Rewilding Myself

I have previously, at length and loudly, said I don't like the New Year celebration. You can read why here. This year however New Year's Eve  finds me coincidentally reflective, not because of the occa

Rocher Vale, Oldham

sion just because I am. 

When I retired people spoke about retirement as a thing: something you go from your job to, something you embark upon. In reality you go from the job that, to a greater or lesser extent, defined you to this vast amorphous expanse of yourself. People tell you that you find yourself busier once retired than you were when working. This is true but I only recently understood why. 

I am a fan of post-industrial countryside. Particularly the landscape that surrounds Oldham: Park Bridge and Rocher Vale are among my favourites. Great swathes of land scarred by the iron works and coal mines that helped forge the Industrial Revolution. These are now once more areas of natural beauty  given over to nature they provide homes for an array of flora and fauna. You can see the great sandstone remains of mills and mines swathed in honeysuckle and ivy; the kingfisher and heron hunt in the river Medlock that was previously too polluted to sustain the fish that feed them.

When I retired I felt that I was giving myself my life back, surrendering it once more to its natural state where life's riches could re-inhabit it. 

Despite my hankering for nature's wildness I find myself however scrambling with the dogs over areas of Rocher Vale where nature truly has taken hold, struggling to make headway where the undergrowth is thick with brambles, and where fallen trees bar the way. After a while the going gets too tough and I seek for a way back to well-trodden paths. In reality we are only happy with so much untamed wilderness, we like a nicely maintained path that allows us to make our way with relative ease while enjoying nature having its way nearby. 

And this is the life-point I find myself at: complaining that my time is not my own, that other things have grown seemingly unchecked into areas that, with hindsight, they are not that welcome. 

So the result of this reflection is that the time is here to start identifying destinations and laying paths to get there. This means - to continue the metaphor- pulling back some of the undergrowth to reclaim some ground, and then to enjoy the wildness where I want it.

Happy new year!  

Grim Up North - Not Romantic, Grim

I've written about my grandparents' post-cotton working lives before, but recently the reality of their post-war poverty was pulled into sharp focus, it was far from the quaint Lowryesque pictures I had in mind, and I realised that despite knowing the facts of my heritage, I was still guilty of romanticising it into a 'grim-up-North-where-there's-muck-etc' kitchen sink drama.

Fifty years ago this month my parents were married in the tiny Edge Lane Methodist Chapel tucked between rows of terraced houses in the back streets of Oldham, long since swept away in the slum clearances of the sixties. As we celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary, I asked my mum to describe her wedding day, anticipating tales of make-up, hair and the sort of girly preparations 19yr old brides might make.

She told us how, on the morning of her wedding, she walked in the rain to the Public Baths on Shaw Rd for a bath. This was special - a bath was normally taken in front of the open fire in a shared enamel tub. After bathing cheek by jowl with other neighbours, she walked home, calling in at the corner shop to buy a pie and mash lunch for relatives newly arrived after a full morning's bus journey from Sheffield. Only after delivering the pie and mash was she free to do her own hair and make-up before the car arrived to drive twice round the block before dropping her off at the tiny chapel at the end of the street.

My dad remembers how he arrived late, with a hangover, and was confronted by my maternal Great Grandfather - their first meeting. The older man eyed my father up and down, grunted and passed judgement on the future husband of his Granddaughter "He'll do" he said.

The black and white photographs of the day tell their own story. The clothes are great: only my dad had a new suit, all the other men wore 'the suit' - the only formal piece of clothing most of them owned, and kept mothballed in the back of a wardrobe for long periods for events such as these. The older men were staunch in their refusal to remove the headgear that marked them out as working men - not the modern Moss Bros rented top hat jobs, the men wore flat caps with their double breasted suits.

It was when we were flicking through the album I had my reality check - I was gently chuckling at the flat capped men, and commenting on how we'd just nip to Matalan for a seventy quid suit made by some poor sod in Asia these days, and noting how Primark age photos would consequently have that bland look that comes from everyone buying the same cheap clothes with the money they have, rather than saving older clothes and reusing them.

