Like mother, like daughter: Podsmead’s family legacy

Molly Webb is crouching down by a large rock in a rose garden. The wind whips her brown fringe into her eyes, and she struggles to hold back an enthusiastic young dog as she reads the inscription on the stone’s plaque. It says: “In memory of Carmel Webb, who died 31st December 2013. Founder of Freedom Kidz and tireless worker within the Podsmead community.”

Podsmead, a picturesque council estate about a mile from Gloucester city centre, is where Molly, 19, has lived all her life, and where she has volunteered for Big Local. It’s also where her mother, Carmel, has been honoured by her own memorial garden, for her efforts in the area – chairing the community association, hosting a lunch club for elder citizens and running youth outreach programmes.

Looking at the memorial stone, Molly remembers: “She did have a lot of awards, and people saying how well she’d done, but she didn’t really care. She was doing it for the community.”

Molly, now 19, has been volunteering for most of her life. “Born and bred in Podsmead,” as she puts it, Molly knows most people in the neighbourhood thanks to her mum’s community efforts. As a child, she would often join her parents on their rounds of the area, and growing up took part in various youth clubs and elder activities.

Play Gloucestershire, a local charity that runs outdoor activities for children, would come along in vans full of toys, sports equipment and arts and crafts, and Molly would join in. At her lowest point, after her mother died, her father suggested she reconnect with the group. “I just started being myself again,” she says. “I started to have more fun, to laugh. And then halfway through the next year, it clicked. I was like, ‘I really want to do this for a job.’”

It’s also where Molly’s place in the community is most evident; she’s on first-name terms with almost everyone who comes in – even the dogs.

But when the pandemic hit, Play Gloucestershire were forced to abandon their outdoor activities. Molly was frustrated and bored. The chair of Podsmead Big Local, Les Jevins, knew Molly through her mum’s community work, and suggested she get involved. “Molly is a natural,” says Les. “Working with young people is something that comes easy to her. She has a great ability to connect with children on their level.”

Under the UK’s Kickstarter scheme, which provides placements for 16 to 24-year-olds, Molly was drafted in to help with the Poet’s Pantry – part food-bank alternative, part community café and anti-waste initiative, which you can read more about a recent article in the Independent. Locals are invited to pay a weekly donation of £1 (if they can afford to; nobody is turned away) and receive a large bag of donated food and staples. The pantry also collects food from supermarkets to give away on Thursdays and Fridays completely for free. Podsmead is something of a food desert – the only shop in the area is a small Premier Express convenience store, with high prices and a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables. During lockdown, the Pantry became more than just a vital initiative to combat food poverty, but also a social hub and lifeline.

It’s also where Molly’s place in the community is most evident; she’s on first-name terms with almost everyone who comes in – even the dogs. She has saved extra fruit for one child who loves it, and knows that another dog inexplicably prefers carrots.

Molly says that her favourite aspect of volunteering is this connection with other locals. “So many people come in with their kids, and originally they’re scared of me. But then after three or four trips, they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s Molly,’ and I see their faces light up.”

Les describes Carmel as “the catalyst for youth work” in the area. “Her legacy can be seen in the community today through her daughter,” he says, “and the people who she influenced during her life in Podsmead.”

I ask Molly if she feels that she is continuing her mother’s legacy. She answers: “Yeah, in a way, I am.”

Carmel Webb may have been a tireless worker in the community, but she was also terminally ill. She suffered from a rare heart and lung condition, pulmonary hypertension, which she battled for ten years. Molly was always aware of her mum’s health problems, and of the demands of her volunteering, but she says Carmel always found time to have fun with her family. “She was living life to the full,” Molly says. “I swear my mum was a superhero.”

she wanted to be a zookeeper, until she changed her mind and decided to work with children.

Inspired by Carmel, in 2015 her brother Wayne Russell made headlines when he pledged to run the whole coastline of Britain – about 5,000 miles – to raise money for the Superhero Foundation. ITV called him “the West Country’s very own Forrest Gump”. It took him ten months, and he raised more than £27,000.

Carmel died suddenly, aged 35, on New Year’s Eve in 2013. Molly was seven. “I remember every little detail,” Molly says.

For about six months after that, Molly says, “I didn’t want to do anything; I sort of locked myself away. And that’s when Play Gloucestershire sort of saved me.”

Molly explains that in the past she was bullied, “for who I was and what I liked – Gothy things, mostly”, but now feels accepted in the neighbourhood. She loves art and does courses for self-improvement, like the twelve-week Prince’s Trust programme she has just completed. Originally, she says, she wanted to be a zookeeper, until she changed her mind and decided to work with children. “They’re sort of similar, aren’t they?” she laughs.

“When I started going to Play Gloucestershire, it just clicked – this is why I like this, I want to be around people, I want to make kids laugh and I want to make them happy. I love being outdoors, and you’ve just gotta make everyone happy, haven’t you?”

The message she’d most like to impart? “Just because you’ve got a disability, like dyslexia or dyspraxia, it doesn’t stop you. It hasn’t held me back. I just think of it as an extra part of me … because I think of things in a different way.”

Like all the locals I speak to, Molly is passionate about Podsmead; a pleasant, attractive area full of greenery and a strong sense of community. The issues of poverty, addiction and crime are ever-present – in fact, while we are sitting together in the main park, a man approaches us asking whether we’re selling drugs. “It’s rough and ready,” says Molly. “It has ups and downs, but it’s obviously a really good community. It’s like a big happy family.”