Moving on

Time to move on to a new blog. The Nico Ditch - the title will be explained when you take a look.

Binns' Broken Biscuits

I realised I'd crossed some kind of line when I started reminiscing about the local grocers' shop where you could buy broken biscuits. I was very young, and you could still buy a halfpenny chew there too back in those days of plenty. I've been on a coach trip to the Isle of Man with my mum. We had taken advantage of a door to door service, hotel included, to go and see my godmother, my aunt, my mother's sister who lives there. My mum has been over a couple of times already in the last few months. I haven't been since 2008. There was a great crowd on the coach, couples, widows and widowers, mothers and daughters. I'm guessing I was the youngest and Stan celebrated his 92nd birthday while we were there. I wouldn't like to calculate the average age. As we got to know one another over our evening meals there were some amazing stories of recovery and courage. Unexpected illness,sudden loss of a partner. Some of the older couples had a great life, taking several trips a year with the coach company. Many were very well travelled as a result. Most were from Derbyshire, and one or two were from very close to home and I imagine we'll meet up again. In some ways it was very Alan Bennett, great material for a radio play, snippets of conversation, funny travellers' tales. I found myself on a personal journey through the past, revisiting places I'd loved on my trips to the island as a child and teenager. In my twenties I went over for the TT. In my thirties I took my own children. In my forties I made new friends there. In my fifties I have visited to enjoy family connections. I'd last stayed at the Palace Hotel for my cousin's wedding in 1973. I wore a lovely Afghan dress from 8th Day! I found the cottage in Castletown where we regularly stayed for the TT. The next door neighbour confirmed that it was owned by the same woman, wryly adding that it probably hadn't been touched since the seventies!

We visited Maughold Churchyard with its amazing collection of Celtic christian and Viking crosses. It used to be where I wanted my ashes scattered and was written into my will. I have changed it to somewhere more local now, but it's still a very special place for me.

I went to Port Jack, the little beach just below Douglas Head where my sister and I spent hours scrambling on the rocks and skimming slatey flat stones. There's more litter and graffiti now, but it still has presence.

There were memories at every turn, my great aunt and uncle in Port St Mary, my aunt who died a few years ago in Castletown. Lunch at Cosy Nook cafe on the beach in Port Erin. Fuchsia hedges and palm trees. Meeting the grand daughter of the Manx cat we have a photo of from our last visit to Cregneash. The farmer told me a bit more about Goblin. He was such a good mouser that the day before he died he had a mouse trapped under each front paw and a third one in his mouth. Supercat! It's a beautiful island, full of history and folk lore. As a child I was amazed by how much Manx people knew about their past. It inspired my own interest in folklore and local history. It's had its ups and downs. The tourism declined as the financial sector took over. Now that's in decline,places like Douglas have lost some of their identity. But the coastline and the mountains, the farming and the gulf stream climate, the presence of the past through its Viking heritage and archaeology make it a very special place. Magic is never far from the surface, whether it's the protective quartz rocks placed on boundary walls, or the presence of the little people at Fairy Bridge.

Return to Casablanca

Strange as it may sound, I realise that Manchester reminds me of my time in Casablanca. It has the same energy and feel. A mix of new buildings and derelict sites. A cosmopolitan feel, with unfamiliar languages on the streets. A kora player in Piccadilly gardens. Lots of young faces. Layers of history at every turn. I loved walking through Casa on my way to work, discovering areas and neighbourhoods. Instead of the French colonial and art deco architecture of Casa, there are Dickensian and high Victorian styles in Manchester. Different vocabulary but the same language. It wouldn't surprise me to see a Moroccan water seller in the Northern Quarter. Maybe it's the unusually hot summer. I walk round with my eyes wide open, enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the streets. Exciting times.

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.

Wild Geese

In spite of working in a city, I do not feel at all cut off from the natural world. I find the city buildings create their own landscape, towering into the sky, defining roads and pavements.The architectural range of styles, heights, colours, reflections and shapes is as mesmerising as any of the views in the Hope Valley. This morning I heard and saw two geese fly over as I left Piccadilly station. It's the third time I have been aware of them in as many weeks, and this morning I stopped and considered why they might be there.At first I thought they might have adapted to navigate by roads, and then I realised that the canal runs through Piccadilly Basin. So in the time honoured habit of geese, they are navigating by following the waterways to their next destination. From the train I can see birds, trees coming into bud, primroses on the railway banks, horses in fields, pigs in their arks and ewes and lambs everywhere. The lambs no longer run to their mothers when the train passes, but romp around in little gangs, playing king of the castle on any patch of higher ground.Tonight on the train I even had another passenger's dog fall asleep resting on my feet. On my way to and from the station I pass this lovely garden, tended by residents of Piccadilly Basin.A lovely sight on May Day.