Eccles

I spent yesterday afternoon in Eccles. I had gone out there on a Tram. I had held the door open for two middle aged men as I entered the Manchester Art Gallery. They didn't say thank you! This grated. As I left the Gallery I exited behind the very same men: what are the chances of that happening? and they didn't hold the door open for me. As the Americans say 'I was pissed'. In the past when I have been angry I have actually shouted, cursed and swore in public whether there are people around or not. When you are pissed off, you are pissed off. Well better that than going home to beat your Mrs! Not that I am married of course. I use that as an example of course. We tend to take out our anger on others rather than the ones that pissed us off. So I fled from the scene of high art, the middle class, pomposity and bad manners to Eccles. I had heard a couple say previously as they looked at the Metro Link Map "Oh no, we'll give Eccles a miss!" This doubly intrigued me.  The place where cakes with currants are made and the character from the Goon Show on the radio. A Playwright must be a good people watcher so I went to Eccles to observe people and hoped that they would have better manners than the middle aged men that I held the doors open for. The first thing I saw when I got off the tram having travelled through Longworthy, Ladywell and Weaste was a Shetland Pony. It was being used to encourage people to give to a Disabled Charity. I ignored the Shetland Pony but heard a man say "Eee she's a bonny lass"! Going to Eccles felt as if I'd gone back in time. There were shell suits and closed down shops. So here was the recession that they keep telling us about! Pit ponies in the streets for God's Sake. Outside Morrisons! Eccles shopping centre! Greggs and the usual nonsense, tumbleweed and a cactus and another Shetland Pony. Save me! The Library! Thank Goodness! Solace from High Art and Poverty in one afternoon. So I hid myself in a book "Teach yourself Playwriting" Well somebody's got to but I couldn't concentrate on the Rubik's cube that is writing a play. I listened to the voices and echoes all around me and thought. This is wrong! How can you have places like this when the centre of the city is all hustle and bustle! Why is there money in Manchester and none in Eccles or Rochdale? I've been to most end points on the tram now and am amazed in the polarity. Destination Piccadilly! It might as well be another planet. I thought about Cardiff, the Capital and how Barry and Newport either side of the great metropolis suffer in comparison financially. There is something not right about it. I left to go back to 'Media City' which in essence is a few poncy buildings and a video screen. There were two brothers on the platform at Eccles and they had just been shopping for essentials at Morrisons. No Flagons of Beer here! They looked scared. They were late teens and early twenties. The younger one looked to the older one as if for affirmation. "Should I laugh here?" "Should I smile here"?  They sat down and seemed very self conscious amongst two gangs of 'chavs'. I don't wish to go all Manchester Art Gallery here and demonise the working class but what is the Manchester version of Scallies? There were two gangs of three and they held the tram carriages spellbound with their narratives of this bird and that bird and that was shit and she shit herself. "Hey look at this on my phone". I was glanced at and given an appraisal but didn't feel threatened but I could see that the Morrison's boys were in fear for their lives. They got off  at Ladywell  and their sigh of relief was tangible. The street they walked down from the tram looked just as dangerous as the environment they had just left. One gang of three got off at Langworthy and were then loudly ridiculed by the other gang of three as the tram left "Did you hear what he said then?" 'Dick".
I had forgotten how intensely young people size each other up. Older folk were gassing to strangers of the same age but it didn't happen with this age group. