Posts tagged ‘Alderley Edge’
Get A Move On!
One of the advantages of working from home is that you can be flexible around when you take your breaks and do your chores (another is walnut and date cake with your mug of tea)……
So, having got up early to handle a number of ridiculous emails from the Dementors that I work with, I decided to hit Waitrose at opening time and buy a few things before returning for back to back telcons. Don’t you just love Fridays? This is work’s way of trying to remind you that weekends are a reward, rather than a right.
What I had failed to factor in to my plan to “just nip out” was that it would coincide with a) the school run, b) peak hour for oldies, and, c) it was in the middle of a gale and a rain storm (we seem to be having weather similar to that at Celtic Manor and the Ryder Cup). Consequently, I soon became frustrated and soaked through.
The school run:
Why is it that most moms (for it IS mostly moms, round here at least) are simply incapable of delivering their children to school and drive normally at the same time. I thought this was the sex that COULD multi-task? Or does this capacity diminish during the period of “nappy headiness” (when all young moms become suddenly blonde…..). Now I know that I cannot imagine how stressful it must be trying to get young children up and out in a morning……..
WAIT A MINUTE, I CAN imagine it. I was a child once. And, I seem to remember that school mornings were regimented and orderly. When I was at junior school, I would get up and breakfast with my sister and we (without parental supervision) would walk – together with two or three other kids that we would collect on the way – the mile and a half or so to our school, in all weathers. When I was at grammar school, I would get up before my parents, and catch two buses, on my own, to cross the busy city of Birmingham. Please note that my journey to school involved Shanks’ Pony and public transport. So, why are all these Cheshire yummy mummies driving (I use the word in its loosest context) in their Cheshire tractors (SUVs), blocking the roads for those of us in a hurry.
They drive, well, badly, and, are prone to erratic manoeuvres without signalling. This is because, they cannot see over the bonnet of their seven seater Porsche Cayennes and Range Rovers; they are too busy checking their sunglasses in the rear mirror (IT IS AS DARK AS ARMAGEDDON OUT THERE!), they are singing along to Radio two, and trying to restrain Algernon, Isabella and a dog called Buffy. Despite the fact that they are driving off-roaders they manage to take as much as possible of the road up when parking to drop their little lovelies off outside their private prep schools. And, instead of hurrying back off to get on with their housework or home course in interior design, they choose to socialize and chat with all the other yummy mummies. Presumably, they are discussing when they will meet at the gym, the spa, or “do lunch” in Wilmslow or Alderley Edge. GET A MOVE ON!
Old People
Personally I think that old people should be subject to a curfew. They should be required to stay indoors at times when the working and able-bodied wish to make use of the roads, post offices, banks, and supermarkets. After all, they do have all day to do whatever they have to do. But, oh no. Your average oldie seems intent on getting up early, donning flat cap or headscarf, and hobbling into the big, bad world. Now, I know I will get old one day (and sooner than I would care too) but really! Why do they have to get into their cars and drive to the bank, the post office, the library, the doctors, the hospital, and Waitrose in Sandbach in the middle of the bloody rush hour/school run!?!?
They drive, well, badly, and, are prone to erratic manoeuvres without signalling. This is because, they cannot see over the bonnet of their Corsas or Skoda; they are too busy sucking on the travel sweets they keep in a little tin in the glove box; they have the reaction speed of a yummy mummy on the school run; they have become afraid of speed; and, they have forgotten where they were meant to be going to. It was close to grid lock out there.