I asked whether my Mum and Dad missed the days when life was simpler and at an easier pace. Not a bit of it. Because of course it wasn't simpler - my mum didn't choose to walk in the rain for a bath on her wedding day, nor choose to have to go and buy lunch for the guests. They had no indoor bathroom nor toilet, nor fresh food in the house. And the houses weren't later demolished in some kind of wanton destruction - they were unfit to be lived in, and while we might not liked the estates they built in the sixties to replace them, there was nothing romantic about them. My Grandparents were glad to get out.

So no Lowry romantic Northern idyll for me then.

Approved By The World Blog Council

All this time and I didn't realise that I should have applied for approval from the World Blog Council before writing a word. Still, it's sorted now and I have to say I'm flattered by their kind words. And, as I submitted in my application to the council, I feel it my duty as a Blogger from Oldham to get some sort of council approval, I'm guessing that Oldhamers are more likely to pay attention to the WBC than they do to the dear old Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council.



Mind you judging by the decisions of Oldham Council over the years - including a multi million pound shopping centre build in the seventies, never fully occupied and then knocked down twenty years later; a Police Station built the wrong way round (or is that an urban myth); and a swimming pool a tile's width too short for proper competitions to be held there - the committees of our local council use similar decision making processes to the WBC.

So they're not completely bad then!

A Beery Epiphany In The Imagined Village

I had an epiphany in a taxi home on Friday night after a number of pints of Boddington's beer. The beer wasn't to blame though; this epiphany had been gestating since I discovered the Imagined Village project. It features artistes like Paul Weller, Billy Bragg and Martin Carthy and seeks to rework English traditional songs in a modern idiom.

'Hasn't that been done before by people like Fairport Convention?' I hear you ask not unreasonably. And the answer is no, not really. In the past folk songs have been given a modern musical treatment but leaving any modern interpretation of context and meaning to the listener.

In the imagined village, centuries old songs of poverty, hardship and oppression are transformed. I've thought for some time that Billy Bragg was about the closest thing we have to a modern folk writer, so I wasn't surprised by his version of Hard Times of Old England where he brilliantly sets farmers' struggles to eke a living beneath the yoke of the oppresor - Tesco. But it wasn't Billy Bragg that caused my epiphany, it was something Benjamin Zephania said.

He was talking about what holds communities together and gives a sense of oneness - and of course, gives birth to songs that come from the heart of a nation. He was pointing out that The Imagined Village contains musicians with very diverse origins yet it is their common shared experiences of living in the UK that binds them, despite their differences or backgrounds.

Sat in the taxi on Friday me and the driver chatted amiably about the weather, the price of diesel, the goings-on at Oldham Council and about how Latics were playing at the start of the current season (he actually knew rather more than me about that one). Then we got on to how the town had changed over the last twenty years or so and whether we thought much had changed since the Oldham riots a few years ago.

That was when I had my epiphany in his taxi - this was what Benjamin Zephania was on about. Despite the driver being a dark skinned Muslim with a long black beard, we had more in common than we did not. Then it struck me - if we had compared him with someone from Alaska say, someone whom vice presidential candidate Sarah Pallin might want to appeal to perhaps, a white middle class blue collar worker maybe - someone, on paper at least, like me; who would we have said I had more in common with?

It's not the difference, that makes the difference is it?

The Association Principle

The association principle explains how marketers latch on to success in order to bask in the glow and achieve more sales; hence you get celebrity endorsement and the like. There are places that have almost become brands in themselves - London, Paris, New York - and people's ears prick up when they hear talk of these cosmopolitan, glamorous locations. Then there is Oldham.

We are rather the opposite, when one of our own sons or daughters make good we are eager to cling to their coat tails as they disappear in a cloud of dust up or down the M62 away from the town - usually to one of those glamorous places. It's embarrassing though , it smacks of desperation even, when these people clearly want to disassociate themselves from those they left behind and we desperately chase after them claiming even the most tenuous association.

Take the composer William Walton: Oldham born and bred but as soon as his talent was out, he was off spending his days with his glamorous and clever peers; and did he return in his dotage? No, he finished his days in sunny Ischia. But for years we have treated various relatives of his like royalty as we invite them back to sit in state at various borough musical events and the like.

