Closed Leeds' theatre lends its effort to feeding city's isolated and elderly

The shift is bigger, when it comes to cultural cohesion. And for one Leeds' artistic director, at sea as the tide turns, that is what matters.

What we witness in this interlude, they add, is what will one day define us.

"The driving force behind this company has always been kindness," said Alan Lane, artistic director at Holbeck's Slung Low theatre company.

"We are a theatre company, but we can't make theatre. We are putting ourselves to use."

March 16 marked a stark day for the nation’s theatres when Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged people to stay away.

Holbeck’s Slung Low, housed in the oldest social club in Britain, sees many of its customers arrive every Sunday for a pint of mild.

The directors, acutely aware that many customers were aged over 75, decided to close their doors early, pledging to pay everyone from cleaners to bar staff.

Then Mr Lane started posting letters, offering to collect food.

What began with the theatre’s immediate neighbours has since grown.

The group is now volunteer guardians of the city wards of Beeston and Holbeck, leading from the Leeds City Council community helpline.

Every day, 40 volunteers join the effort, to help the vulnerable and elderly. The bar staff, guaranteed their salaries regardless, all came back.

They pick up parcels, and pies, for those in isolation. Prescriptions, food deliveries, laundry. Sometimes they just sit and listen.

"It was just a case of trying to be as useful as possible," said Mr Lane. "We are still here, we're healthy, we have vans and drivers."

Mr Lane’s smile is apparent as he recounts the jollity of an 83-year-old man who threatened him with a walking stick this week, after he mistakenly added a decade to his age.

He has found many joys to be had, but there have been sobering moments as well.

The elderly man with no gas, who has been eating sardines for two weeks, the family in isolation unable to do their laundry as they are without a washing machine.

And the elderly woman, frightened to leave her home to cash her pension, whose shoulders had sagged with relief when she finally held it in her hand.

“We do seem to have turned a corner, and not in a good way,” Mr Lane says. “We were laughing with them, just a few days ago. Now we’re not. They are frantic.

“We are able, one or two times a day, to create a situation where we can bring a little bit of relief. We will carry on as long as we are healthy.”

Donations of food have come from the Real Junk Food project, supermarkets, and Leeds Council.

“These are people who have never been in the system,” says Mr Lane. “That is causing them a lot of pain, emotionally.

“We’ve got the logistical skills, the manpower and a van. We are finding that, as artists, what is just as important is our ability to listen, to talk.”