Today it was particularly bad. It was a mistake to attempt to “nip out” at the start of the day. Today I got stuck behind an old man in a small car with a hybrid engine. He was wearing a flat cap. There was a small dog asleep on the parcel shelf in the rear window, next to the box of tissues strategically located for any rear seat passengers bored to tears through lack of progress. His vehicle was adorned with the fish symbol of the Christian faith (why? We would soon complain if Islamic fundamentalists started decorating their vehicles!), a message that God loved me, and, a declaration that the “driver” was sponsoring a donkey! Why is it that aged Christian animal lovers can’t drive?! He “proceeded” at a steady twenty miles per hour in a sixty and forty mile zone. GET OUT OF MY WAY! He may just as well have been on a mobility scooter……
Soaked
Yes it was raining when I left and yes the wind had brought every conker down from the trees, but, I only had to dash to the car and then from the car in a near empty Waitrose car park to the store and back again. But no. When I arrived at the (under shelter) cash point at Waitrose it was out-of-order. It said “Machine Out of Order”. This was annoying because I had seen the engineer there just yesterday. It then went on to declare “If this machine swallows your card do not enter your PIN”. Surely, most people would not be stupid enough to put their cards into a machine that was out-of-order? But, at least the sign made more sense of the fact that the machine was still out-of-order. Knowing a little about card fraud, I suspect that Waitrose Sandbach had been targeted by a skimming device; a Nigerian loop or similar….
But, it also meant that I had to schlep half way across Sandbach in the lashing rain to get money out of an alternative machine.
I was not happy. I was frustrated and soaked.
Bygone Age
On today’s seven hour journey from home (near Manchester) to Prague I had plenty of time to ponder the demise of the flying industry. Plenty of time to bemoan the lack of a hot towel and a sweet to suck at takeoff and landing. A time when the trolly service was more a case of pass the bottle and a warm meal was served on proper china and eaten with a real knife and fork fashioned from Sheffield’s finest. And the ladies doing the serving looked like proper ladies in skirts and stockings rather than the kind of slacks/trousers that you would expect to see your mom in.
Hats off to KLM – at least they have retained a traditional uniform. The only problem is that the flight attendants have aged somewhat. They may have the clothes but they lost their wiggle back in the 80s. And, my in-flight meal today consisted of a choice between a poor man’s wagon wheel (those were the days) and a packet of 6 Tuc Biscuits. Now I can be partial to a savoury biscuit with a glass of wine and some nice cheese but not with a complimentary coffee or a juice.
Travel by air is just not what it used to be. Czech Airlines decided to cancel my convenient hop from Manchester to Prague, so today I was forced to go from Birmingham via Amsterdam. Thanks to Al Qaeda and the resultant enhanced security checks; the budget airlines who have brought international travel within the grasp of the great unwashed and unedificated; and, Japanese tourists, transit through airports has become a nightmare. I nearly missed my connection in Schiphol because of the twenty-five minute queue for security. Standing in line for such a long time with my laptop in one hand and a bag of liquids and my belt in another, shuffling along like a man on death row hoping my trousers don’t fall down. Eventually I get to the top of the queue for passport control when an Italian – they are always Italian – “gent” pushes to the front declaring that he has “a two minutez to catcha a ma plane – do you a mind eef I push in?”. “They might” I respond pointing to the queue of people behind me. He pushes in anyway declaring “I canna a ask a them all”. I hope he missed his plane. I was taken on one side to have my bag searched because I had a “suspicious umbrella”. What could be suspicious about a Brit with an umbrella this time of year?
The flight to Prague was interesting. I sat throughout the flight with my eyes watering from the strong if, no doubt, expensive perfume of the elegant mature Czech lady sat to my left. She was more blinged up than your average rapper or Premiership footballer but with much better legs. I got wafts of her scent whenever she moved. She moved often because she was practising for a role in a hair product advert. The one where you have to flick your hair in a certain way “because your worth it”.
She was one of those skinny, bottoxed, glamorous fifty somethings that do lunch in Wilmslow and Alderley Edge and the like. A MILF. She had expensively streaked colour to hide her natural blonde tendencies. She had boots with heels that a cat-walk model would break her neck on. Makeup. Lots of it. But not enough to hide the sagginess in her cheeks and neck. She wore a fur wrap which could have been the real thing and had eyebrows so perfectly plucked that they wouldn’t have seemed out of place on Peter Andre.
