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| READER MESSAGES Late April 2001 Page 3 of 3 |
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Name: RAY O'NEILL Thank you very much - Yes, the CIS building was the first and remains probably the best post-war office tower in Manchester. It was designed by architects GS Hay and Sir John Burnett, Tait and Partners, was completed in 1962 and accommodates 2,500 workers on 13 acres of floorspace. Five men worked for 12 months to attach 14 million one inch tiles to the service tower. (Information taken from 'Guide Across Manchester' by Philip Atkins) |
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Name: Pauline Shirley (née Marsden) Hi Aidan, Would this old picture be of any interest? I am the smallest girl in front with white shoes and socks. I'm sorry I cant tell you much about the event except it was a May Day Parade and was probably about 1936. It must have been Crofts Bank Road, Davyhulme. I see the shop Fox and West was a Hosiery and Corset shop, with a magnifying glass you can see the old fashioned corsets hanging in the window. Keeps those pictures coming, love them and the rest of your EWM also.
It's the next best thing to being there. Thanks for the photograph, which records an aspect of our local heritage which has now become mostly a memory. |
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 Merrion Square Dublin |
Name: David Jørgensen Dear Aidan I took the chance to visit the Lowry Centre last year and saw an amazing exhibition by a local photographer, Shirley Baker. The contrasts between her images from the 60's and those from the 90's were barely discernable. I suppose this helps us to remember that however much we progress in the future, our past will always be not too far behind. Go raibh míle maith agat for your site, I look forward to seeing more photos. David Yes, Shirley Baker's photographs are a precious record of Manchester and Salford during the great demolition period of the 1960's. She highlights the communities and especially the children she encountered whilst on the cobbled streets of the inner city taking her photographs. And by the way, readers, Dia duit, means 'God be with you' or 'hello' and the phrase pronounced 'go re meela maha guth' means 'a thousand thank-you's'. I know Dublin very well indeed - I went to Trinity College (1976 - 1981). Here's one of my Dublin photographs, taken exactly twenty years ago. Did you know there were proposals during the 1930's to put an enormous building on Merrion Square - a Roman Catholic cathedral, in fact? - Nothing came of the plan, an outcome which, I think, was for the best. Merrion Square is a wonderful city centre park which preserves the character of Georgian Dublin. More about this in Phototour Ireland - still in the planning stage! |
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Name: Rory McLoughlin I was interested to read messages in the Eyewitness postbag about Manchester needs to harness and synergise the resources of its 2.5M-odd inhabitants to create a true metropolitan city. Manchester (the city strictly by boundary) lost most of it's middle class to Cheshire and the outer suburbs during the 19th and 20th Centuries. These are the people who in the main have the ability to influence the city's fortunes and image on the world stage. They still live mainly in the outer boroughs and therefore do not contribute to local taxation in the city and are not involved sufficiently in the political and civic life. All sorts of issues arise from this and I will perhaps write again to discuss some of them. For now I'll stick to your point about the use of county titles. |
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High Street Cheadle (Cheshire/Stockport MBC/ Manchester Metropolitan Region?)
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The borough boundaries are a nonsense - we all know that.
The political structure of Greater Manchester must be changed but that's
a longer-term battle. Names and titles however, and their application, are
important symbolically. They are currently misused. Although GMCC is gone,
the county itself remains but has become marginalised by the competitive
and parochial rivalries of the boroughs. The name 'Greater Manchester' has
been systematically removed from roadsides over the past 10 years, only
borough names now remain. Hence there is no designation of the metropolitan
area to arriving visitors, and whatever the glossy brochures claim, Stockport
and Bolton do not have an international identity. Granting either of these
two city status will not change that and will serve only to break up any
sense of metropolitan unity still more.
