EDWARD STREET INDUSTRIAL ESTATE, 2.31AM
During the summer, when first light occurs during the early hours of a new day, I’m often alone. And this solitude allows my mind to wander, to imagine the city as it might have been before humans began to change and shape it, when there was nothing but grass, woodland and rock. I like to look down to the tarmac, and consider what lies beneath, before boundaries and territories were enforced on land that once belonged to no-one.
On this particular morning I was in an area, on the border of Manchester and Salford, that is soon to begin an astonishing transformation, when the earth will once more be churned and assigned new use, as old, shabby industrial units are replaced with glass towers and elegant town houses.
In just two decades, nothing in the lifespan of Earth, this district will be unrecognisable.
The force of change can sometimes be overwhelming, and people cling to the life they’ve always known, fixed in the notion that “it’s always been this way”, without being able to look down to their feet and connect to the land lying under the pavements they walk on.
These thoughts passed through my mind as I set up my camera and tripod under a Union Jack, attached recently to a lampost. It was not alone. Several others blew robustly in the morning breeze, their dark shadows often making me jump as I caught a glimpse of their movement from the corner of my eye. They also soundtracked the morning, with the slap and tinkle of their ropes against the metal of the street lights.
Along the street was The Palatine. Cut out poppies adorned its white facade. In the distance, across the river, the glass towers of Greengate rose imperiously into the dawn sky. The building reminded me of a British outpost in some foreign land. Once, I suppose, it would have been surrounded by different housing and factories, not the numerous vape sellers and other wholesale businesses that currently trade in the area. I doubt any of them will survive the coming onslaught of regeneration.
I’d been inspired to return to this area by news that The White Hotel was to close, citing the coming rebuilding of the nearby streets. The club has been an important contributor to the cities of Manchester and Salford, and it was difficult to imagine that it is to be flattened to make way for a park on the Irwell’s floodplain.
The lightening day oddly went into reverse, and darkness returned as clouds covered the pale sky.
I noticed a rat scurrying across the car park near the vape units, and it began to rain heavily, washing the streets with heavy pelts of water. I couldn’t easily see through my camera, as the lens became spattered with fat drops, and I decided to go home. The wind dropped, and there was silence. The air smelled sweet, and the flags fell limp.
