As Labour takes power for the first time in 14 years, the Guardian asked three writers to describe how their home towns had changed under Conservative rule – and the challenges now facing Keir Starmer.Durham is an ancient city.
But things have deteriorated lately. Though I live across the border in Yorkshire, my family and friends are still in Durham and I’m back often; my recent Saint Cuthbert-inspired novel, Cuddy, is entirely set there. Two things strike me when I return: the main thoroughfare of Silver Street feels close to collapse. Gone is the Marks & Spencer where I first discovered escalators and hummus. Alongside it are several other empty premises, six phone shops and a vape store.
“The biggest difference for me has been the effect on schools and the NHS,” says the Durham-based writer Anna Barker. “My daughter’s school doesn’t put the heating on in the winter months any more. My partner recently had a stroke and was told it’d be five hours wait for an ambulance, then when we got to A&E there were six ambulances backed up with patients still onboard.”
I’m not blinded by parochialism, though. In the 1980s it was a tough town, and at 2am it can still be a drinking-and-fighting kind of place, while resentment towards the student population has amplified. Town and gown relations are strained, though the city would be far worse off without the university, and Durham people are also some of the friendliest you could meet.