City 36: Salford

Building Collapse on Two Firemen during the Blitz. Painting at the IWM.

01.03.2019

 An 8.30 start was always a little too optimistic. After a turbo charged rehearsal for my latest project Jerusalem, directed by Emily Armstrong, showing at Sutton Arts Theatre from the 14th-23rd of March, I am a little fatigued. The fact that I haven’t slept a wink either due to a surfeit of adrenaline hasn’t helped. I text today’s travelling companion William Walters or Billy Wa as he is colloquially known at 08.00 and extend our deadline till 10.00 and he agrees without demur.  At 9.50 I heave myself out of bed, make coffee and prepare for the day ahead. Bill arrives shortly after and we depart in his blue Honda to make the 90-mile trek north from Lichfield.

 Today’s destination is the City of Salford, which squats next to Manchester like a lesser known relative. It’s kind of like having Paul Gallagher stand next to Liam at a party and expecting people to care.  I’m aware of it and yet know precious little about it, I’m ashamed to say. A little digging on Wikipedia reveals the city has a population of over 230,000 and that its industrial past was focused on silk spinning, weaving and the sale of cotton. The Manchester Shipping Canal served as a transport network for the receipt of raw materials and the sending forth of finished products, ensuring the Cities prosperity, at one time, far exceeded that of its now more illustrious neighbour. Notable citizen’s include the recently departed actor Albert Finny and the still functioning Robert Powell, who starred as Jesus in Jesus of Nazareth and Jasper Carrot’s sidekick in the Detectives.

A Common Goal?

Google maps sketches out an M6 odyssey which moves onto the M62 and then the M602. It’s a weirdly hooked kind of route and neither of us fancy it. The M6 is a notoriously slow road due to the ever present road works so we plump instead for parallel A roads like the A34, which takes us to Wilmslow and then the A538 to the airport and finally the A5103 and A5066 to our first destination at Ordsall. Bill is an at times erratic driver who is hell bent on driving us to Eccles. I correctly surmise this is due to its association with the Goon show and politely demur, indicating that there are bigger fish to fry.

Location 1: Salford Lad's Club

Salford Icon

The car comes to a lurching halt in front of a Newsagents just off St Ignatius’s Walk at the junction of Coronation Street. Unbelieving I step out of the car and gawp. There it is!!! The iconic Salford Lad’s Club, made famous by its appearance on the Smith’s Classic Album ‘The Queen Is Dead.’ The Gang of Four, led by Chairman Morrissey stood in front of the doorway and posed for the gatefold inset on their third and to my mind, best album. Moz, looking slightly reminiscent of Ena Sharples, has his arms folded whilst a mono browed Mike Joyce glowers and Johnny, although mostly hidden outclasses everyone in skin tight white jeans and a black jacket, which I presume was not made of leather. Rourke lurks in the foreground, more absent than present, a recovering heroin addict with a wan smile. It is a corner of a forgotten field that is forever England. Bill and I shoot some images of ourselves in that hallowed doorway and saddle up for our prospective schlepp. I check in the nearby newsagents that its okay to park in front of the Red Brick Shrine and three generations of women say yes. They look and sound like extras from Corra but they are very nice and very helpful in that hawk-eyed way of always knowing, tough-as-nails Northern women so beloved of Morrissey.

Location 2: K's Chemist

Crafty fags

Moving away from the terraced red brick houses of Coronation Street and the Flagship that is Salford Lad’s Club I am caught off guard by how profoundly it has affected me. It feels like I stepped in a Tardis and went back to 1986. So many other memories come crowding back in I have to fight off the wave of nostalgia that is in danger of washing me away. Down Goodiers Drive, which runs parallel to Regent’s Road, we stride, past a more modern ‘working class’ estate. White blossom explodes on cherry trees and watchful eyes survey our progress. A hollow faced youth with a metal crutch detaches himself from the silence and ambles after us. It feels like the start of the Zombie Apocalypse and we quicken our step. We’re tourists here and potential marks. Best not to antagonise anyone unnecessarily. Paranoia builds as we skirt the estate, passing other corner boys selling their wares. Wheelie bins line the pavements and pampass grass sways like stoned dancers at a rave. Goodiers curves and drops away southwards and we cut onto the Trafford Road and survey the city skyline as juggernauts thunder past. It seems everywhere we looks there are cranes and rising towers that dwarf the underbelly-pricking steeples. Salford is quite literally on the rise and someone is pumping millions, probably billions into it.  Past signs where lets have been agreed, past a community hub, and past schools where a Good at Ofsted is trumpeted as victory to 120 Phoebe Street, where a K’s Chemist catches my eye. Outside a harassed looking NHS worker is smoking a fag. Not exactly a poster girl for the trade. More Vicky Pollard than Florence Nightingale but no doubt an honourable soul.  I snap a crafty pic and we move on. 

