A Need for Leeds
I’ve only fleetingly gone through Leeds so it was great to spend a couple of days here. My memories of Leeds are from the early 90s where I was a frequent visitor to the Yorkshire Post offices.
I worked in the London offices for United Provincial Newspapers, the then owners of the mighty YP and hundreds of titles across the country. I had responsibility for ensuring the advertising pages of the Yorkshire tiles were amply filled by lucrative national advertisers, via their London based advertising agencies. As I recall, the Yorkshire Post was based next to the Hilton, where I had my first ever filled Yorkshire pudding. It was my first visit to the county and I felt it only rate, even though my Leeds colleagues were fully expecting me to go for a fancy baguette. Hard to think that was so new in 1990.
Sadly, the offices where I accessed my first printers - in the basement - where I could literally pick up a paper hot of the press are no longer there but I did travel to the building they are now housed for nostalgia’s sake. I miss those days where the regional newspaper was writ large at the top of their building, proudly looking over the city. I miss the days of working in the media but they are long gone.
Talking of long-gone days, let’s get to the reason why I chose to spend my birthday in Leeds this year; a visit to the M&S archive. Over the last year or two, I’ve been captivated by their online events and made it my mission to attend the museum as soon as it opened. Heading there on my birthday was the icing on the birthday cake. I love seeing all the content from the events come to life and to cap it all, they surprised me with a bag full of goodies having seen me post about visiting because they love their fans! And they didn’t even know it was my birthday!
Coming out of the M&S Archive at the Leeds University campus, the ground looked wet and shortly afterwards, after a coffee stop at Opposite Cafe, sure enough, there was a rainbow. Other coffees enjoyed at Tamper, Kapow, Stage Espresso, Mrs Athas although less so at Lane’s Cafe which is probably a bit too close to the station to have to try that hard.
Back in Leeds, I did the M&S trail and stood at all the important steps in my favourite retailer’s history before popping along to the largest Hotel Chocolate cafe I have seen. Generally, the shopping is excellent in Leeds, the best I have seen outside London. Old centres have been re-energised and the oldest market, where M&S started, is still going strong in the middle of the city surrounded by luxury brands dotted through Harvey Nichols and beyond.
I managed to uphold an old tradition of Italian for my birthday dinner as LIVIN’Italy had just re-opened after a break. I love tapas in any shape or form but it was great to see an Italian version. The day before we ate in a similar style for Thai food at Phra Nakhon, both just around the corner from our centrally located hotel. Another tradition built during recent years is a holiday cocktail in a rooftop bar, this time at the Doubletree which gave us the great city view at night. The couple of beers we had at North Star Brewery was more relaxed and fun though. Breakfasts were enjoyed at & Company and If Up North.
Considering on the morning of the trip, we had to change the original plan to go via the Settle line to Leeds due to heavy flooding, going directly to Leeds proved too fine on its own. I look forward to the Settle line hopefully in 2022.
Leeds is a fine city full of energy, colour and history.