Another is the world famous glass artist Brian Clarke. When The Spindles shopping centre was designed he was the obvious choice to do the glass roof but not because he was conveniently placed in his studio down Retiro Street, no, because he was famous and had to be brought from London. I think we only saw him once when the thing was complete (which predictably featured images of Walton and his music) he was there for the opening, but once he'd got his cheque we didn't see him again.

But no matter how these notables shun their mill town heritage we still love to cling to them - has everything that has ever given us pride in our town got up and left?

Last Saturday we watched ITV 4 with excitement as boxer Choi Tseveenpurev bamboozled young Liverpudlian Derry Mathews with his unconventional boxing technique to take the WBU title from the choked youngster (his technique, if you are interested, seemed to me to simply consist of being tough as old boots, not minding being hit much and then hitting back very, very hard).

Why do I mention it? Because Mongolian born Choi is based in Oldham in fact he trains at Tara Leisure where my dad goes. And, yes you've guessed it, we are all very proud of him in Oldham, never mind that he was born many thousands of miles away - he's successful.

Oh, by the way, aren't you glad that I didn't mention the old joke that was on everyone's lips after they saw the photo of Choi... it wasn't? Oh, go on then.

Boxing promoter Frank Warren was in the dressing room talking to Choi before the fight and asked him where he was from. Choi replied "Oldham, Mr Warren" to which he replied....wait for it...."Wear the Fox Hat"

I thank you!

Beauty is in the Eye of the BehOldham (sorry!)

There are people who constantly look for things to complain about and seek out only the bad and ugly in things; then there are people who look around them for the good and the beautiful - even where it isn't that obvious.

Those are the people I like.

Our town has had its detractors of late, and dear old Oldham is certainly not without its problems; but I get tired of the insidious dripping water torture of complaint that we read in our local paper. There should be a test before people are allowed to put pen to paper: is their aim positive and constructive or is their aim to cause disharmony and unhappiness? Don't get me wrong, I don't expect people to have a sunny disposition and shed light wherever they go, but I do like to hear at least the merest hint of a suggestion of a solution when someone snipes at something.




Anyway, I can feel this developing into a rant so, while we are on the subject of light (were we?), I was delighted to see the results of the latest Oldham Flickr Group meeting. For the uninitiated, Flickr is a photo sharing site, and the real experts band together in groups to develop their art. The Oldham group certainly seem to have the nack of finding beauty around them - more power to their lenses I say!


The glass bridge is a perfect example of just the sort of thing I mean. The bridge is at the heart of one of Oldham's rougher areas and it is tempting, when there, to be constantly looking over your shoulder or clinging tightly to your handbag rather than appreciating the architecture!

Bucking the Tesco Trend

Banksy's latest masterpiece resonated with me today after visiting the Village Manor Bakery in Waterhead (just off the A62 near the 82 bus terminus, if you are passing). At only one mile from a Tesco, this traditional bakery bucks the trend fantastically by creating fabulous bread, cakes and pies without resorting to the dreaded Chorleywood Baking process that industrial bakers use to make that doughy stuff they sell in supermarkets as bread.

Banksy may be having a pop at the whole plastic bag thing but, to my mind, it is all linked. I simply think back to the days of the corner shop when my mum sent me with a string bag to collect her bread: two uncut white and an uncut Hovis (please Mrs Day).

That childhood errand sums up the difference between the shopping experience then, when I would nip to the corner shop for cold meat, bread and cakes; cross the road to go the greengrocers and then nip up the road to Ashworth's butchers for a pound of skirt.

I do miss the ease and availability of local shopping as it was. And that isn't simply nostalgia but rather regret at the sort of world we had where people knew your name when you went in the shop (I hope it's not just me who can hear the theme tune from Cheers playing in the distance).

When I collected my Mother in Law's bread this morning, I couldn't help but notice that despite the queue out of the door (there is always a big queue) the staff still had time for the many older people who are known by name as they collected their own regular order. They also asked me how my Father in Law was getting on; I've only been in three or four times to collect his bread since he has been ill, but they remembered me.

