Their friendship ebbed and flowed like any other. They’d fall out, not speak for a while sometimes. “He was annoying,” says Jayvon of Cheriff, with a resonance that says he’d do anything to have him annoy him again. “He was my closest friend.”
Just another Moss Side story, you might think, one that could have been written anytime in the last forty years. But there is a cast list here, people who speak for themselves & of things they know. They walk about the estate minding their own business, & end up discovering everyone else’s. Sure, anytime in the last forty years. But guns…
Sitting in hot cars & shipping containers & listening to people as they tell their own stories, their accounts & interpretations, writing them up, & publishing them, is something we might have lost the skills or the inclination to do. Not on this site.
Great piece - really personal story exemplifying the issues in a community. My life experiences have been very different from Jayvon’s but the piece left me wondering how I would have responded to his…….
I would appreciate more articles on the crime scene locally as it does seem that gun crimes are prevalent here in a way that they are not on other urban conurbations.It was also good to read about the personal stories of the local youth.
Two things stand out in Jack’s telling of this story . An absence of victim-blaming and the rawness of his interviewee’s losses.
It’s a compelling, humane and important piece.
Their friendship ebbed and flowed like any other. They’d fall out, not speak for a while sometimes. “He was annoying,” says Jayvon of Cheriff, with a resonance that says he’d do anything to have him annoy him again. “He was my closest friend.”
Just another Moss Side story, you might think, one that could have been written anytime in the last forty years. But there is a cast list here, people who speak for themselves & of things they know. They walk about the estate minding their own business, & end up discovering everyone else’s. Sure, anytime in the last forty years. But guns…
Sitting in hot cars & shipping containers & listening to people as they tell their own stories, their accounts & interpretations, writing them up, & publishing them, is something we might have lost the skills or the inclination to do. Not on this site.
Proper local journalism.
I worked as children's social worker in Wythenshawe and Longsight for a couple of years and this article rings really true to me
Great piece - really personal story exemplifying the issues in a community. My life experiences have been very different from Jayvon’s but the piece left me wondering how I would have responded to his…….
Eye opening and sad.
I would appreciate more articles on the crime scene locally as it does seem that gun crimes are prevalent here in a way that they are not on other urban conurbations.It was also good to read about the personal stories of the local youth.
That's so sad.