And so I continue on this American election night. My sordid serial confession of Manchester and Salford. Unseen crannies where Engels feared to tread. The old stomping ground’s had some right attention lately. Jazzed up and glorified by latter-day Wiki-trendies. Some of us don’t need Wiki to discuss the place. We lived there, cried there and loved there. Saw United do nowt for years in a magic envelope of community and belonging. Migrated from unvarnished centre to developing glade. Suburbia. Prestwich is a microcosm embodying the larger fault line where red meets blue. Where Salford meets Jew. A borderland from Rainsough to Cheetham Hill. Fear breeds anger which breeds hate. The borderland was rife with it; mixed United and City. A fractal of the larger war. The red side runs west from Bury New Road to Rainsough. Hillier terrain, crazier people. Houses warmer and more welcoming. The blue sector is east of Bury New Road. A thin slice of land between Heywood Road and Heaton Park. Straighter streets and hostile bricks. Big cold Mancunian vibe.
Cheetham Hill maisonettes were a cracking playground in the 70s. My cousins and grandparents lived in adjacent blocks down the ginnel right off the top end of the Village. The Kildakin pub directly behind. Forced there by Salford slum clearance. Spent many a weekend watching turkeys hung upside down with slit throats in the abbatoir. Dodging cars on Saturday afternoons. Plenty of blokes wearing red and white. Blue and white. Feather cuts, centre-partings and star jumpers. Nuts ‘n’ Bolts Gary Glitter in Jack Regan pint pots. Smelly feet in platform shoes. Begging for cash in the precinct with Cousin Trev. Wearing “spaz boots”; cola cans crushed and anchored beneath the foot. Clomped echoingly around the Village at Bonfire Night. “Penny for the spaz, Mister?!” Pair of laughing urchins in need of a slap. But the maisonettes themselves were the business. Grey. Four or five floors. Several blocks distributed about a vast sloping wasteland broken up by multicolour metal playgrounds; witches hats, roundabouts, climbing frames, swings and slides. Ancient ruined shops trembling under turrets on the cobbled road to Broughton. Ragged ‘em stupid of Bengal matches and creme eggs. As a kid I thought the place was called Cheetah Mill. A nod to the African cats patrolling the area and the textile history surrounding it.
The tower-block obsession started early for me. Dragged into futuristic Otis elevators by Mother and aunties. The valves in the heart of Salford. Unimagined heights, unfinished towers appreciated in a new light. Bizarre totems of bristling scaffolding. Unsheathed to reveal gleaming hives. Brand-new. Posh, even. Women gabbing about the Courts’ intended names in affected voices: John Lester, Poplar, Walter Greenwood and Eddie Colman. Spot the odd one out. A class-micro-system emerged; which block ‘ave you been assigned to? We escaped it but everyone else didn’t. Thank fuck; it was a treat in the 70s to eat yer tea halfway up a Silk Street canyon. Shouting across to someone on the next block. Balcony banter on a fine spring evening. Lights switching on here and there; people coming home from work in town. A familiar pattern to the trained eye. The Cheetham branch were different. They all lived on the ground floor, a novelty in itself. There was a Narnia inside those maisonettes; fire-escapes built into the backs of the wardrobes. Through the hanging coats was an otherworld of silent untrod corridors. Explorations of inner-city anarchytecture and language. The word “spaz” was common then. “Spaz chariots” weren’t just sky-blue invalid carriages. Reliant Robins fell under the cosh. And then some. Playing footy in Greengate. Newbank Tower carpark. A future member of The Bong Gang shouts, “over ‘ere, next to this spaz chariot!” I died laughing. It made sense as a name for just any car; we all used buses or we walked. From Kersal to Salford Market. From Cheetham to Great Clowes Street; past the queer concrete slopes of Brentnall Primary School. Past scarfed-up pre-match hordes on the shelved façade of The House That Jack Built. Regan pint-pots-a-plenty in the shadow of Hanover Court. It was the only way to reach other members of the displaced tribe. When we finally acquired telephones we instantly sussed we could dial for free by clicking the pips. Cos we were dead ‘ard from up north.