That's service!

The Great Photography Con

Hartshead Pike is a bit of a monument set on a bit of a hill pretty much on the boundary between Oldham and Ashton Under Lyne; it is a memorial to some or other royal wedding a long time ago. When we were kids it was that place that was just to far to be allowed to cycle alone - but not so far to be too scared to go or the place for your first hike with cub scouts - only 3 miles from home; but it felt like the countryside.The reality though, was that despite the fabulous view out over the City of Manchester and the Cheshire plain to the distant Welsh mountains in one direction, in the other

it was backed by Mullaney's Scrap metal yard; a land fill and surrounded by scrappy farmland with scruffy sheep. Now Hartshead Pike is simply a shortcut to avoid traffic for those who know it.

Last week Lisa posted this photograph on Flickr and set me thinking. Had the picture appeared in a glossy holiday brochure you could be forgiven for wanting to actually take a trip to Hartshead Pike. So has it always looked like that and I haven't noticed, or is photography - the art whose device never lies, we used to be told - a con, there to fool us in to believing what we might not otherwise believe. I mean to say look at the sky: it never looks like that over Manchester... does it?

Elvis: The Man and the Marketing

I don’t know where you stand on Elvis, but he’s everywhere at the moment; it seems that there is a significant Elvis anniversary: 30 years since he died; but since when was thirty a significant anniversary?
I have never really quite understood Elvis; I mean, for one thing, there’s no such thing as Elvis singular. There’s young Elvis, GI Elvis, LA Elvis and sad fat Elvis but not one clear Elvis identity. I can take or leave the music: he sang well - as a rock and roll singer - and could bash out a ballad well enough but I don't understand what made him so big – in the global, rather than physical, sense. The answer, I learnt from an excellent Radio 4 programme yesterday afternoon, was Colonel Tom Parker: now there’s a man you would want on your marketing team. Parker was solely responsible for converting Elvis from a man to a brand; taking advantage of the scarcity principle by preventing him ever touring outside the US and making his movies instant hits among the worldwide population who would never get to see him perform. Parker quickly spotted the potential marketing value in TV when everyone else poured scorn on it as a five minute wonder.
Sadly though, as far as I can see, there is little left of the man that was; all that seems to remain – aside from endless debates about the music – is the brand: a sort of quasi-comic phenomenon that is a mixture of karaoke and Blackpool. You only need to Google (UK) Elvis to get a flavour of it: the genuine fan sites are far outnumbered by Elvis impersonators; I even spotted a knitting pattern for an Elvis wig. During another Radio 4 Elvis programme this week there was reportage about the Elvis brand, including consideration of whether the Elvis impersonator market ought to be franchised. I almost had to pull up the car to think about this: compare the image of Elvis to that of the other massive American franchise: the golden arches of McDonalds, and you will see how weirdly possible it could be. Already the range of possible Elvis impersonator alternatives has far outstripped the imagination of even Col. Tom: for example Chinese Elvis, Black Elvis, Shmelvis (the Jewish Elvis), Elvish (the Tolkien themed Elvis), Gospel Elvis, Balloon Elvis and the lesbian Elvis impersonator Elvis Herselvis. It seems the cult is far bigger than the man.

Perhaps, in a few years time, when I am looking for a potential investment for my pension lump sum, I could do worse that an Elvis franchise myself: Oldham Elvis with his range of specially adapted hit songs like: '(Mind Me) Clogs Yer Clumsy Bugger' and 'Yer Nowt But a Whippet', the list is endless.
Oh, by the way, I made up one of the themed Elvis impersonators; can you guess which one?

Oxfam Chic - At A Price

I am not noted for my sartorial elegance, nor for my interest in fashion matters; but, whilst crossing Manchester city centre the other day, my eye was caught by two young people dressed in what I would term Oxfam chic. The phrase deriving from the need of young people to dress stylishly, yet affordably, by searching out second hand clothes emporiums and charity shops. Indeed this was a method of clothing I adopted whilst a student nurse - though, if you ask Mrs C, it was more Oxfam than chic. I was known to wear an ensemble consisting of a RAF great coat, boilerhouse overalls or any other combination of mismatched, discarded garments adopted and adapted from Oldham's flea market. So it was with a fond smile that I viewed these two happy young people tripping carefree through the city streets. Until, that is, I spotted the carrier bag over the arm of the pretty young female; a bag emblazoned with the logo of Viviene Westwood.

