Wardle man lends his voice to poetry trail about recovery

Friday, 28 August 2026 00:44

By David Murphy

Some of the team discovering locations for the walking trail

A Wardle man who has been in recovery from substance use for just over a year has contributed to a new poetry and audio walking trail.

John Bailey is one of 15 people from Turning Point's Rochdale and Oldham Active Recovery service, known as ROAR, who worked with poet Phil Davenport on the project.

The group created seven spoken poetry pieces for If You Could Speak to the World, a self-guided walking route from Oldham town centre into Northern Roots.

Their recordings have been combined with music composed by Sophie Cooper and performed by Milnrow Band.

Mr Bailey, a former bar and restaurant manager, took part in outdoor sessions at Northern Roots during the spring and early summer.

The participants, aged from their 20s to their 70s, used the landscape to help create poetry and record sounds for the trail.

They also helped map the route and identify stopping points.

Mr Bailey said: “A big part of my recovery has been saying yes to things. And as an English literature graduate who grew up going on lots of walks, this opportunity really stood out for me.”

He is currently undertaking peer mentor training with ROAR ahead of postgraduate study in counselling and psychotherapy.

Describing one of the techniques used during the project, he said: “Phil had us write down answers to three questions: who we were grateful to and what message we would send them, what we look back on with sadness and what we thought the area we were walking through was like 150 years ago.

“We then 'curated' our own words to make a 'found poem' out of them. They were surprisingly profound and beautiful and, in this way, everyone in the group created a piece they could feel proud of.”

The shortest version of the trail is two miles and takes in all seven locations, while longer routes run for up to six miles.

Maps will be available from the Northern Roots Welcome Building and online from September.

Davenport said: “This is a sound walk like no other. We aren’t delivering a nature trail or a local history, but something much more unusual. We will be guided by the voices of local people in recovery: people who are intensely aware of the dark art of damage and the honesty needed to pull away from it.

“Their poems are the narrative for the walk, which takes us out of a busy, chaotic town centre, to the edge of where people are and then out beyond, into the woods and the wilds.”

The project was commissioned by visual arts organisation Portraits of Recovery for Recoverist Month and funded through Transport for Greater Manchester's Wheels and Walks programme.

Guided walks are due to take place during September and October to launch the permanent audio trail.