Minsterley Parade

Minsterley Parade used to be a shopping precinct & housing project in Wythenshawe, Manchester, where I was brought up. In the early 1990's, a failure of local government to step up to the plate, plus a central funding crisis saw the shops become vacant, unserviced, and fall down around the residents ears akin to something in Beirut. You might think such decrepitude had an element of planning about it, sweeping away the rot before the new investment came in, but the area stayed like that for years. It wasn't fenced off. There was no security or policing. Kids played in the rubble and broken glass amongst the junkie's syringes and burnt out cars. It was perfectly possible to climb stairs at the back of the shops into derelict flats with windows smashed through, holes in the floor boards, walls, etc. The bag lady in the last picture was looking for ciggie dimps. These photos I took were in the Dave Sinclair mould, and although this wasn't intentional, I was a reader of the Militant newspaper at the time so perhaps my camera lens was led by his example. If anyone says "Ohh you carry too much anger/ political opinion/ rage, we're all classless now" I'll think of this example from my youth and shall not fail to direct them to this blog.

North Utsire