Lemn Sissay taking the ultimate in slow travel

Walking and the outdoors was very much the theme of the conversation on Sissay’s recent visit to Leeds University Business School where he opened an exhibition of sketches by students and staff under the guidance of Yorkshire artist Jake Attree.

“I was opening the exhibition ‘Walk to Zero’ which is inspiring Leeds University Business School to get more students to walk,” he explained. “There’s a climate action system at the university which encourages students and lecturers, and others engaged with the university, to catch the train instead of flights – that’s one of the things that is being encouraged, a slow travel policy. Walking is the ultimate in slow travel.

“I did ‘Winter Walks’ on the BBC which was a surprise hit television series. It was made by a Yorkshire production company, and was where writers like myself and other personalities go out alone and walk in the hills of the country – most of it in Yorkshire.

“You go alone with a camera on the end of a stick and you talk about the things you see and the things you’re feeling. It is surprising actually how meditative walking is and how you connect with your environment in a very unique way.

“I also don’t think that walking is something always done amongst the greenery – walking is something that can happen as much in the city, as much as the countryside.

“I should be more of a walker if truth be told and it’s initiatives like this that encourages people like me to do stuff that is good for me.”

Explore Yorkshire’s rich arts and culture scene with our dedicated newsletter

Sissay has a remarkable personal story to tell. Placed with a foster family from an early age by Wigan social services he was only reunited with his Ethiopian-born mother when he was 21 when he tracked her down to the work she was doing with the United Nations in The Gambia.

The story of his upbringing is beautifully told in Sissay’s book ‘Something Dark’ and he has been passionate in drawing attention to how society treats children in care.

He is clearly an inspiring figure and someone whose prose carry resonance whether read for pleasure or to form opinions.

However, it is a label he shies away from preferring to talk generally about the power of the written word: “You’re a team player and this is a team game. If you write an article in The Yorkshire Post someone could see that anywhere in the world and what you don’t realise is that it gives them a sense of place, it is orientating them, it is allowing them to go ‘this where I’m from’.

“People form a relationship with you as a writer but you don’t think about that when you’re writing. You’re doing what you’re born to do and I’m doing what I was born to do.

“I never think of myself as that (an inspiration) I’m just cracking on because I’m a writer. Beautiful things constantly happen – yesterday I was in Ireland and a man came up to me after a reading. He said ‘my mum died two years ago and I’ve not been able to cry for her, I laughed and cried at your event’. I don’t set out to do that.”

Sissay clearly was born to write with his work celebrated widely. His list of titles including artist-in-residence at London’s Southbank Centre and one of the official poets for the London 2012 Olympic Games are testament to the esteem in which he is held.

However, receiving an MBE from Queen Elizabeth II in 2010 and an OBE from the then Prince Charles in 2022 are accolades he cherishes.

“It’s like somebody tapping you on the shoulder and saying ‘I just want to say I really appreciate what you’ve been doing all these years’,” he says. “It’s a beautiful thing whenever that happens regardless of where it is.

“If you walked into your local shop and the guy behind the counter said ‘let’s just stop for a minute, I want to say thank you for what you have been doing’. That gives you a real lift. And that’s what it feels like.

“When someone offers you something in recognition of what you’ve done it makes you think of where you’re from. I grew up like many of us where I never thought I’d be given a medal for anything. I really appreciate it just being seen and it means a lot.”

Now living in east London Sissay is hoping, after a recent trip to Paris, that the Olympic Games will regenerate that part of the French capital city as it did to his own neighbourhood, “I lived in the area but watched a lot of it on the TV – it was an exciting time for us all. It has transformed East London and breathed life into an area that really needed it.”

But as well as London, Yorkshire also continues to hold a place for his affections, particularly as he looks forward to a national tour to promote his next book ‘Let the Light in’ later this year. He said: “I’ve been coming to Yorkshire since the beginning of my career. I read with Simon Armitage in his local library when we were both about 20 years of age. It’s a great county for literature.

“The Bradford Literature Festival is absolutely incredible with the size of it, but Leeds Literature Festival is too from years ago. You have Simon bringing the National Poetry Centre to Leeds in five years time when his laureateship ends. It’s an exciting time.”