little over lunch before he agreed to include it in this City Life series. Wakefield, if it has a reputation at all, is regarded as Leeds’s impoverished relation, where the traditional working-class Yorkshireman, with his flat cap, his unopened wallet and his whippets, moans about the bloody Tories and the price of his pint at the Arthur Scargill Arms.