Harrogate is a place full of beauty. Yet it also hides its sorrow beneath a veneer of smiles. When we ask the right questions, when we dig beneath its surface, unsurprisingly we find the ugliness of lives living in poverty and pain.
More surprisingly hidden though, walking along side of sorrow, is the healing beauty of love.
The past three years I have helped friends set up a charity in Harrogate that seeks to serve the community through a huge network of connections. It is from this body of relationship that I wish to write stories that bring hope to the hopeless, love to the least and joy to the lost and lonely.
The stories I wish to tell are about people’s journeys from isolation to enlightenment and despair to encouragement. They will also speak of community and connection that brings health and wellbeing to broken lives.
The stories I write will be real life stories of people belonging to Harrogate neighbourhoods. They will also be stories of people dedicating their lives to helping relieve suffering. They will reveal the ugliness of cruelty and the kind beauty of healing. They will make known the lives of real life heroes fighting the everyday villainy of poverty and neglect.
We are all capable of love and cruelty. In many ways it is a simple, everyday choice. Do I choose to act compassionately or selfishly? Do I have the where-with-all to show small, thoughtful acts of kindness that bring immense joy to others?
The stories I will share are of remarkable, broken, isolated, lost and lonely people who have shared their life stories with me. They have been a privilege to encounter. But the beautiful discovery, running along side of sorrow, is the hope and compassion of hearts filled with love willing to walk beside those in need.
I have called these stories ‘Stray Voices’ but actually what I have found in working in Harrogate’s caring network is a treasure trove of love I never knew existed. So, in writing this series I aim to open up the true wealth that Harrogate is built upon - the wealth of love.
In these blogs you will encounter stories, poems and prose of betrayal, painful transformation, unspeakable cruelty, brokenness, loneliness, loss, rejection, marginalisation, poverty and isolation.
Through this despair and sorrow you will also meet faithfulness, kindness, compassion, love, joy, peace, patience and tolerance.
You will hear the voice of the voiceless and see sorrow and love combined; a love that walks beside a character that is cast in fires, forged through hope and strengthened into life leading to faith and fulfilment.
Jo-Ann Hughes December 2018