In the prologue of Catherine Taylor’s memoir, The Stirrings, we find the author at the age of 13 in Sheffield’s General Cemetery on a drizzly autumn night. The year is 1980, and if a crumbling Victorian graveyard shrouded in darkness isn’t enough to raise a shudder, the presence of the Yorkshire Ripper looms menacingly over proceedings – a shadow of evil lurking among the large weeping ash trees and cracked, overgrown graves.
“I’ve had this book in my head for about 30 years,” says Catherine. “I thought about writing it as a novel, but I couldn’t really see it that way. The fact that the Ripper was caught behind my school is something that has always stayed with me. There was also this personal link to my father leaving during that time, and it felt like a very unprotected period of my life. When Sutcliffe died in 2020, I wrote a piece for Granta Magazine – Bleak Midwinter – and around that time, I decided to turn it into a book.”
The violent backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper murders – and the grim, if not predictable, responses from regional police forces and the nationwide press – starkly portrays the anxieties and judgments that plagued the daily lives of women in northern cities like Sheffield. Depressingly, the natural path of reflection that comes with memoir writing has led Catherine to compare eras and question how much progress has been made more than four decades on. “We think so much has changed, but when it comes to how the media portrays sex workers and women, I’m not sure how much has. There’s this distinction between an innocent woman and a non-innocent woman depending on how they live and what they do. As I continued to write, other issues arose that seemed so contemporaneous: the right to strike, the right to protest, police corruption at Hillsborough and Orgreave, and, of course, the misogyny I’ve alluded to.”
Throughout The Stirrings, Taylor continues to skilfully interweave broader socio-political events with personal stories that shaped her life. The Yorkshire Ripper case, the miners’ strike, the Falklands War, anti-nuclear protest, Thatcherism, post-punk music, Hillsborough and Orgreave: these epoch-defining events overshadow and mingle with the writer’s own traumas and developments.
The title reflects this approach, partly inspired by the local name for the Sheffield Outrages – a series of violent incidents and labour disputes between workers, employers and police during the 1860s – and partly a reference to the transformative journey from childhood to adolescence. “It’s important to me that The Stirrings serves as a touchstone of Sheffield’s radical history, but there’s also a double meaning as it’s a good, slightly ambiguous title for a coming-of-age book.”
Fulwood Road, Broomhill. Peter Sutcliffe was arrested in this area in 1981, a stone’s throw from the school Taylor attended. ©Nigel Thompson
Taylor says that the motivation to pen her memoir wasn’t drawn from any desire to exorcise personal demons, but she did find it a process that allowed her to gain new perspectives on specific eras of her life. While certain periods were useful to revisit, others were undeniably challenging. Amongst various trials and tribulations, the book delves into her parents’ divorce, the memory of a friend’s tragic death, and her experiences of bullying at school. Naturally, some of these were hard passages to write, but she also found that the act of writing empowered her to release the hold that some of these memories had over her.
“It can make you look at things differently and from another angle,” she reflects. “It was quite difficult, obviously, to revisit my parents’ divorce, particularly since they’re both dead now. But one of the wonderful things about writing the book was that my mother came back to me and was kind of restored to me; I was reminded of what an incredible person she was. I also realised that some of the things that I wrote about, like being bullied at school, don’t have power over me anymore. Other events I realised I had buried for a long time, just locked away. They were the most difficult parts to write.”
Sheffield in the 1980s – Dixon Lane ©Nigel Thompson
While there are traumatic events depicted with searing honesty, you’ll also find plenty of light to go with the shade. An aspect that will engage local readers is Taylor’s immersive portrayal of Sheffield, the city where the majority of her memories unfold. Her surroundings initially reflect the equally dismal childhood experience of divorce – ‘grey, grim, and wet: steep roads, forbidding buildings’ – but the dichotomy of the city’s post-industrial bleakness and its evolving cultural offering becomes a compelling setting that mirrors Taylor’s personal maturation.
As we follow her deeper into the 80s, the narrative is peppered with fondly recalled landmarks and experiences that illuminate and pay homage to the city’s unique character. The reader is transported from sticky, swinging dancefloors in The Limit to encounters with Phil Oakey – and his famous fringe – in the bookshop owned by her mother. “That wasn’t a one-off, by the way – he was an account customer!” Taylor points out when we discuss these brushes with celebrity.
It was important to me that I balanced the book,” she explains. “I wanted people to be able to find it funny and be able to relate to parts of it. Places like The Limit were such a big deal for us, a real rite of passage. Sheffield is an extraordinary city, ringed by the Peak District, which is so unique. But it also has the brutalist architecture which became famous, so obviously Park Hill, but I also loved the Egg Box, which was the infamous extension to the Town Hall. The Hole in the Road! I write about how a Christmas tree would always just appear there, as if by magic, and you had these amazing glass fish tanks filled with exotic fish. And of course, the church that I mention on Bramall Lane, St Mary’s, which was blackened from years of soot from the factories, and then they cleaned the damn thing! It kind of ruined it for me, in a way…”
The author will be returning to Sheffield next month, where she’ll be discussing The Stirrings at Off the Shelf Festival. We sign off the interview with Taylor speaking fondly of her love for a city which, despite holding some challenging memories, also nourished her with the places, people and cultural inspiration that fundamentally shaped the person she is today.
“I feel deep love and affection for Sheffield. It’s really a part of me. My sister still lives there and her daughter’s just moved up with her children, so it’s nice that yet another generation is going to grow up in the Steel City. History is all around in a place like Sheffield, and I still see it as a radical place. People will come out and fight for what they believe in. I’m proud of the city and proud to come from Sheffield. I don’t think I ever say that enough, but I am.”
The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time is published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson. For more information on the upcoming Off the Shelf event, head here.
