Yorkshire Prose: Wakefield poet Ben Taylor on why there's no place like home

Ben, known as Yorkshire Prose, composes his work while on walks through the countryside near his home in Stanley, Wakefield. But with a lifetime of rugby league under his belt he has also become adept at giving curious ramblers a body swerve so he’s not interrupted.

“Recording the videos is probably the hardest bit,” said Ben, who by trade is an aviation engineer in the Royal Navy.

“I find the writing process much easier and I try not to let too many people know that in case everyone else has a go.

“I get a bit embarrassed when I see people while I’m out doing the videos so if they recognise me I’ll probably say I’m on the phone or something,” he laughed.

In reality Ben would probably end up to chatting to the stranger for half an hour about anything that cropped up.

While ‘Yorkshire Prose’ may be a stage name or character it is very much who Ben is. Spend time talking to him and you can’t help get caught up in his passion for his city, county and rugby league.

Wakefield has been home his entire life, except for spells away on active service with the Royal Navy.

And it is why he is so proud to have been asked to write a poem celebrating the district’s unique identity and heritage which will be unveiled at an event in Wakefield Cathedral today (Saturday, January 13), to officially mark the start a series of activities and experiences over the next 12 months. Our Year – Wakefield District 2024 is a partnership celebration, led by Wakefield Council. It’s a year-long programme of spectacles, festivals, major events, and community-led activities that celebrate all the Wakefield district has to offer.

“It’s a real honour to be performing at the launch of Our Year 2024 with a poem celebrating my hometown. I’m so proud to be from a place which has so much to offer from art and history to food and sport,” said Ben, aged 33.

“For me, it’s the people who create Wakefield’s unique character and charm, and I hope that shines through in the poem. By coming together for celebrations like Our Year, we can meet new people, learn new skills, share our local pride, and give the Wakefield district the time to shine that it deserves.

“Wakefield is home and always has been home. I think it is quite a unique place and the people share a huge affinity with each other whether that’s standing on the terraces at Belle Vue watching the game or how we speak.

“I can be sat in a pub having a pint and strike up a conversation with someone I’ve never met and it can feel like I’m chatting to an aunty or uncle. It’s that kind of place.”

Ben was the classic overnight success story, one of those which in fact took years of hard work.

“I was always good at English at school,” he said. “It was a subject that I just took to. Spelling and writing always came quite easy to me – I always read a lot – and I was fascinated by language but more so by dialect and in particular the Yorkshire dialect. I found a website called Yorkshire dialect which was put together by a guy called Dennis Rhodes who was from Wrenthorpe which is where I was brought up. I only found out after Dennis had died that he was the grandad to one of my mates.

“I’d do bits and bobs of writing through my teens but it was only in my 20s when I started to write a few more things. I’d not read them out to anyone but a mate who had moved to Australia met a girl out there and they had a baby boy, Josh. I thought he should hear from his roots so I did poem comparing Aussie slang with Yorkshire. It somehow got picked up on a Yorkshire Facebook page, people liked it, and it’s gone from there really.”

Ben’s career in the services has taken him far and wide from the Middle East to the freezing wastelands of Norway, but Australia is a country that is mentioned more than once.

As well as a love for rugby league it turns out that Ben is more than just a useful player. Captain of the Royal Navy team and the British Services side he regularly represents his country on the field and well as in uniform.

“I’m off to Australia in April when I get back from my next assignment with the Royal Navy,” he said. “We’re playing a couple of games in Sydney including one which will be a curtain raiser for an NRL fixture.”

Rugby league – even breaking his jaw during a game when he was younger – remains close to his heart.

And it provided one of the more surreal experiences of his life during a previous trip Down Under.

“I’d written a poem about the Rugby League World Cup in 2017 which took place in Australia and I tagged Sam Burgess in on Facebook. The next thing I know he’s sent me a message asking if I’m in Sydney.

“He was playing with the South Sydney Rabbitohs at the time with his brothers Tom, Harry and Luke so all four of them were there. I ended up meeting them and doing a reading in the Rabbitohs dressing room with all the players listening – I don’t think half of them understood a word.

“For me though the best bit is that they wanted to meet me, and were excited to meet me, and I’m just thinking ‘it’s Sam Burgess’.”

Married to Steph and with three-year old daughter Betsy keeping him busy, Ben is in the happy position of combining his career in the forces with his poetry, whilst taking on only projects he cares about.

“I’ve still got seven years left in the Navy before my pension kicks in,” he said, “and then maybe I’ll start to look at doing more poetry. At the moment, without sounding pretentious, I do stuff that I want to do and that I’m passionate about.

“I’ve been lucky to do things like a reading before a Remembrance Day rugby league test match at Anfield in front of about 40,000 people or working with Jason Fox from Celebrity SAS, who I get on well with because he was in the Special Boat Squadron attached to the Navy.

“When Queen Elizabeth died I was privileged to be asked to say some words over footage of my colleagues from the Royal Navy who drew the State Gun Carriage, bearing Her late Majesty’s coffin, during the funeral. That was very special.”

For a lad from Wrenthorpe, who tells it like it is in his remarkable prose Ben has become a Yorkshire treasure. And it is only fitting that his words – and voice – will officially mark the start of Wakefield’s Our Year 2024 today. The event requires no booking and is free so if Ben has given you the slip when you’ve tried to catch him full flow then Wakefield Cathedral could be your best bet to see and hear him speak.