Nothing sacred to graffiti yobs

10:23am Wednesday 24th September 2008

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One of my favourite places in York has been vandalised.

Graffiti has been scrawled all over it, turning it into a rambling mess of tags and slogans.

It hasn’t just happened, though. It’s been going on for decades; centuries, even. Yet every time I see it, I can’t help but wince.

I ought to tell you where I’m talking about and why it grates me so much. It’s the spiral staircase in the Central Tower of York Minster, the route to our city’s highest and most spectacular pinnacle.

Every day, hundreds of tourists make their way to the top and, for the past few months, I’ve been taking advantage of my new Friends of York Minster membership and joining them about once a week.

I never tire of the 275-step ascent, nor the unparalleled views from the top, looking out over the city to the racecourse, Terry’s and Drax in the south; or the hospital, the Nestlé factory and the moors in the north. I always enjoy spying on the tourists snapping away on their cameras in and around Minster Yard, or peering down on the persistent traffic edging its way down Bootham, and over Lendal Bridge. And nothing beats the blast of cool air when one finally emerges from the staircase on to the tower roof.

But the graffiti, all the way up the walls of the staircase, always gets to me.

I wonder how Dave and Emma are getting on. They were seemingly a happy couple six years ago, so much so that they felt compelled to emblazon their love on the walls for all to see – “Emma 4 Dave 02”. What philistines. It’s all a bit odd, really. City of York Council and the police are always, quite rightly, banging on about graffiti and how unsightly it is, and yet here in the very epicentre of our city, there’s masses of the stuff. And it’s been there for years.

Just last month, Jessie “woz ere”. There are messages celebrating Italy’s success in the 2006 football World Cup. Someone called Beppe left his mark in 1996. Four members of the MacPherson clan saw fit to list their names half a century earlier, in 1946. And back in 1832, someone with the initials I A actually carved their insignia right into the stonework, in a move which looks to have taken some considerable effort. They don’t make vandals like they used to, you know.

And that, it seems, may be part of the problem here – the Minster staff are reluctant to get rid of the graffiti in case they remove some stuff of real interest.

In a moment of particular pique a week or so back, I asked staff at the Minster why they let it go on, and got quite an interesting reply.

The Dean of York, the Very Rev Keith Jones – main man at the Minster after God – said “in an ideal world” people wouldn’t indulge in graffiti, and its presence anywhere made it more likely for others to follow suit.

But, understandably, he said the cost and effort involved in cleaning the staircase could be better spent on other things, rather than what was essentially a “minor matter”.

He added: “The matter is complicated by our wish not to overlook what may be graffiti of real interest; that is a research project we cannot fund, but somebody may wish to do it one day.”

What a thought. Graffiti-ologists studying the inane ramblings of uncouth tourists. Crikey. There is some reassurance though from the Dean – if the graffiti spreads to the Minster’s more visible walls there will be trouble. “We would not tolerate even Banksy doing that,” he told me. Glad to hear it. Hopefully Beppe, Dave, Emma and the MacPhersons can take note.