life with the hillbillies

Dan’s noted a tale of life with the hillbillies on the other side of Cheetham Hill Road. I say hillbillies advisedly. One of the things about a lot of Salford is the fact that you can sense immediately that you’re in it, another one being that you don’t want to be there. Nope, you don’t want to be in them thar hills, less’n you have business there and intend to get out of town before sundown.

The author says:

I had lived in Hulme and Moss Side for most of my adult life, and in rockier times had done two years in jail, so I didn't anticipate anything I couldn't handle.

Well, I lived in Hulme for ten years, and not as a student either. It’s a different atmosphere entirely. The area’s noted for its gunplay and serious crime generally. But the counterpoint to that is that nearly all crime there is serious. There was a lot less of the low level burglary/assault/street hassle generally held to characterize lawless areas. On the other hand, any young person’s introduction to crime wouldn’t be through burglary, street hassle, or aimless hooliganism: more likely it would be through being threatened or cajoled into minding a gun for somebody. There was less chance of actually being involved in crime, but equally there was no apprenticeship period: one false move and you’re in a world of trouble. And Salford? Nothing but false moves, which is what gives the area such a depressing feel:

The next day, we comply with the order. The house, I now realise, became a serious target only when my eastern European lodgers moved in. This can never be sorted out by diplomacy or drive-by policing. It is simple racist fury and it isn't going to stop. I go too, of course. We leave a sign in the window saying: "Polish people have moved out."

Well, you can argue the toss about whether it’s actually racism involved, the Poles being white and everything. But if you put a bunch of Poles into Salford, you confront a lot of total wasters with genuine, solid, self-respecting working class people and I guess that they just find it an unbearable insult.

There’s quite a lot of Poles on this side of Cheetham Hill Road. The local grocers sells tins of pickled pigs head along with Special Brew and other fine Danish products. That’s because it’s one of those Muslim no go areas the Bishop talks out of his arse about.

Comments

[john b]

Exactly what I was thinking when I read the piece (and Dan's piece). I'm fairly sure Ed Jones assumed that, because the houses in Salford look like the houses in Moss and the people are about as poor, the area ran on similar rules. Which was an error.

(there are rules that allow you to live in dodgy parts of Salford and befriend the local heavies without serious trouble, but they're about as different from Ed's strategy as you can possibly get. The people I know who've lived in 'rough Salford' and not hated it are from Northern Ireland, which I suspect means growing up with quite a similar dynamic...)

[ejh]

It wouldn't be what they left NI to get away from?

[Igor Belanov]

I lived in a part of Salford for a year and I wouldn't say the atmosphere was intimidating or threatening, but eerie at times. You could walk back from central Manchester on an evening and not see anyone, not people walking dogs, drinkers coming out of pubs or youths hanging round on street corners. Just utter quiet and the odd car or taxi screeching by. The local shops had dilapidated about as far as 30 year old buildings could, and the local off licence was fortified to a greater extent than the Maginot Line. A very strange area.

[ejh]

It's a bit like that in parts of London N1: for instance, if you walk from Old Street tube to the Wenlock Arms, through and past some big estates, it can be startling how deserted it is.

[F0ul]

I used to live on the outskirts of Salford and it always amazed me how even the dogs walked in pairs!

[EvilEuropean]

I spent a short time in Salford, just 5-10 min walk from the city centre. Lots of rather unpleasant things would happen in the area and be on the news (usual stuff, a murder here, a gun attack there). I never had any trouble, even walking back drunk from the city centre at three in the morning...but thats because you never saw a soul....as some else said, it was eerie!