"Isn't she one of those fancy expensive designers?" I asked myself; and getting no comprehensible reply hopped off to the expensive part of town to do some journalistic research on behalf of my readers.

Stepping out of my comfort zone (Marks and Spencer) and into the hallowed halls of Harvey Nicholls (where I felt I ought to pay just to cross the threshold), not finding what I wanted and having the burning gaze of people who could tell at a glance that I didn't belong, I left and continued my research in the classy part of town around King St and St Anne's Square. There I found Hervia; a quick peep through the window and I knew immediately that the down at heel appearance of my two student types was nothing more than an expensive copy of the real thing.

Needing reassurance that all was not lost in the world of clothes, I trecked back across town to the seamier, but far more interesting area around Oldham Street - where, incidentally, sits my most favourite of shop names: a body modification and piercing parlour entitled 'Holier than thou' - and went into Affleck's Palace the home of alternative clothing, alternative jewellery, alternative music and alternative haircuts. I sighed happily, transported for a moment back to my youth, as I saw that Oxfam Chic still existed and far surpassed the expensive imitations of King St.

Man's Estate

After his comment on Back Where I Belong , Bill Blunt got me thinking about estates: the sprawling housing developments that in the sixties and seventies replaced streets of terrace housing flattened in the name of progress, communities fragmented and people stacked in towers where they were highly unlikely to be able to talk over the back yard wall with their neighbours.

I have a jaundiced view, as Bill noticed, of these places after both sets of grandparents lost their homes in this manner. My paternal grandma lost her home to the Asda store in Longsight, Manchester; in fact if you stand in the frozen food section you are probably not far from her kitchen. She was moved to Armitage Court in West Gorton, which is at the centre of the inner city suburb used to film Channel 4's Shameless. The community spirit described in Shameless is not that of my grandma's back to back terraced housing.

My maternal grandparents lost out when Bertha Street and - the hub of the community - Edge Lane Methodist Church in Oldham were crushed to make way for St Mary's Estate and Shaw Rd Estate in Oldham. They were moved onto Radcliffe St, St Mary's were I spent most of my summer holidays whilst mum and dad worked.

If communities survived after their enforced exodus they did so in spite of the new estates, not because of them; the social engineers hoped it would be otherwise. And I do feel that the architects of the time had much to answer for; I am a believer in the theory that building designs affect how we feel about a place. If you don't believe me, have a look how successful some of the more recent enlightened designs in social housing are.

And before I forget, Bill Blunt and I are not the only people talking about the estates where they live. Tracey over at Gwelva Kernewek has been busy writing about the estate where she lives. If you need something else to convince you that where you live affects how you feel about life take a look at Tracey's post.

Father's Day and a Truly Local Economy

I don't know where you stand on your local high street, but no matter where you stand in Oldham's town centre you can not escape the view of a national or global retail outlet of some sort - I use that term deliberately because I simply cannot bring myself to call them shops. To me shops are warm friendly places with character rather than the sterile, vacuous places aimed at taking pounds from your pocket and putting them, with very little removed for the benefit of the employees, into the pockets of the, already, super rich.

There are only a handful of shops in Oldham: Mawson's herbalist, Mrs Zippy's Sewing and Joke Shop, Williamson's Ironmongers and Hardware emporium at Mumps. These are the places with character: where else can you buy a new zip for your jeans, a fake turd and a pair of false boobs in one trip; where else can you receive honest health advice from a qualified herbalist who doesn't want to also sell you the chain store magazine and where else can you buy anything whatsoever in the tool or hardware line. These places have struggled to survive and, in the case of Mawson's and Williamson's come through to produce a diverse business without losing their character. Their keepers - and again I deliberately choose that term; there is in my view, a world of difference between a shopkeeper and sales assistant - deserve our support. So if you happen to be passing through Oldham and need a fake nurse outfit or fake cigarette with a convincing puff of talcum for smoke, call in at Mrs Zippy's.