Travel really is such a drag. It flattened my mood somewhat from the high I achieved last night when Jedward were booted off X-factor. There is a god, or, maybe, Simon Cowell is a supreme being. Shame about Katie Price aka Jordan leaving the jungle though……..
Now I’m stuck in another nondescript hotel room. Don’t get me started……..
Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Do you believe in ghosts? I do. I believe I have seen one, and been in the presence of at least two others.
Once was when I was quite young and at home in Erdington. Dad was not home from work yet and mom and my sister, J, were upstairs doing something girlie. I was watching a report on the local Midlands news programme, which was investigating hauntings in local factories. The interviewer was talking to two “witnesses”. As I watched a shadowy figure of a woman appeared behind the “witnesses”. I thought it was a joke. A special effect. I called upstairs to my mom and sister, but, the article had finished by the time they got downstairs.
My story was, however, corroborated the following day on the same news programme. They had received a number of complaints by other viewers who had reported seeing the “bad taste” special effect of the ghostly woman. But, the programme claimed innocence and replayed the piece, which this time was “spirit” free. Spooky.
Perhaps the best example of things going bump in the night was at the first house which C and I rented together in Alderley Edge. An old Victorian mid-terrace cottage. C woke in the night on more than one occasion claiming to have seen an old bearded man stood at the foot of our bed. Spooky. And no, I was neither bearded nor old at this time.
In the same property, strange things would happen in the kitchen. Drawers and cupboard doors would mysteriously open themselves. This was not the side-effect of poor fitting or cheap appliances. This was a Poltergeist. You could literally walk from the kitchen into the dining room with everything “normal”, and, having forgotten something, immediately turn on your heel and re-enter the kitchen, to find all drawers and doors wide open. Yes it was spooky but there was not any sense of animosity or fear. It was more as if the ghost had a sense of humour and was having a bit of a laugh.
Things did, however, get a bit twitchy one night when we were entertaining friends from London. We were having a meal in the dining room and talking about ghosts and all things spooky. Admittedly, the wine was flowing quite freely. But, all of a sudden the CD, which was playing music, stopped. The cassette tape switched itself on. The cassette tape switched itself on to “record”. The cassette player was recording us. The cassette player was recording our conversation about ghosts. To be clear, to get the cassette player to tape you would have to first switch from CD to tape, and the hold down the play and record buttons at the same time. I can barely do this sober, so I am sure I couldn’t have done it in my inebriated state.
We went very quiet. We looked at each other and we laughed nervously. We turned the music back on. And, it happened again. A second time. Even writing about it now I can feel the hairs on the back of my head stand up and a shiver is passing down my spine. Spooky.
We now live in an old Cheshire Reformatory School, a boys’ prison, which is converted into nine properties. The prison was built in 1855 and housed some 76 convicted boys aged between about 6 and 16. Crimes ranged from local boys who had stolen bread, presumably as a way of getting the education that the school also offered, through to convicted murderers. Often these would be boys from as far afield as Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow or London, presumably working on the premise that there would be less chance of them running away to get home.
Now we have never felt any presence here, C and I. Our next door neighbour did once claim that a ghost was moving things around his home but as this used to be our old house (we moved next door!) and we had had no such experience, we assumed he was joking. We didn’t like him very much. He was a nob and a fraudster. Worse, he used to stand in his lounge window wearing just skimpy underpants. Spooky.
More compelling, however, was the story of Holly. When Holly was just 3 years old or so and her family had just moved into the property. Holly asked her mom if she could go and play “with the boys in the courtyard”. Of course there were no boys. And, of course, little Holly knew nothing of the property’s history at that point. Spooky.
One house that does have a feeling about it, an eeriness, is Trivor. Trivor is a house in Monmouthshire which is owned by the father of a good friend of mine from university. My closest friends, and more recently their wives and partners, and subsequently their children, have visited the house every year for nigh on twenty years or so now. Trivor is mentioned in the Doomsday Book. Most of the current property dates back to the sixteenth century, however. A Catholic Priest was caught practising an illegal Mass there during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 and was apparently hanged, drawn and quartered. It must have smarted a bit. I guess something like that can leave a bit of an impression on an old place like that.
