Under the bridge

Last Sunday I spent the day in Longsight at their neighbourhood festival. I was there for work. Archives+ took a stall at the festival. We displayed some photographs of Longsight in past times. I have my own memories of Longsight. In the late 1970s I worked and lived there. I did my shopping at the market. I walked all round the area and up and down Dickenson Road, as a travelling English teacher, working for Manchester Council for Community Relations. I took children to school and to join the library as part of my role working with the Asian Community.It was strange to be back,thinking of that personal history. At the same time it was very familiar and comfortable. Friendly people, conversations in Urdu that I tried to follow, Bollywood background music. I used to catch the bus into town from a stop near this bridge.On Sunday I caught the train to Levenshulme and walked underneath it. I realised that as children this had always been known as my dad's bridge. Each Sunday he would drive us from Eccles to Little Hayfield to visit my mother's parents, my grandparents. Our journey took us through Longsight and under this bridge. Studying it, I could see that it had been widened and strengthened . The rail tracks run over it and the road runs underneath. He was a civil engineer, working for a company called Leonard Fairclough at the time . Yes, the name was borrowed for a Coronation St character . It looks like it was modernised in the 1960s, which would fit in with his working life in Manchester. It wasn't long before he was off to work abroad, Nigeria and Malaysia, and then back to Yorkshire until he retired. I must have walked under that bridge when I lived in Longsight, but I'd never been so aware of its place in my life until last Sunday.

Three degrees?

I have written about the concept of 6 degrees of separation before . I am going to have to try and redefine what's going on for me. Last Friday I visited the North West Film Archive to do some work research. I met Will who works there for the first time or so I thought. I was taken aback when he asked me if I had been a homeopath. Turns out he started working for the college where I studied as I graduated so me and my group of fellow students were familiar names to him. Last night I went to the preview of the Dior exhibition at the Gallery of Fashion in Platt Hall. I realised that the last time I went to a preview there was when my now grown up daughter was a babe in arms. This morning I travelled into work on later train. There was a young mother with two children sitting in front of me. The little girl reminded me of my daughter. At one point I watched their bags for her and we started a conversation. She lives near where I used to live in Sheffield. She asked me if I knew a friend of hers who had lived on the same road. Her friend had been my next door neighbour. Not only did she live next door, but she and her sister were the wonderful teenage babysitters who made such a difference to our lives when we moved to Sheffield. Somewhere I may still have the note they had put through the letterbox when we arrived offering their services! It was lovely to hear about her. Some say there is no such thing as coincidence.I'm not sure.

Aquae Arnemetiae

A young soldier soaks tired bones dreaming of olive groves. A captive queen unpicks a thread embroidering her life’s story. A man with a purple nose steps into a sedan chair. A train steams into the station and Paxton jumps onto his platform. A horse blows steam waiting for his groom. A young woman opens a letter and dreams of becoming a nurse. A nurse observes her patients watching from the quiet balcony. Frank Matcham builds for gaiety and the Beatles play the Opera House. Brian Clarke designs a stained glass roof and a bride flings her bouquet into the Dome. Snow stops play in June whilst old ladies shop for vests at Potters. The water flows from St Anne’s well. The goddess dances in the grove. And all the while Foucault’s pendulum swings measuring the earth’s rotation.