And so to Fathers Day; there are times when I am proud of my two sons. They are accustomed to my moralistic rants at the television - "Dad, stop shouting at them, they can't hear you and we're missing the next bit" - and they sigh, not always inaudibly, when I start to express my opinions. Just occasionally though they do something that demonstrates that they understand me rather better than I give them credit for. It would have been easy for them to nip along the real ale aisle of Tesco, choose a half dozen bottles such as Black Sheep or Old Peculiar; and I would have been happy. What in actual fact they did buy me was this:

A mini cask of Dobcross Bitter from the artisan brewers at Greenfield Brewery not three miles from here. Local craftsmen, not making a fortune but producing something that, in my view, is worth a fortune.

Well done boys; now all I have to do is convince them that it is far more worth drinking than the tasteless, seven or more, pints of lager that they effortlessly dispatch at weekend.

Battle of the Bands

Whit Friday evening is an annual, mammoth, brass band event that attracts around one hundred bands from across the UK and abroad every year. For the whole weekend Saddleworth's B & B's and campsites are packed; and licensees take in extra stock. Outsiders find the event hard to understand: locals refer to it as 'the band contest' but in reality there are around thirty individual contests in villages and districts across Saddleworth, North East Oldham and parts of Tameside. Generally spectators stay put at their favourite venue while the bands tour round the area competing at as many contests as they can between 4pm and midnight. When I tell you that each band has its own forty seater coach you will understand why it easier for spectators to stay put.

The contests consist of two parts: the march and the stand; the march is what it says on the tin and the stand is where the band, well, stand, and play a test piece to be judged by a hidden adjudicator, typically ensconced in caravan borrowed for the occasion.

Individual venues vary in their style and so attract different clientele: Uppermill and Delph are larger livelier events, where people who enjoy a rowdy beer soaked evening typically join the tougher looking type of Police Officer as the evening progresses. Dobcross is small and pretty, Greenfield and Scouthead are predominantly family events with a variety of attendant attractions in addition to the bands.

We unpacked our folding chairs on the packed field at Greenfield among families enjoying a variety of picnics. The bands were terrific and included big names like Brighouse and Rastrick as well as some of the tongue in cheek 'scratch' bands assembled for the occasion from excellent musicians who are not currently registered to another band. These bands aim to entertain rather than win and dress in a manner to suit their name: Tartan Brass, Chav Brass and Boobs and Brass - a popular one - , were some of this year's selection.



The biggest cheer of the night was for Greenfield Band - our Tom's band - they lifted their game and managed to win the prizes for best 4th Section band and best Local Band.


If you are ever told you must go to Oldham, choose to come when it is Whit Friday; I guarantee you will forgive the town its faults and have a marvellous time.

Eating Out Round Our Way

It's funny how things come along; I've just posted a piece about eating out in Amsterdam and, what do you know, Bill Blunt tags me to write about five places to eat near home. Then, as if that isn't spookily enough, we learn that Pieter, the son of our friends Mark and Caroline, has finished his year at catering college (more food), won an award and is off to Holland to work in a hotel for the summer. So, if you happen to be in the hotel Tatenhove in Texel this summer say hello and well done to Pieter from us.

Where do we like to eat then, here are our five selections:

1. For an excellent Sunday pub meal you can't beat The Swan at Dobcross. It's position at the heart of Saddleworth's prettiest village gives it a head start even before you sit down in one of the flag floored rooms with a roaring fire. It's perhaps best to add that this pub is at its cosy best in winter with a howling North wind whipping through the village square outside as you tuck into the excellent, hearty choice of freshly cooked pub food and sip on your pint of one of Jennings Cumberland Ales (yes, I know Jennings is a Lakeland brewery - they are just jealous because the Lake District don't have the monopoly on pretty villages and glacial valleys).