Maisonettes and flats come in many shapes and sizes. On the bus home from OT we did a circuit of Hulme. Me and Kenny. Bulging eyes in 1979. Amber windows beaded with lashing rain. Gigantic forms loomed in the night. Immense curves in grey concrete. Incredible Crescents. Another time, running through Longsight with Mickie B. Scoring weed down the Moss. Buying single ciggies from a corner shop. Bus to the Apollo. You shoulda seen us go, go, go. 1982. Tracksuit bottoms. 16 years young. Opposite a single skinny block, puny with glass balconies. Its twin shivering off over Gorton. The weed knocked us non-smokers sick. The road to Belle Vue was another education; Fort Ardwick, all along the watchtower. Brown/grey pebbledash. Opposite Hyde Road bus depot; a gigantic cavern where diesel particulate underwent endless Brownian motion. I learned signwriting in ’88 with Harry from Fort Ardwick. Bouncer from the Marsland pub. A bushy-haired bearded lion. Later moved Glaswegian Jamie from his Fort Beswick flat, Ardwick’s twin. In with a nice bird off the top of Lightbowne Road. Not far from Viccy Ave East. Under his bed was a stout chair-leg. “In case anyone gets cocky” he explained. Quite. What a terrifying shithole. And then Queen’s Road opposite the Irish Centre. Those weird little square maisonettes. Nearly moved into one but didn’t. Met Les from Cheetham there. Very naughty boy. He’d cut yer nose off to spite yer colostomy bag. Drank in the Kildakin and lived in that enchanted colony from childhood. Specialised in kiting. Enlisted young lads who lived in “drums” in Crumpsall. First time I’d heard anyone but my dad use that expression. Little teams zapping handbags round Prestwich Village and Broughton. They got invited back to a luxury flat by some wide-boy. Mein host turned out to be gay. Les made him strip and down on his knees. Put a pane of glass against his face and booted it. A very unpleasant business.
Soul and Glam-Rock gave way to Punk and New Wave and things altered. Jaded tower-blocks spewed semi-detached enclaves packed with mad reds. Expatriate Salfordians amid privet banter. Clublife evolved. Two distinct populations multiplied separately. I’m not talking about the Bees Knees and Playboy neither: Hipsters in Hulme’s Factory and the Roxy Room crowd in Pips. The Factory was full of students but Pips was hammered with working-class intelligentsia. Chalk and cheese. Replica footy kits binned for Adidas Kick and Fred Perry. Fucking beautiful but scary. We were underage and in there. Swingin’ wedges dyed auburn. Baggy thick cotton shirts and Stan Smiths. I remember putting a tenner on the bar and taking my eye off it. A girl pocketed it like lightning. She knows who she is. That was money back then; I accused the barman of nicking it. Propelled onto my ear in Fennel Street by two bouncers. Spent the night goading them from safe distance. Tried to catch me to no avail. “You’re fuckin’ dead, you CUNTS!” I warned. They calmly waited; lions playing possum. I gambolled off to Piccadilly, disgruntled but buzzing. Nutted a pseudo-Manc I’d scrounged 50p off for a bus home. A despicable act and the only time I’ve done it. The scrounging, that is. I’ve nutted plenty of Factory-faced cunts in Piccadilly. Nah, only joking. Kind of. There’s plenty of Wiki-wankers today’ll tell yer they were into The Fall and Joy Division in ’79-‘81. Fucking liars; proper lads were into Buzzcocks and Magazine. Roxy and Bowie. Nowt against Prestwich’s finest. Just the truth, that’s all. Mark Smiff was beyond us back then. So let’s keep it real, eh?
Early ’83 meant Equinox acid. Laughing tackle with few visuals. By June Manchester was immortal. Superman from the Dam blowing away all contenders. Little firms doing the ferry. Smashing the market to fuck. The Factory and Pips were changed or gone forever. Clueless wankers filled the Hacienda. Lager louts spewing everywhere else. City’s Kool Kats in Placemate Seven. And it was Red Hearts off Fast Tony in late ‘83. Smoking contests with Dave D. Fucker took advantage of my clear lungs. Summer 1984 Edgeworth festival arrived. An array of product; Unicorn, White Lighting, Black Cat and green microdot. By October Smiley Mushrooms ruled the roost. The nylon mesh variety put blotting paper out of business. Physical chemistry enabled much higher dosage. Spring ‘85 was Pink Panther. Glossy and glamorous. Stone-Age memories jangling into a new kind of fun. The flats in P/wich were of a different nature. Old drums partitioned into units. Now you’d hear the Fall and Joy Division coming out of doorways and windows. Easter ’85, walking with Martin B past Tomo’s flat. A carrot tossed from the gutter up against the window. Carrot goes straight through like a torpedo. Laugh? Spent that night lay comatose listening to Magazine’s “Secondhand Daylight”. Had an out-of-body experience. Thought the floor was the wall and I was halfway up it. Images of Regent Square amid a grey haze conjured by amphetamines, weed and Salford accents. Old infatuations die hard. The horrid Donald Duck appeared that summer. Guaranteed bad trip, or worse. Banged out at UMIST. The scourge of P/wich. Gaggles o’ lasses up fer it night and day. The Fanny-Bulge Firm. Not to be confused with the Cameltoe Clan. Nice pint of Holts in the Waffle Machine. Very different clientele from the Crumpet Factory. KnowhatImean? Many migrants from the multi-storey matrix. Much mafia. We went to town in late ‘85. The clubs looked different loaded up on Red Lentils. Now we just needed the DJs and the rest to catch up. Like watching paint dry. Spent ’86 abroad while Dambusters returned with ever-greater refreshments. In ’87 it went live; the straightheads cottoned on. The Queerbeast finally began to dance ecstatically…but so what, that was years ago?! Alright, back to the election… Some African cat’s gonna rule the world…