So, what about you? Do you have any ghostly tales that you wish to share?
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My Neighbours – The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Part 1
Mad Val
I have been blessed with good neighbours. I have been damned with awful neighbours. I crave for a detached house. Isolation. Neighbourless is a state that would suit me down to the ground. I am paranoid about neighbourly noise. Actually there is nothing neighbourly about noise from your neighbours. It is intrusive, wearing, impolite. It eats into your soul. It gets into your head, and it stays there. It grinds you down and it drives you out. It eats away at you until you can hear yourself scream the silent scream.
This is all the fault of Val. C and I lived next to Val for six years in our first home as a married couple. It was a beautiful Victorian cottage in Bolliwood (Alderley Edge) in Cheshire. Unfortunately, it was a semi-detached cottage, just one room wide. And, Val lived on the other side of the shared wall. Val, her TV and her stereo…..
Don’t get me wrong, the years were not all bad. Indeed, the first five and a half years out of the six were wonderful. After we had moved on, Val “knocked on” as they do in the North. When our paths crossed she always raised her hand in hello and we exchanged a word or two. Indeed, I remember the first time that we went away on holiday we left Val with a set of keys. In case of emergency. It was such a nice surprise when we discovered, upon our return, that Val had stocked the fridge with milk, bread and bacon and egg as a welcome home gift. We reciprocated, of course, when Val made one of her many trips back to the motherland. Val was Irish.
On my last night in the house I could have killed her. She was deliberately provoking us. She held a party despite the fact that it was a Thursday night. A work night to all intents and purposes. But, she knew we were leaving. So, she had all her Irish drinking partners around until 3 am. The shared wall shook to the tune of many an Irish jig or sad rock ballad. If I had gone round to complain I would have killed her. Actually, C refused to let me go. She was more concerned that this was a deliberate provocation and that if I had gone around there would have been many a Guinness and Jameson fuelled navvy more than ready to kill me.
For most of these six years Val lived alone. Occasionally she would obtain a boy friend. Val was in her fifties. Most of her boyfriends were in their twenties or thirties. Toy boys. Val was no looker. Perhaps she had money. These toy boys came and went. But, the toy boy that went five and half years into our residence next door to Val must have been significant. Val was inconsolable. Val resorted to self-pity, alcohol and Shirley Bassey. Shirley Bassey ballads would reverberate through the walls. Cover versions. Val once spent a whole weekend playing Shirley’s version of Foreigner’s “I want to know what love is” at full volume, back to back, in a constant repetitive loop. I did complain about 3am in the morning. Monday morning. I had to get up for work at 6am. She answered the door in an apologetic drunken haze. She did turn the music down. For maybe 20 minutes. After which Shirley belted it out at full volume until the alarm went off and I opened the door to sanctuary.
Also during this last six months, Val discovered the “pleasure” of Line Dancing. She also discovered the joys of practise. Home practise. Can you imagine listening to Cotton Eyed Joe being played at full volume on a constant loop! It was almost a relief when practise was over and Shirley Bassey would kick in. Or, bloody Simply Red. God I hate that man. Ginga!
For those of you who have read my earlier post “There’s a Bomb”, you will understand that I have long suspected that Val was trained in terrorist techniques. To be sure, the CIA would have been proud of her excellent use of noise pollution. General Noreaga would not have survived 24 hours next to Val.
I became paranoid about noise. I became convinced that we were somehow provoking Val into retaliating. I would only allow C three bars on the TV volume control. More often the not we spent the last six months in this house watching the same programmes on TV as Val next door, with our volume down, listening to her TV. When C was out I would listen to the football on the radio in the bathroom or in the kitchen so as not to provoke a retaliation. Mostly I would go out for a walk or a drive. I was making myself ill.
When selling, we would schedule viewings when we knew that Val was most likely to be out. We got very excited when someone put an offer in for the house who was hoping to set up a recording studio in the attic. Revenge would be mine. Unfortunately he pulled out. Shame.