Yes, many people in the suburbs (typically the lower-middle classes) are afraid of associations with Manchester - they think it more 'classy' to be in 'Cheshire' and exploit the genuine confusion surrounding county boundaries which results from the marginalisation of GMC. I grew up in Bramhall at the time when it came out of Cheshire and into GMC. I recall the furore, although I always thought of myself as living in part of Manchester, it was clearly a (smart) city suburb back in the early seventies. There is still lots of confusion. It is hard to argue with someone that they are part of the Manchester conurbation when they can point at their mail and say 'Look, it says 'Cheadle, Cheshire'. The Royal Mail now says that counties are not important in addresses, only the postcode. True enough for delivering mail, but an address is far more than that - it 'places' you in the country. Few people can mentally convert a postcode into a visualisation of place. The name Cheshire conjures up images of pastures and villages - hardly Cheadle with it's John Lewis superstore and permanent traffic chaos at the Kingsway lights. The social geography of England had changed long before the 1974 boundary changes. Time now to dump the past and adopt a metropolitan indentity for greater (small 'g') Manchester. Leave Cheshire to Wilmslow and co., and stop signing 'Manchester' from 6 miles out in the suburbs, try 'City Centre' instead. Small points you might say, but an important first step to changing attitudes Rory McLoughlin. Now of Rusholme, but formally of Bramhall, Gatley, Didsbury, Levenshulme, & Heaton Mersey! |
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 Cheadle Bridge - an ancient crossing point between Lancashire and Cheshire - acklowledged by a stone in the middle of the bridge marked 'L/C' |
Some useful I ideas, many of which I agree with, but I get an uncomfortable feeling at the words 'dump the past'. The issue of boundaries, local authorities and local identity in the Manchester area is a typically British muddle. But please note, Greater Manchester hasn't existed as a legal entity since 1986 - My UK Ordnance Survey local authority map shows only a jigsaw of local authorities in the north west, 10 of which used to form the Greater Manchester 'County'. Also please note, Cheadle never 'left 'the ancient county of Cheshire whose boundaries have existed for centuries and were officially unaffected by the 1974 local government reorganisation. If you don't believe me, visit the Association of British Counties website. The term 'county', with its ancient, rural associations, was an inappropriate designation for Greater Manchester. I'd prefer Metropolitan Region. The way things are, given local loyalties and feelings of civic identity, it's going to be virtually impossible to carve out an 'expanded Manchester' swallowing up outer boroughs and placing them under the direct control of Manchester Town Hall. |
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Bolton, Manchester, Stockport and Stretford (Trafford) Town Halls in the 'Manchester Metropolitan Region' |
Let's instead create a 'Manchester Metropolitan Region' - an area with a diverse patchwork or urban and rural areas, overlapping with the boundaries of four counties, but governed co-operatively and benefiting from an aggressive international marketing campaign. Places like Stockport, Tameside, Rochdale, can continue as they are with their own distinct identity, and can display a logo 'Part of the Manchester Metropolitan Region' on their websites, letterheads and publicity materials. At present, looking at their websites, there's little to suggest any connection with Manchester at all - a foreign visitor looking for Manchester might conclude they were located in some indeterminate place somewhere in the north of England and pass them over. |
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Were the words "Yorkshire"
and "West Riding" |
It
would not be a hegemony of Manchester City Council, but an opt-in club that
towns and districts would want to be a part of because they would gain through
association with the coveted and internationally known brand name of 'Manchester'.
Maybe even places like Macclesfield, Rossendale and Glossop might like to
join.
But let's also, for the sake of our heritage and our sense of local identity, acknowledge and celebrate the ancient county boundaries which meander across the area. So people can write 'Saddleworth, Yorkshire', 'Stockport, Cheshire', 'Hyde, Cheshire', 'Sale, Cheshire', 'Denton, Lancashire', 'Oldham Lancashire', 'Glossop, Derbyshire' if they want to, or alternatively use 'Trafford', 'Tameside', or even 'Manchester Metropolitan Region' if they like, whatever is important to them, as long as they remember the post code! If there is any element of compulsion, with statements such as "You are no longer part of... You must now use... You have been taken over by... You must conform to...", people will reject the plan and we'll be back to square one. I would very much like to be involved in the presentation and marketing of this new 'Manchester Metropolitan Region' - in fact I've been doing this job in my own way for the past four and a half years in Eyewitness in Manchester, so does anyone want to hire me?! |
