CAMBRIDGE INDUSTRIAL ESTATE, SALFORD, 5.58AM Yesterday morning, I left my studio at 5.30am, and made my way up to the Cambridge industrial estate, which lies just beyond the banks of the River Irwell in Broughton. Above me was a glum sky, which only grudgingly allowed smears of cleaner blue through just before sunrise. The birds were up early, forcefully calling their information songs out to each other through the rough branches of trees, left to hang wild over derelict land […]

HIGHER BROUGHTON, SALFORD, SPRING EQUINOX 5.49AM The previous evening had been spent with a close friend, wandering the haunts of his past life as a student living in the area quite some years ago, him scampering childlike up and down the street where he had once shared a house. He marvelled at the changes, minimal to my eyes, but to him an era now lost and forever altered by passing time. The area’s residents are now often Orthodox Jews, and […]

MIDDLEWOOD LOCKS 7.27AM Walking towards Middlewood Locks, down Oldfield Road in Salford at around 6.40am, I was passed by a young man carrying on his back a case containing a tuba, or maybe a euphonium. His head was down, lost in thought as he made his way, I assumed, to some orchestral practice somewhere. I’m not sure why I found this slightly absurd, but I did. I wondered, should he practise at home, what it must be like living next […]