Val, wherever you are now I hope you rot in a Neighbour From Hell existence of your own making. My own personal Hell would be a small cottage, a shared wall, Shirley and a Ginga singing a duet of Cotton Eyed Joe. Thanks Val and good riddance.
Celebrity Spotting Part 2
Z List
Many B, C and Z list celebrities live in the Wilmslow area of Cheshire. It is the land of Coronation Street stars and Manchester United players. And, they all seem to shop at Sainsburys. Or at least they did before the arrival of Waitrose a couple of years ago.
Ken Barlow (Bill Roache) used to live around the corner from us in Alderley Edge and was a regular in the corner shop. As indeed was Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson) – “allegedly” often pissed and buying alcohol. Jim McDonald/Charles Lawson (his screen dad), another alleged alki, Samia (sigh) Smith who plays Maria Sutherland, and Denise Welch (Natalie Barnes now a Loose Woman) are also Sainsburys regulars. Also, Brian McClair of Manchester United. In hidsight there could be a bit of an alcohol issue going on in Wilmslow.
I once saw Cristiano Ronaldo in there (Sainsburys). It was before the world cup (2006) so Ronaldo was still popular then. He was with his brother and his dad. He was clearly buying stuff for a family bbq. He was swamped by youngsters seeking autographs. He was very patient and took it all in his stride and I remember thinking “what a nice bloke”. But, I will never forgive him for getting Rooney sent off!
In fact Wayne Rooney has also moved into the area, and lowered the tone. Apparently he is now a regular in Brasingamens, the Braz, being a club in Alderley Edge (Bolliwood!), where, allegedly, he once punched his girlfriend, Coleen McLoughlin. It would seem that Wayne is often to be found partying with other Scousers, and that the potential WAG factor has begun to attract the ladies of Liverpool to this part of Cheshire on a Friday and Saturday night in search of a potential footballing hubby.
Well, denim mini skirts, see-through tops, pierced navels, and white stilettos have not gone down too well with the ladies who lunch of Wilmslow and Alderley Edge. I know who I’d back in a fight though. And, be careful where you park your car at the weekend…..
I even saw Liam Gallagher (of Oasis) and his then wife Patsy Kensit in Sainsburys. That caused a stir. You don’t get many Man City fans in Wilmslow! Not with all those shops selling prawn sandwiches. I like Patsy Kensit. In fact I have loved Patsy Kensit ever since she starred in the Birds Eye Peas adverts, starting in 1972. Those big blue eyes. That blonde hair. Mother wouldn’t approve.
I gave up my chair once for Barbara Knox who plays Rita Fairclough/Sullivan. It was in the business lounge of Manchester Airport. The cast was assembling there en route for one of those holiday specials in Ibiza or Majorca or some such place. You know, “the Street goes on holiday and it all ends in disaster” special.
Airports in general are a very good place for hob-nobbing with stars…..I bumped into the Edge (U2), literally, in the lounge at Heathrow. I followed Anneka Rice’s bottom (nice) up the stairs to a plane. I stood next to Alex Furgusson and Craig Brown (then Scotland Manager) on the tarmac at Heathrow as we tried to find our baggage after it had been turfed off a broken-down plane. I once sat next to Willy Thorne and his snooker cue on a plane to Amsterdam. He was a very nice guy, sociable, if a bit obsessive about his cue.
Most bizarrely, C and I once sat at a table next to Jason Orange of Take That in the Swan public house in Wybunbury, in darkest Cheshire. This was in the wilderness years between the demise and rebirth. He was just like any other normal bloke out for a drink and Sunday meal with the family.
C and I sat next to Jane Danson (Leanne Battersby of Corrie) when she was having a girls’ night out, in Pizza Express in Wilmslow. In fact, we were once in there at the same time as Dwight Yorke, when he was still a Birmingham City player. I didn’t pester him for an autograph though. We once queued next to Sinbad from Brookside in the big Ikea at Warrington. I sat next to Frank Finlay (star of Bouquet of Barbed Wire – TV incest in 1976) on the Northern Line tube. Twice. On separate occasions.
