Life in Northern Towns

Following a recommendation, we went to Morley in West Yorkshire.  It is a suburb of Leeds , on the south side of the city, so very easy to get to from the M62 - just exit junction 27 and follow the signs. Driving into Morley, I noticed there was a new leisure centre, a concrete skate park and a newish play area with space nets.  To be honest the space nets impressed me most.  Ever since my days working on council play areas, I’ve always had a soft spot for space nets as they look great and have a hint of danger.  Perfect for a play area in my books as lots of playgrounds nowadays are really safety conscious and have become really dull places.  I was brought up in the 1970s where every playground had at least one piece of equipment with health and safety disaster written all over it that was so much fun to play on.  How I managed not to break a bone on one of these things was a miracle – OK, I did chip a tooth and split my knees open on countless occasi...

The first time I went to Bradford was on a Saturday in the 1970s, driven by my Dad in a mustard yellow van.  Bizarrely he wanted to show Bradford to me and my brother as it had a large Asian community and looked so different to other places – apparently the advertising hoardings were even in Arabic.  As we lived in Cheetham Hill at the time, my brother and I were well versed in multiculturalism so it wasn’t a big deal.  However I think my Dad was having a culture shock moment and was fascinated by it all. We’d already visited some of Bradford’s suburbs for the blog including Shipley , Saltaire and Keighley , but never quite got around to the city.  Having had a drunken conversation at a “do” recently with someone who works in Bradford, I knew I had to go and see it for myself. Getting to Bradford from Manchester is straightforward – M60, M62, exit junction 26 onto the M606, exit junction 3 onto the A6177 and headed down the hill towards the city centre....

I’d been to Shrewsbury numerous times in the 1990s to visit a friend, but this was the first time I’d ever been there sober and without a hangover. This time our trip to Shrewsbury was a pit stop on our way back to Manchester to grab a bite to eat and stretch our legs. We parked in St Julian’s Friars car park on the edge of town.  It was £2.70 for 3 hours – as you would expect for a busy town.  I believe in the winter time these car parks are allowed to flood as the River Severn flows through the town. As I learnt with Ludlow , Castle equals hill, and so it was with Shrewsbury.  Needless to say, if you struggle with walking, Shrewsbury can be problematic on that score. If you like historical cities like York or Chester , then you will love Shrewsbury.  Although technically Shrewsbury isn’t a city, but a town, which is surprising given its long history.  Shrewsbury is packed full of gorgeous architecture and you just can’t help yourself from taking p...