Crafty Coseley: The pom-pom phenomenon

If you want to find out what’s going on in your area, you could try the usual places – local Facebook groups, shop message boards or just straightforward gossip. But in East Coseley, a Black Country village just north of Dudley, you could also pick up a pom-pom.

A local initiative, Pom-Poms 4 Loneliness, is fighting the plague of isolation in a crafty way – with little baubles left like woolly bread crumbs all over the neighbourhood. The idea is to give locals an ice-breaker, something to spark a conversation and hopefully form a connection. The note attached reads: “Let’s spread the word about loneliness and isolation – take this little pom-pom on a vacation.”

“A phone number is all that somebody needs,” says Coseley community connector Shona Gilsenan. “Although our role is to reduce isolation for the people by creating these things, an ideal situation would be that these friendships are formed within the environment they’re living in.”

She’s a distinctive figure, with a huge smile framed by purple hair, and now knows pretty much everyone in the Coseley area.

In 2019, East Coseley Big Local approved funding for a Black Country charity, Just Start Talking, which works to combat loneliness. But Shona, and her co-worker Dave Roberts, knew that the hardest people to reach would be those not already participating in community activities. So, they came up with the idea of crocheted pom-poms, with a string attached to a telephone number. They hung them from trees, sign-posts, benches and railings. Shona calls it ‘pom-bombing’.

Shona, 40, originally grew up in Birmingham but now lives in Dudley. She’s a distinctive figure, with a huge smile framed by purple hair, and now knows pretty much everyone in the Coseley area. The single mother-of-two says her role is mainly about identifying people’s needs, introducing them to local activities and connecting them with others. She runs a craft session – making more pom-poms – a weekly coffee morning, gardening sessions, group walks – “anything that gives people a purpose and connects them to the community”.

It’s about just being out with people, meeting people, finding out what’s going on and listening.”

Shona tells a story of accidentally meeting a woman planting vegetables in her garden – with one tool and limited supplies. “I took tomato plants to her and sat on her chair in the garden, which sunk into the ground. So I went to the community skip and found some concrete slabs, and now she can put her chairs on those instead. It’s about seeing what the needs are for people in the community. To be able to provide ground for her to put chairs on, so other people in the community can sit with her – you can’t write that job description.”

“It’s about just being out with people, meeting people, finding out what’s going on and listening.”

On a garden walk, one elderly lady needed to rest for a while, and sat on a bench. Another joined her to keep her company, although they hadn’t met before, and they began chatting. “I could see that if that continues on a weekly basis, then that friendship’s going to be formed.”

When she first came to Coseley, Shona says, she was “blown away” by the amount of things that were going on in the village. But, she explains, people weren’t always aware of what was on offer. “We had a lady with a qualification in art, in a relationship she needed to take time out of. And we told her that there was an art class running at the end of her street, which she didn’t know about.”

But the area has lots to give, Shona says enthusiastically – green space and a train station, rich with community centres and sheltered accommodation. “Visually, there have been lots of changes – a constant trickle of changes. It’s just about making that little bit of difference.”

More and more people in the Coseley area began interacting with the pom-poms and bollard covers, recognising them as something in common that can start a conversation. But then, of course, the pandemic hit. People were forced to retreat inside, and Shona and Dave adapted the project for the Zoom era, with online coffee mornings and pom-pom making tutorials. People then put their colourful creations in their front windows. Shona and Dave also coordinated the crafters to work together on a community college. One participant was a blind stroke patient, with the use of only one hand.

It just brightened up the days in those dark times last year.”

Thanks to the community’s efforts, the main street now also sports jaunty knitted bollard covers. Inspired by a national initiative making postbox toppers, Shona realised that there were 63 bollards in the area that they could mobilise the craft group to festoon – they managed to cover about 35.

Especially during the pandemic, she says, when kids were in lockdown – bored, frustrated, confused – and all they could do was go for a walk, they would find the pom-poms and take pictures for Facebook. “It just brightened up the days in those dark times last year.”

Now, Shona says, “the power of the pom-pom has changed slightly again, because obviously we have all at some point in the last 18 months experienced isolation, so it’s an evolving tool. But it has always been an icebreaker, and something that brings people together.”