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Refugees and Undesirables
Refugees and Undesirables
I remember one strange weekend. We cleared out the garage on Saturday, which involved going backwards and forwards to the local dump several times. What we did not throw away was set a-side for a car boot sale (typically English phenomenon methinks).
So we were up at the crack of dawn (6am) on Sunday to make our way to the car boot sale with all kinds of stuff that was just taking up space in the garage – old books, old PC games, old ornaments, old mirrors, 3 old lawn mowers (yes 3), etc, etc. You get the drift.
The sale was in a massive field in a place called Alderley Edge, which is very, very affluent. It was very popular and there were long queues on the very rich, expensive, extremely suburban street leading to the farm where the sale was being held. The local inhabitants must really have loved having those who clear their own garages (as opposed to paying someone to do it for them), and, the great unwashed, needy and desperate “parked” outside their mansions while queuing to get on the field so early on Sunday. Many a curtain was twitching, and, all security gates remained firmly shut.
We got there about 7.15 am and it was like being dropped into a refugee camp in some Asian former Soviet Republic. It looked a little like the illegal arms sale that James Bond ruffed up in Die Another Day. There were THOUSANDS of cars on this muddy field and all kinds of wares on display.
As well as people having a good clear out like ourselves, there were others selling knocked-off goods or counterfeits, semi-legal and illegal traders of all kinds. But, the buyers were mostly dirt poor. They mostly consisted of the inhabitants of Shameless (see earlier posting “Not Nice Place To Live”) who had bussed in (or stolen cars) looking for cheap stuff of quality. These were the unfortunate ones mixing with the dregs of society – skeletal blokes clearly stoned and hung over and the ugliest, most frightening women in the world.
They had bad skin, bad hair, bad makeup and bad attitudes and had squeezed rolls of fat into all different kinds of bad clothes. They stood there with cigarettes dangling from puffy lips and bad language spilling from their mouths as they pushed their ugly, obese and badly behaved kids around in buggies.
Apart from these, there were two distinct groups of asylum seekers – those from Eastern Europe (Kosovo and the like) with shaven heads (and that was the women) and earrings (the men) wearing shell-suits and other ripped off designer labels looking for cheap counterfeits. And, there were the dirt-poor Asian asylum seekers in their full regalia looking as if they had just escaped a Taleban death squad. The difference was that these people seemed to be desperate for things that they could use to work with (old tools, etc), or to better their life (an English dictionary, a toy for a child).
They were polite, despite having little English, respectful, and grateful for anything you could give them. But they were SO poor – they often could not even afford to buy things for 50p that were probably worth £20 to £30. You just felt like giving the stuff away to them. And so we did.
We left at 13.15, with just a few items left, feeling very grateful for our own very different lives. The things we brought back with us probably showed the difference in our existences – who needs PC games if you don’t own a PC; who needs a wine rack if you don’t drink or only drink cheap cider, sherry or vodka……
Shameless
Not Nice Place To Live (Shameless)
To protect my anonymity and the feelings of those poor souls who live and work in the place, I have changed the name of a particular vicinity of South Manchester (near to the Airport), replacing it with the fictitious name of “Shameless“. Shamelessly, I have used the title of that great Channel 4 comedy/drama because, well, I think it is fitting………..
It was quite a shock to the system moving from working in the Strand in London to Shameless in South Manchester.
My apologies to all residents of the somewhat maligned corner of South Manchester, which is Shameless. It is nothing personal. I have nothing personal against underage single-moms, asylum seekers, immigrants (illegal or otherwise), drug addicts (recovering or otherwise), the mentally ill, the infirm, or the great unwashed. In many ways I fear Shameless is a vision of the future…….some kind of post-holocaust Bladerunner-like future. My point is only that, Covent Garden it is not.
That said, I do have something against drug dealers, thieves, muggers, and anti-social neighbours. And, Shameless has more than its fair share of those.
