And there I never felt like I belonged;
as if I was at odds with the shipyards
and a history built on chemicals and steel.
Teesside was somewhere we came from;
a sore from our past we longed to escape.
A town of reinvention and repurpose
pushing the distance between present and past.
Those of us with words our ingredients
are slowly but surely knocked back down —
like dough we rise, formed like the bread
my grandfather baked on Sundays.
And yet the metal has seeped into our blood.
We taste the pride of the past and bring with it
the disappointment and dissolution of the present.
Now we are the voices of a generation’s future.
Surrounding villages scarred by excavations —
coal extracted from the hillside left her mark.
This is Ironopolis, city built on clenched fist,
hardened hands and broken hearts.

Jenny Smith’s work focuses on family histories, her north-east heritage and her somewhat Bohemian upbringing, all in-between balancing the demands of married life and home educating her children.