Location 3: Salford Quays

Surveiled by cameras and suspicious locals Bill and I discuss recent developments on BBC’s Panorama and at the Guardian Newspaper. Bill is fond of neither institution but amusingly so and I laugh along at his invective. We cut through Ordsall park, which is celebrating twenty five years of fireworks, and gawp at the daffodils. In early Smiths concerts Morrissey was always festooned with daffs. Whilst studying in Bath a bunch of art students came to a show I was in, 'What the Butler Saw', I think, and showered the stage in daffodils in mock-homage to my theatrical efforts. I was both touched and amused by their efforts, much as I am by Bill’s. Through the railings we glimpse the Black and White Dock Offices with its wrought iron fire escape. I love a nice fire escape me and swoon a little. Emerging from the Park, we cut over the road, narrowly escaping death and enter Salford Quays. Fed by the Manchester Shipping Canal and the Mersey it comprises a considerable body of water. Salford, seen from the quays is a floating city. Off in the distance Old Trafford looms, the Home Ground of Manchester United and one can almost smell the money wafting down the wind. A red, black and cream pleasure barge hoves into view as we walk down Ontario Basin, past the Hellie Hanson Watersports Centre, circling hissing Canada Geese on the tree-lined esplanade, stopping outside the Lowry Outlet. At the end of the esplanade, a bridge looms and I marvel at the scale and vision that has gone into the creation and regeneration of this whole area. It is quite astounding.

Location 4: Imperial War Museum

Harrier Jump Jet.

The further in we get the more the Quays reveal. Crossing the Pedestrian Bridge from the Lowry side we hit the far bank and head towards Location 4, The Imperial War Museum. There’s one in London too and I create an intention to visit there and soon. In spite of, or perhaps because of my anarchist leanings, I have something of a penchant for military history. Not in a Max Hastings sort of way where we treat it like a game of statistics and applaud the victorious dead and praise the ingenuity and craft of weapon’s manufacturers.  More in a Wilfred Owen sort of way where he writes ‘my subject is war and the pity of war and the poetry is in the pity’. War both fascinates and intrigues me and in particular its effects on those who survive it. I’m not a great one for parades or wreath laying but I love accounts of people’s experiences of combat; not just the horrors of the front line, but the camaraderie, the acts of kindness and the moments of reversal, where defeat turns to victory or victory to defeat. My Great Grandfather, like my father, named Edward, was on the Somme and survived in that particular hell for three years. After the war he came back and became a Parks Keeper in Birmingham for the remaining years of his life.  He never spoke about his experiences, like so many men of that generation and was by all accounts a genial and kindly soul, who loved growing, not killing things.

Entering the concrete bunker of the IWM we are delighted to find it is free and that it has a capacious café with a subterranean feel.  The man on the front desk gives us a quick briefing and then tries to flog us a guide for a fiver. We politely decline and his smile wilts as we head for the cafe. Bill, ever the economist has nothing, whilst I take coffee and a large and superior slice of Victoria sponge. After munch and slurp we head up the stairs to the exhibition space. I am always ambiguous about exhibitions on the subject of war. They are often too preachy-screechy or thump the tub of jingoism. This does neither. The first image, viewable from outside the exhibition space, is a large canvas of paramedics tending the wounded at Ypres. Whilst well executed, it is a little too clinical for my taste, too picture postcard, to ignite the postmodern soul.

No More War?

Through the doorway and its another story entirely. The space is a gloomy, high-ceilinged hanger with well-lit exhibits, in pools of theatrical lighting and glass tanks full of relics. It is full but not overfull, with artefacts, sculptures, paintings and panels of fact that take us on a journey through the 20th century, a century defined by war. Some of the exhibits boggle the mind. A harrier jump jet, tilted and suspended, a huge white cross, stippled with rods and extensions that create the impression of explosions and a projection gallery, come performance space, where films are projected on the hour, every hour. The film we watch is about a young man killed in a recent war, possibly Afghanistan. His parents speak plainly and movingly about their son. There are no hysterics, no histrionics, just  people acknowledging the depths of their loss. It is a powerful tribute from decent people whom war has denuded, stripping them of what they prized most in life. Their son. 

Bill and I wonder off in separate directions caught up in our own private reveries as we explore the exhibits that most appeal. I chat with a bearded docent in a blazer, who walks with the aid of a stick. He is most helpful and talks about the range of exhibitions on offer, and the fact that there is a regular changing of the guard. I like him and like the fact that he is there, a human face in the midst of so much, glass, metal and celluloid. He is both interesting and interested in me. I mention my Urban walks project and he wishes me luck.

A Quick Spin Around Media City

The view from the bridge

Location 5: Media City

Elegant arches

Outside, after a quick toilet break, we head over the Media City Footbridge away from the multi- coloured ITV sign to the black and white monolith that is the BBC. After decades of quality drama and its indomitable dominance of the air waves I’m not sure the BBC can compete with the likes of Netflix and Prime in the 2020s and beyond. Recent news suggests that the BBC may merge with itself and other channels to create a super channel that is both streamlined and cost effective as well as being attractive to former license payers who are leaving Terrestrial TV in droves. Over the water we spot signs for Blue Peter and Children In Need and marvel at how far the mighty have fallen in recent years. After Saville and the subsequent enquiry I’m not sure I actually care.

