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.

Down Town Train

I have started to take a short cut up to Platform 1 at Piccadilly Station. There are more fellow workers and fewer people with wheelie suitcases on this route, following the service road up to the station, past the wonderfully named pic-a-deli sandwich shop which is also a car valeting service. The station concourse isn't quite on a par with St Pancras, but there are plenty of shopping opportunities and a range of cafe choices. Very different from a late night passing through when I was 17 and saw my uncle, my father's identical twin for the last time.They were the exception that proves the rule about the closeness of twins, and he wasn't completely identical because he had lost an arm.A one - armed bandit? Certainly a black sheep. Years later one of my cousins told me it was as a result of a drunken car accident in Kenya, but I don't know if that's true. My daughter found him on Ancestry. He had died some years before my father, he had remarried, and he ended his days in Exeter. I can still see him in my mind's eye. I don't know who was more surprised to see the other. I was with an unsuitable boyfriend and we had just had a run in with the transport police. We had boarded a London train at Cheadle Hulme without tickets, and they were convinced we had sneaked on at Euston.I have my weekly season ticket now, all above board. I'm getting to know regular commuters and have met some other fascinating people on a more random basis.I have seen snow melt and lambs appear, and snowdrops turn to daffodils. The Hope Valley route passes through a stunning landscape for most of the journey. I have watched a child on a little white horse (one of my favourite childhood books), let off the lead rein to canter on her own. I think of my son Charlie working in his Youth Hostel kitchen as the train passes through Hope at 7.45am. We are both early risers nowadays. Prayer flags flutter in a friend's back garden in Hathersage, where there are sadder memories of my brother in law who lost his life there. As well as the chat, there's the chance to read. I choose slim volumes off my bookshelves to read again. Kindles are no fun because you have no idea what people are reading! Last year I was told about an app that identifies people nearby that you might have something in common with. Even the person giving the workshop thought it was a bit like stalking.Forget the app, sit on a train, listen to the conversations, observe the clothes, glance at the books and if you like what you see, smile.It seems to be working so far.

Love goes to building on fire

I feel like a tourist in my old home town. I moved back and forth from Manchester through childhood, teens and twenties, finally leaving in 1987. I continued to shop and socialise in Manchester, and made sure my children, two of whom were born there, knew their way around. Working there is fascinating - not just the work itself but the personal memories and associations that are sparking up because of it. I reckon I could walk a different route from Piccadilly Station to the GMRO every day for the next year, weaving my way through the Northern Quarter with its strange mix of fashionable bars, vintage shops, vinyl exchanges and the rest. Old warehouses, nineteenth century terraced houses, remains of the rag trade heritage, main roads and rat runs. Derelict sites turned into all day parking lots, the skeletons of the old Smithfield markets, alongside fancy flats and apartments. Some stand out buildings like the ones at Piccadilly basin and the chrome and glass of the old Daily Express offices. Band on the Wall is across the road, and there are still lots of pubs that were once part of the market traders and porters daily round. No licensing laws for those who started work at 2am back in their heyday. My dad had tales of Band On the Wall in his youth - the band literally played on platforms that kept them out of trouble and off the dance floor, and at the end of the night you fought on the side of the room where you found yourself standing!I once won an Olivia Newton John look alike competition with Jimmy Hibbert when the film Grease first came out!Tib Street is part of my favourite route - memories of childhood weekend trips there with my dad, my sister and I loved the pet shops, and he went record shopping. Last week one of the buildings on Oldham Street, once Dobkins department store, specialising in coats and raincoats, set on fire, around 6pm in the evening. Part of the road is still shut, and the building is being demolished.Seeing the fire engines and the smoke and flames pouring from the windows was slightly surreal, like watching a film set. Speaking of which, I was told last week that this area of Manchester is sometimes used for New York by film makers, as the architectural mix looks so authentic.It's not just the music then.