Shameless was a bit of a culture shock after the West End of London. Gone were the Savoy and Strand theatres. Shameless “entertainment”, other than that induced by narcotics and alcohol, comes in the form of Line Dancing classes held at the local Conservative Club (working class conservatism is apparently alive, well and the preserve of the over 60s and unemployed, social scroungers), local bingo halls, and, one-armed bandit arcades. Gone were the Savoy Hotel, Smolensky’s Balloon and the Coal Hole. In Shameless, you can breakfast at the drive through MacDonalds or local “greasy spoon”, while the very brave and foolish could always risk a drink in the local Benchill public house, renowned for having the hardest girl gang in the country (as shown on TV).
Shameless is a mess. Shameless is the worst example of social engineering. The best example of town planning gone wrong. Shameless was purpose-built in the 1960s as Europe’s largest council estate. Companies like the Co-op, Ferranti, Barclays and Shell were offered incentives to build offices in the area to provide work for the inhabitants. These companies did build their offices but failed, it would seem, in providing work for the locals. Instead, they provided employment and careers for people from the more affluent surrounding areas such as Wilmslow, Hale, Alderley Edge, Didsbury and Cheadle. Over the decades, Shameless became the white ghetto of South Manchester. The great unwashed and unemployed were dumped there with little prospect, less respect, few amenities and no hope. Over the decades, certain inhabitants of Shameless became jealous of the material wealth of their neighbours and crime in those areas rocketed.
Indeed, we were visited by the Shameless criminal fraternity when we lived in Alderley Edge. You have to know that Alderley Edge is affluent. It is a nice place to live. It is very Cheshire. It is the home of many a Manchester United and Liverpool footballer and their Wags. Posh and Becks lived here before he signed for Real Madrid. Its many charity shops are renowned for their array of designer cast-offs. It is known “affectionately” as Bolliwood (Bollinger) because it has the highest per capita sales of champagne in the country. Alderley Edge is just 15 minutes drive and a million light years from Shameless.
At a time when my sister-in-law was living with my wife and I in Alderley Edge and I had been working away Monday to Thursday in that wonderful concrete cow of a place, Milton Keynes, I came back one Thursday night and sent the girls to bed as I “relaxed” with a large scotch and Thursday night football on the telly. Of course, I fell asleep on the sofa, only to be woken in the early hours by the sound of broken glass. I looked out of the window and saw a car parked outside the Pine Shop that was opposite. I also saw two blokes, one of whom was, rather bizarrely, sporting a jester’s three-cornered hat, complete with bells. I assumed that it was their car and that it had been broken into. I was rather tipsy. I decided to help. So, I went outside and began to cross the road towards them, in my socks.
I was greeted with a tirade of abuse, which was most unexpected, “Just f*ck off back inside!”. In my drunken haze I became quite affronted and continued to walk towards the two guys, “What’s your problem!”. The next thing I knew, my wife was at the front door in all her naked glory shouting, “Come back, I’ve called the police”. The guys got in their car and drove off, leaving me standing in the middle of the road attempting and failing to make sense of what was going on. At this point one of the neighbours came out in her nightie and rushed up to me, “You’re so brave! My husband has locked himself in the bathroom, he was so scared…..” Not so brave as stupid.
The police did arrive. Apparently these two Shameless boys were known to them. They were high on coke and had stolen the car and come to Alderley Edge looking for easy pickings. Easy pickings this night meant breaking into the Pine Shop in search of cash. Apparently my “intervention” must have scared them off. What a hero.
Anyhow, venturing into the Civic Centre at lunchtime is akin to visiting another planet. Shameless Civic Centre is a mess of cheap shops, pawn and porn brokers, and bookmakers. The local supermarket sells out-of-date cans of cheap lager even more cheaply. This is very popular with the winos that sit on the benches all day long, among the squalid pigeons and other local vermin, drinking from their rusting cans, hurling foul-mouthed abuse at passers-by and laughing hysterically at some unshared amusement or the voices in their heads.
