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Posted By: Robert Cook December 20, 2019

This page replaces the editorial page which has been closed to me editing and updating. I suspect this is due to reader complaints and police interest. It was blocked after my last post, and I would not be surprised if the whole site gets closed down in this age of net censorship. The nest post will renain for one day here and then be moved to the Rambling Robert page.

Note to those making comments for publication, please make it clear which page and post you are referring to. There are 24 pages on this site.

lot of spam and posts of a sexual nature are wasting time here. Advertising is currently free, but must be checked, not secreted in apparent comment posts.

Comments or posts of a lewd or pornogrpahic nature will not be published. Humour is good, but porn is tedious and pointless as far as this site is concerned. Gender politics and identity is, however, of utmost interest. Charles Close Editor

Manchester Crime and Government Posted December 20th

Before George and Robert Stephenson’s railway was extended to Manchester, the city- a mere village at the start of the Industrial Revolution, was far away from us southerners.  The horrible lingering dampness of this place in the Pennines proved very suitable to the cotton spinning factories on which the revolution thrived.

After the Napoleonic Wars- when the landowning classes thrived thanks to the punitive corn laws, causing hunger and misery for the labouring classes- the self appointed hero of Waterloo, Wellington ,became Tory Prime Minister by choice of this elite.  

The Duke of Wellinngton, whose home address was Number 1 , London, thought it fair to send the militia to shoot people protesting against high corn prices due to a ban on cheaper imports.  That was the Peterloo Massacre at St Petersfields Manchester.  

These little terraced houses, on the western outskirts of Manchester have been converted into retail outlets, giving clues to local life style/ There would have been houses facing these shops before 1960s demolition and construction of a dual carrageway. the dispossessed would have been moved to high rise blocks.
Image Appledene Photographics/ RJC

It was not just the Irish starving at the time, but they were brought over to keep labour costs low, and profits high.  Manchester was the centre of all this, so important that a canal was eventually dug out to the Atlantic Port of Liverpool- the Manchester Ship Canal.

The first time I ever read the word Manchester was a six year old reading where my favourite Co-op fig roll biscuits were made.  The Co-op started in Rochdale Lancashire, near Manchester, as a workers combine to ensure good cheap food rather than the expensive adulterated rubbish produced by the Capitalist classes for the lower orders.

Tower blocks peeping over the fence toward Manchester City Football Stadium. One of them looks as if it has been built inside a cage. There is a crowded local Victorian prison with the interesting name ‘Strangeways.’ Manchester crime rates are high.
Image Appledene Photographics/RJC

The next time I heard of Manchester I was still a boy, watching the new soap opera ‘Coronation St’ set in a backstreet of Manchester terraced houses.  I watched it at a friend’s birthday party in 1960.  There were only three of us at the party, running out of amusements we sat down to watch it on a black and white TV.  

My friend’s home was also in a terrace, so was mine.  We also had a black and white TV.  The set was big, the screen quite small.  It as near our front room window, a window on the world and a window on the street, next to each other.  The road was a main route to London, always busy.  So was the pavement, bustling with busy body women, shrieking children and stoic men- their haven being the pub just up the road at the bottom of the school hill.

My Childish painting of Sheep St Winslow, where I was born and grew up in the last house next to the last thatched cottage at the bottom of the hill. Manchester started life as a little country village like this in the nineteenth century. Farm workers were out to work in corron factories and other grim unnatural employment, helping a small number of people get rich at their expense.

Much of life was black and white in those days. We all knew our place.  The illusion of Britain’s Imperial greatness lurked like a wounded monster, caught on newsreels reporting in denial.  Then came the illusion of the 1960s, places like Manchester were losing their terraces, high rise reservations for the surplus working classes grew like weeds from the rubble.  Bright young northerner headed south for fame and fortune.  And so we have what we have today.

Remnants of the old nineteenth century cotton mills are overwhelmed by modern edifices built for profit and glamour. The city has two unviersities, a large student and ethnic population. On the day this picture was taken, firefighters were dealing with another major fire.
Image Appledene Photographics/RJCRJC

It took me nearly four hour to get there in my truck limited to 55 mph for economy.  A chunk of the motorway near Stafford wasis being converted to what they call SMART motorway, which means getting rid of the hard shoulder refuge.  This was another great David Cameron idea to improve traffic flow on the cheap, to hell with actual safety.

Just past the terraced shops, I saw this giant Heineken Brewery. Alchohol has always been a relief to the working men- and now even more women, along with smoking despite health warnings.
Image Appledene Photographics/RJC

Trucking through Manchester, I saw remnants of the old city, and gaudy emblems of the new.  It is what it is.  This is the Northern Powerhouse.  The roads were noticeably quiet, making my job much easier.  That is always a good thing for me.  Job done, back I went, down to the not so sunny south where the rich folk, and my new Tory MP are pledged to block the HS2 rail project because they like having a nice view, peace, quiet, security etc, all paid for and provided at the expense of the low order masses.  The spirit of Peterloo lives on in diverse Britain, which is about as diverse in reality as it was in the nineteenth century.  Divide and rule is the key to successful crime and government. Robert Cook Search for:

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About the Author

Robert Cook
facebook https://www.facebook.com/rj.cook.9081 I went to school in Buckinghamshire, where my interests were music ( I was a violinist ), art ( winning county art competitions ) athletics and cross country ( I was a county team athlete ). My father died as a result of an accident- he was an ex soldier and truck driver- when I was 11. It could be said that I grew up in poverty, but I did not see it like that. As a schoolboy, I had my interests, hobbies and bicycle, worked on a farm, delivered news papers, did a lot of training for my sport, painting, and music. I also made model aeroplanes and was in the Air Training Corps, where we had the opportunity to fly an aeroplane. I had wanted to be a pilot, but university made me anti war. At the University of East Anglia-which I also represented in cross country and athletics- I studied economics, economic history, philosophy and sociology. Over the years, I have worked in a variety of manual, office and driving jobs. My first job after univerity was with the Inland Revenue in Havant, near Portsmouth. I left Hampshire to work for the Nitrate Corporation of Chile, then lecturing, teaching and journalism - then back to driving. I play and teach various styles of guitar and used to be a regular folk club performer. I quit that after being violently assaulted in Milton Keynes pub, after singing a song I wrote about how cop got away with killing Ian Tomlinson at G7, in broad daylight and caught on camera. The police took no action, saying taht my assailant had a good job. The pub in question was, and probably still is, popular with off duty police officers.