New Social Art School Projects - Tillydrone Bobbi
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Bobbi, in the middle, with friends Sarah and Shelby, artist's flat, May 2007
Bobbi teenager
Bobbi was the first kid that spoke to me. It was on Valentine’s Day, the morning after some friends and I had put love hearts on all the prohibition signs. I was just peeling one off because it didn’t really stick. Bobbi came up and asked, ‘Why did you take that love heart down?’ I was amused by her frankness, brave girl, asking me just like that. Next time we met she came up with this idea and we’ve talked about it for a long time. Today we are doing it… Bobbi is 12 years old.
We are the Love Patrol and we’re trying to make some fun in Tillydrone. We want lots of places for kids to have fun by taking down the NO BALL GAMES signs – or painting them or putting stuff on them. Love Patrol! But we are just painting one sign to show what could be done in Tillydrone.
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When I first saw the love hearts I wondered who put them up… My dad said, ‘I bet the council did it.’ But I said, ‘No, the council don’t have that much brains to do that!’ I thought it was probably just somebody putting a bit of love into the area. It was cool…
And then you told me that you’d put them up, and I was like, Aha! When you said that you would be taking them down soon, I asked you, ‘See the one over there, at the back of my house, could you leave that one up?’ You said that you didnae like the NO BALL GAMES signs, and I thought that lots of people don’t like them. I like the colour pink, and that’s why I thought we could paint them pink. I started thinking about that after the love hearts. I wanted to paint all the signs pink!
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I’ve stayed here my whole life. I lived in Formartine Road first; I even remember my mum giving birth to my little brother in the bathroom. I remember I went to St Machar nursery and I had a dog called Buster. And after the building in Formartine Road got knocked down, I moved into a maisonette in Cunningham Gardens. I stayed there for a few years and then I moved down to Alexander Drive and that’s where I stay now. And I like it. There are a lot of boys that you can annoy! My next-door neighbours, on both sides, they are boys. So I’m just annoying them…
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I think there are more girls than boys in Tillydrone. Everywhere you go, you don’t see the same girls, but you always see the same boys. From my house to school I see different girls all the time but only about the same five boys.
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We have the ‘boardies’ over besides the Lads’ Club. It’s a heap of boards, and you can play ‘Flushy Toilet’ on them. There’s people at the top and there’s people at the bottom, right. The people at the bottom have to run up to get to the top. And if they get to the top they gotta touch the people at the top and say, ‘You’re down!’ and they have to go down to the bottom. But the people at the top try and stop you from getting up. And if they touch you - it’s got to be on the head - then you’ve got to go back down. It’s fun!
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And there’s always people you can just go and muck about with. There’s always somebody. I’m never bored. There’s the parks as well; the Donny Park, near the river, there is the Roundabout Park and then there is the H and A Park; when you look down onto it, it’s like an A shape and if you look straight onto it it’s like an H. I go there a lot. I just go down to meet people. My little brother goes to the after school club in the Lads’ Club and, if it’s a nice day, they go down to the Donny Park. And I go down there and just muck about with all the little ones.
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TYP is fun. I go on the computers or play pool, or annoy Cliff and Herman! TYP is cool, but they could do with a bitty more colour outside. It’s white. There’s a big field around it and then there’s the flats, which are all grey. There’s nae much colour. So, if you paint that a bright colour it sticks out and the place would look a bitty more fun. I would just paint it blue.
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Tilly might change. It might get boring or it might get more fun. You never know. I don’t know where I wanna live when I’m older. I’m only at first year in secondary school.
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I think it’s gonna be fun painting the sign. When I’m older I’m gonna go, I painted that sign pink! I think people are gonna be shocked when they see it… But a lot of kids are trying to take the signs down anyway. And lots of adults will understand. Everybody will like it I think.
Recorded 12th May