2. When you want something that is a bit more special - like my birthday - we recommend two favourites. The first is not really an Oldham or Saddleworth restaurant but is just over the border in Marsden, West Yorkshire. The Olive Branch is primarily a fish restaurant in the former pub of the same name. There are two parts to the restaurant: the pub side which is cosy, a bit like The Swan, or the new part where you can sit in booths. Although this sounds odd it actually makes for quite an intimate evening, if that is what you are after. The excellent fish has no local comparison to my mind and the menu is ever changing; in fact, there generally isn't a menu: rather you choose your meal from one of the array of cards stuck to the walls around the bar bearing the day's dishes.

3. Our other little more expensive option is a place dear to our hearts. The Rams Head was, twenty plus years ago, a simple country pub on the moorland road out of Denshaw towards Halifax. It is significant because it is where I first experienced draught Theakston's Old Peculiar and Timothy Taylor's Landlord (if your idea of intoxicating liquor is WKD Blue I had better perhaps explain that those two products are real ales, made by people, not by a machine in a chemical factory). It is also one of the places where Mrs C and I did our courting. Now though, much as I hate to see real pubs dissapear, it is a restaurant and organic food shop. Before you recoil in horror, the menu of wild game, fish and organic food is really excellent. If you are ever passing Junction 21 of the M62, don't. Pass it that is, pull off in the direction of Oldham, drive for about 2 miles and sample the delights of the Ram's Head.

4. One of Oldham's institutions is The Old Bill Wine Bar and Bistro (yes, we have a bistro in Oldham - though most Oldhamers think that it is something to do with gravy); it is situated directly at the back of Oldham Nick - hence the name - and is very popular. The continental type menu isn't haute cuisine but is well priced and the excellent atmosphere makes it a great venue for a long evening with a group of friends.

5. Our final choice is in nearby Middleton: Fallen Angels Italian restaurant. This is in the basement of the Royal Toby Hotel and comes with a health warning: don't go here for a romantic dinner. Yes, the tables are candlelit; yes, it is dark and atmospheric inside; and yes, the owners and staff are really Italian; but this place is where you go with about twenty or so other people for a great Italian meal and a raucous night out. It's not unruly but is just great fun - the evening regularly interspersed with crackles from the PA as the dodgy Italian music is replaced with one of a dozen versions of Happy Birthday To You, or Cliff Richard's Congratulations; and the staff parade in a cake or ice cream desert topped with so many sparklers that the procession is followed by an anxious waiter with a fire extinguisher. All that said the traditional Italian food can't be beaten and the cheesy Italianate decor is unique.

Come to Oldham, eat well and make sure you tell them Crofty sent you - I'm always open to a freebie!

Have your cake, and eat it

Given that the majority of my regular readers live in countries other than the UK, and those who do live in the UK are hardly likely to pop up to Oldham simply to visit a shop on my recommendation, this post might be a wasted one. But, do you ever get a service from someone and are really, really pleased with it and want to share the fact? Me too.

This weekend was Matt and Toms' eighteenth birthday celebration; it started with a fabulous Chinese meal at the Shanghai Wong on Friday night (if ever you are passing...); Saturday night was a big night out with their mates in Manchester and Oldham (not arriving home until circa. 5am...is it legal for clubs to stay open that late?...glad it wasn't when I was their age; I'd never have lasted the pace).

Sunday, unbelievably, they were both sober and full of energy for the big family party at our house. The star of the party was the cake:This fabulous themed creation shows different phases of their eighteen years from baby through drama/karate to brass bands and then cars (aspirational in this case; I couldn't find a VW Polo and Citroen Saxo model). The cake was designed and made by Cake Heaven of Lydgate, I highly recommend them to you.

We had a fantastic day, the weather was great, the chiminea kept the young people warm out of doors and allowed them to have their own party, whilst sundry grandparents, great aunts, uncles and aunts had a more sedate occasion indoors.

This is a small sample of the detritus of the day:

This morning Matt and Tom amazed me once more when they were ready for work, butty boxes full of the remains of the buffet, raring to go at the normal time, without a hint of the languor that was affecting Val and I.

Youth eh?

Oldham: my kind o' town

With due deference to Jonathan, for pointing out that people across the globe like to read about where we live, and to Bill Blunt for being the catalyst to reminiscences about my home town, I thought I might share Oldham with the blogosphere.

