In My Life

There are places I remember. As time goes by I discover that this blog is as much about geography as music. The setting can stir my memory just as effectively. My walk through Manchester to the Michael Chabon talk back in October seems to have started something. Last Sunday there was a reunion to celebrate the Russell Club. I was sorry I couldn’t go, but I did find myself in Manchester on both the Saturday and the Monday for different events. Saturday’s plan was to meet up with an old friend for lunch and a poetry and jazz event at the Whitworth Art Gallery. Simon Armitage was one of the performing poets. He’s a favourite of mine, and I have seen him interviewed and reading his poetry before. He also filmed part of his fantastic version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the historic house where I work. There’s a bus that runs direct from Bakewell to the centre of Manchester and a couple of times a year I am tempted to catch it, because it seems to make sense at the time. I still find public transport a bit of an adventure, and the journey into Manchester included a fantastic cast of characters that may get written about one day, truth being stranger than fiction. The bus came to a sudden halt in the middle of the road in the centre of Longsight. It was completely immobilised and the driver struggled to find the magic button to make it work again. After ten minutes I made a decision. I knew I could walk down Dickenson Rd and would then be close to the Whitworth Gallery. I asked myself when, if ever, would I get the chance to retrace the journey I made on a daily basis back in the late 70s. So turning the corner I walked past Longsight market, as vibrant and multicultural as ever. On past Wise Chemists, the family business of Manchester promoter Alan Wise, still there on the corner of Hamilton Rd. I used to live on Reynell Rd, on the right at the far end. I clearly remembered walking this route in good weather and bad, slipping on ice in my pearlised pink leather ankle boots, admiring my new haircut in a shop window reflection. There were more unpleasant memories too. I worked at the Asian Women’s refuge as a language teacher and if I walked children from the refuge to school I would run the gauntlet of abuse, shouted from passing cars, and even to my face. Last Monday I took the train from Buxton to Manchester with my son Charlie and my friend Keith. We had tickets for Shearwater. They were playing at a venue that was new to us, St Philip’s Church in Salford. Except it wasn’t really new to me. From the age of ten until I was thirteen I went to school just round the corner. Adelphi House Grammar School for Girls. I believe the building is now part of Salford University. And when I left boarding school I spent a year working at Salford Central Library, just a short walk away on The Crescent. Like Dickenson Rd, this area seems to held in a suspended state of partial renewal. It hasn’t been transformed in a way that makes it unrecognisable like many areas of Manchester. The Catholic cathedral was still there. Roads and junctions had been widened. Pavements had strange blue neon strip lights set into them. The bus stops were in the same place – we used to walk one bus stop closer to Manchester to avoid the chaos of getting on the bus outside school. A man with no nose used to ride past on his bike every afternoon. The Education Offices, where I went to plead my case after I had left Exeter University after only a term (I missed the north ) are now unoccupied. Salford Education Committee gave me a full three years worth of grants when I started afresh at Leeds the following year. There was the Dickensian corner shop where I once had to buy two ounces of cheese, wrapped in a scrap of greaseproof paper. It was for domestic science – cheese scones, and my mother who worked full time didn’t have any cheese in the house. No late night mini supermarkets in those days. I had to catch an early bus and go searching. The building was still there, but it was no longer a shop. Pubs with familiar names were boarded up, including the Peel Park on Chapel St. Peel Park was the view from the art room window, a real life Lowry landscape. In fact Lowry drew St Philip’s church, and the architect of the British Museum designed it. We discovered a great pub, The New Oxford, that was still going strong, with a friendly clientele and a huge range of Belgian fruit beers. The band were amazing, and hopefully they will put a video made during the sound check up on their website. Their sound engineer is from Manchester, and his father had filmed them with a camera attached to a remote control model helicopter. It was a strange and multi-layered evening. I loved the music. I loved the neo-classical Church. I loved being back in Salford. Even the tension of wondering would we make it to Piccadilly in time to catch the last train back to Buxton added something – a reminder of those days of dashing for the last bus home. And I haven’t even touched on the concerts at Salford University, when I was one of Allan Prior’s dance troupe. Another day.