Location 6: Media City Tram Stop

With a quick wave to Pudsey we head for the Metrolink situated on the site of a nearby plaza. Salford Quays is well served by the cities elegant yellow trams which manage to look both ancient and modern at the same time. They are simultaneously classy and spacious and seemingly run on time, albeit once those doors are closed, they ain’t opening for anyone, no matter how hard they pound on the plexxi glass.  Transport and sewers maketh a city. London knew that early on which is why the tube dates back to the 1850s, as unbelievable as that sounds. Manchester and Salford, with those invested billions are beginning to look like they might be 21st century contenders. 

Location 7: The Lowry

Salford’s most famous son is, without doubt, L.S. Lowry, he who painted match stick men and match stick cats and dogs. He has his own dedicated gallery and an adjourning theatre. It’s an impressive beast, is the Lowry; a multi tentacled complex, with both permanent and visiting exhibitions. The works of L.S are free to view and after a quick check in and bag search (if you look as shifty as Bill that is) you ride the orange clad escalator to the first floor. One of the Strettford Wives, at the waiting counter, issues us with tickets and we saunter inside. There are large maps and information boards with quotes from Marx and Engels for Bill to sneer at, but it is the mini cinema, with its endlessly revolving Lowry documentary, that draw us in. The chairs are wooden and comfortable and one can’t shake the feeling of being in church. It’s all that white stucco. Instead of a cross though, there is a screen. We watch the documentary twice and snigger a lot. Lowry didn’t just paint matchstick men, but travelled to the northeast coast a lot for his jollydays to paint the sea. A black, phallic tower looms in one of his paintings and upon closer inspection some of his more detailed works seem to herald the coming zombie apocalypse. A bachelor all his life, Lowrie’s more sexual works were found torn into pieces and crammed in various nooks and crannies of his house in Station Road, a house now shamefully dilapidated and run down; the garden strewn with broken bottles and litter. He died in 1976 did LS, and not a moment too soon, I reflect. He doesn't, to my eyes, belong in our world or time. I never knew the man but I feel fondly towards him. On the way out I salute the black security guard, a charming man, who shakes my hand, and says I am a good man. I wonder if LS and I would have gotten on.

Location 8: Manchester Shipping Canal

And back we trot, leaving by a slightly different route to the one that brought us here. Salford has shocked me. It is not some Victorian slum but a Futuristic City with one eye on the past and one eye on the future, helped no doubt by the nearby Footy and Cricket grounds which form the key stone of this thriving Sporting Mecca. Outside of the The Lowry, I spy the Pier Eight Restaurant and Bar which reminds me of my recent sojourn in San Francisco with its slightly more famous Pier 49. Everywhere appears brand spanking new, so much so that Bill and I are gratified to find a graffiti-covered sign. Graffiti is Modern Art containing as it does scratches and traces of love, sex, insult and disappointment. In the Onatario basin we see floatings of industrial froth and grime, then cut down the Mariner’s Channel to the Erie basin. Everywhere we turn, we are surrounded by well-appointed houses and walkways. All that we survey has been gentrified and prettified. There are no signs of the dirt, grit and grind of the industrial north, we imagined we knew. Instead there are glass palaces like ancient pyramids and towering residential blocks of opulence. We pad through mostly empty streets and boulevards, past an anchor embedded in brick and stone, then up to a crossing point on the Regent’s Road. En route I spy a window which contains the demented mask of an evil clown; a reflection of something deeper and darker than that projected in the gleam and polish of the cities multi billion pound façade.

Location 9: Strangeways Here I Come!

Slipping out of Salford proper, we head a couple of miles down the road, past Salford University to our final destination. Location 9 is in Manchester proper and served as both title and backdrop for the Smith’s Fourth and Final Studio Album ‘Strangeways here we come’. Leaping from the car, I charge down the hill and snip snap away, experimenting with panoramas and Terry Gilliamesque angles. It is a fitting final destination, I feel, and a great bookend to our starting point Salford Lads Club. Now renamed, somewhat blandly, as HM Prison Manchester, it has housed some famous inmates in its time, including the Irish Playwright Brendan Behan, Mad Frankie Fraser and Ian Brown of Stone Roses Fame, for an incident of Plane Rage. Like Salford Lad’s Club, it is a red brick confection, brooding, gothic and yes even elegant in its own way. The towering panopticon and high walls lend it an air of menace, yet I long to slip inside the prison gates and explore. Bill and I have both worked in a prison before on a Halloween Zombie Apocalypse at Shrewsbury’s Nick, The Dana, for a Company called Immersive Events. Great fun and the perfect antidote for the too-tame theatricals that trouble most stages, both amateur and professional, the country over. I linger awhile and reflect how important the Smiths have been for me throughout my life, although Moz’s star has most definitely waned in recent years due to inflammatory comments in the press construed as racist, provocative and even dangerous. Driving home, we pass signs for Whalley Range and Rusholme, places both mentioned in Smith’s Songs and listen to Meat is Murder, both of us content, for now, to bask in the warm afterglow of nostalgia for a Great band and a Wonderful City.   

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