Do a Google search on Oldham in the news archives and you get a picture of racial tension, right wing politics and football woes; whilst I recognise that image I also know that it is only a small corner of a much broader landscape. My task, it seems, is to do for Oldham, in words, what Lowry did for Salford in oils.

The 1970s brought, for me, the first awakenings of a consciousness about our town: I stopped thinking that everywhere was like this. Throughout the decade Oldham ran a national media campaign to attract business to the area; I remember the excitement when, ascending a London Underground escalator during a school trip, we saw the poster proudly proclaiming 'Oldham A Town In The Country'; and I suppose that is as good a place to start with a description of the town: a northern mill town nestled in the foothills of the Pennine countryside, preserving Lancashire life before, three miles up the A62, darkness descends at the Yorkshire boundary. But what of Oldham for the Yorkshireman descending the trans-Pennine route to the town? As you drive along Bottom Of' Th' Moor the magnificent Mumps rail bridge greets your arrival forming a massive iron gateway through which all must pass; for years the huge Victorian bridge was emblazoned with the proud proclamation of Oldham's industrial pedigree:

'Setons Welcome You To Oldham: The Home of the Tubular Bandage'

And, for me, there lies one of Oldham's persisting characteristics: a failure to be aware of its image. Who, with a mind to keeping up appearances, would have trumpeted the tubular bandage as Oldham's greatest achievement? As if to make my point about image, Oldham Athletic Football Club have, like many struggling lower league clubs, fought for the patronage of business; hence, at the Boundary Park ground, the players emerge into the gladiatorial arena not, as once was the case, through the proud Main Stand, but through the Pukka Pies Stand.

I believe that this image problem has its roots in the death of King Cotton; for generations Oldham thrived on the boom years of cotton; whole families, mine included, were brought up as skilled workers in cotton spinning and weaving. The town's Victorian municipal buildings are testament to the wealth was brought to the area in bales, hauled up from Lowry's Salford docks by horse cart by my great grandfather among others.My grandfather was a ring spinner, my grandmother a carder. When the cotton industry died an identity died with it; cotton was in their blood - my grandparents did not adapt easily to inspecting the filaments of light bulbs in the mill in which, for years, they had carded out cotton fibres and coaxed fine thread from ring spinning machines.

As my grandparent's generation gamely held on to their heritage and a clear, though fading identity, my parent's generation really messed up. The 1970s' saw investment in building styles so ugly and ill-designed little of their concrete slab construction remains today. St Peter's Precinct went to the pearly gates in the 1980s - only half of the retail units were ever occupied in a centre that funnelled the biting Pennine wind through its alleys, putting off all but the hardiest shoppers. St Mary's estate, where my grandparents were put after their terraced mill houses were demolished, has gone and is replaced by better quality housing association property.

So what image does Oldham have of itself now? I still don't know; Oldham seems ill at ease: we still talk of immigrant communities but, in truth, the majority of people that we mean by that have been here for two of three generations - so why do we still say 'we' and 'them'? Following the riots the Ritchie report highlighted many societal failings and brought massive investment to the town; but talk about Ritchie to the average Oldhamer and they will talk to you of Andy Richie, one of Oldham's favourite football heroes of the past.

An identity will emerge again; the pace of change may have outstripped our ability to keep up at the moment, but already the strands from the diverse communities that make up the modern Oldham are slowly combining to create a new, multi-coloured, many stranded thread that will be the stronger for its many elements.

That is the backdrop to my town, quirky, troubled and individual but still, after all, the place where the tubular bandage was invented - don't forget that.

Don't go to the tip with it!

Sorry to go all parochial on you, but I've discovered a facility that is worth sharing. Oldham Freecycle is a Yahoo Group where, rather than take unwanted items to the tip, you can pass them on to someone who might have a use for it. Yesterday I got rid of a portable heater that had been lurking in the garage for ages. The whole thing from posting on the site to the nice chap collecting it took less than twelve hours.

I'm sure that there are similar schemes like this everywhere, I commend them to you!

P.S. If you do live close to Oldham there's a button at the bottom of this page somewhere - click on it to join.