The award-winning writer has now turned his blog into an interactive project for the Yorkshire Festival
Postman and poet Kevin Boniface
It’s normally something that would pass through one ear and out the other while waiting for a bus.
But for Huddersfield postman Kevin Boniface, it’s a source of creative inspiration.
The father-of-two from Paddock has been blogging for the past six years on conversation he hears while out on his rounds.
The snippets of local people’s musings heard on the town’s streets, as well as Kevin’s own, are cut and pasted together for his online project, The Most Difficult Thing Ever.
The blog, which has previously won an award at the Blog North awards, got its name after Kevin overheard a young woman at a bus stop telling friends that smoking a cigarette in the shower was the “most difficult thing ever”, a notion which prompted Kevin to begin documenting things heard in public.
The 44-year-old said: “The blog is basically me wandering about making hopefully amusing, and insightful, observations about what is going on.”
Kevin, who is married to artist Georgia and father to Molly, 16, and ten-year-old Edie, is now collaborating on a project for the Yorkshire Festival and Hebden Bridge Arts Festival, which allows the public to listen to his musings by scanning barcodes stuck on local landmarks.
Kevin said: “I was asked by Helen Meller, who is the artistic director at Hebden Bridge Arts Festival, to start this project. We agreed we should broaden it out to areas in the Yorkshire Festival.”
He has recorded himself reading observations across Kirklees and Calderdale, which have been put online.
Barcodes slapped on post boxes, post offices and stations where Kevin has recorded the pieces can be scanned by smartphones to listen.
“The recordings are little vignettes, riffs on life”, Kevin added.
Also appearing at Holmfirth Arts Festival for a reading, the blog has proved a huge hit with the local arts scene.
“Hopefully, people across the festivals will empathise with these stories. When I write them I try not to be judgmental. I’m just showing people rather than telling them.”
The monologues can be heard at: http://recorded-delivery.blogspot.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; .