Shameless is the only place that I know which has two “pound shops”: Pound Stretcher, and, Pound City, where everything is a pound. Except when there is a sale on, of course. They stand in perfect competition directly opposite each other in the Civic Centre. Pound Stretcher has been there for a while. Pound City is a relative newcomer, possibly encouraged by the Government’s recent injection of £2.5 million to regenerate the area. £2.5 million doesn’t get you a lot these days, but it does buy you a pound shop and a few blue street signs that point you in the direction of the police station and the NHS drop-in centre…….The competitive triangle at the heart of the Civic Centre is completed by “Cash Generator”, where you can sell as well as buy. Yes, Shameless’ second Pawn Brokers. Shameless is the only place I know where the shops still advertise “the tick”, HP (hire purchase), something for nothing. Shameless is not so much Neverland as the Never, Never Land…..
The Pound Shops and the Pawn Brokers are amongst the most popular shops in the area, together with the “butchers” claiming proudly to sell “Manchester’s cheapest meat”. I wouldn’t eat anything that came off that shop’s shelves. It is not meat of any kind I have seen before. Meat does not come in those colours! Animals don’t come in those shapes. There is another, better butcher further round the precinct. You can tell that this one is better because they have better security. There is a steel shutter across the entrance to this shop which is permanently pulled halfway down so as to stop thieves running in, snatching a joint (of meat) and running out. You actually see old aged pensioners (or should I more politically correctly say, senior citizens) getting down on their hands and knees to enter and leave the shop. How degrading! Every Tuesday there is a second-hand “flea” market, including the second-hand underwear and swimwear stall called “Sniff and Go”. I do not joke.
Otherwise, the market is a haven for rash-inducing cosmetics, pirate DVDs and CDs (which don’t work in card stereos as I have learnt to my cost), knocked off or imitation “designer” labels (which here mean Nike, Burberry – how the mighty are fallen – or Adidas rather than Gucci or Louis Vuitton), replica football shirts, and, cheap pet food stalls. At least the local rottweilers, bulldogs and pit bulls are well cared for here. Either that, or the pensioners are eating it for themselves.
And then there are the people. You will never see any people poorer than Shameless-people on the streets of the UK. You will never see so many missing eyes, missing teeth, missing limbs, walking sticks, prosthetics, invalid carts, and Zimmer frames as on the streets of Shameless. In fact, if you care to look closely you will find that most of the local pigeon population is also disabled in some way, with broken wings, missing claws or legs and a lack of ambition prevalent even amongst this local population. Every young man seems to sport an underage girlfriend on his arm, love bites on his neck, a tattoo, a shaved head, an earring, a bulldog or similar mean-mannered critter on a lead, an attitude, and, a chip on his shoulder the size of a railway sleeper. They are often bare-chested, irrespective of the weather, and, invariably, looking for a fight. Most are stoned or drunk or both. They have come to the Civic Centre to get their dole, sign on, score drugs, or sell drugs. You give these blokes a wide berth. And the there are the girls – 14-year-old girls with too much make-up, little taste, pierced belly buttons and thongs on display irrespective of time or season. They drag multiple small multi-coloured children behind them and push smaller multi-coloured children in buggies in front of them. It would seem that every Shameless-girl of a certain age is a mother, several times over, by the time they leave school. And, they leave school early here, if they attend at all. The lunchtime bustle of the Civic is often drowned out by the maternal cry of “Kylie, f**king leave Jason alone and get the f*ck back here you little ba*tard. Not much hope for the next generation of Shameless inmates……….
I think that you get a flavour of Shameless from one particular episode that sticks in my memory. It was Easter weekend. My wife and I were going to Habitat, which meant driving through the heart of Shameless. The council had attempted to brighten the place up by planting lots of daffodils. Shameless was teaming. Shameless was teaming with hoards of women and children armed with carving knives and decorating scissors stealing armfuls and armfuls of these daffodils. I can only assume that vases were the favourite items shop-lifted from Habitat that day…..
Middle Man 
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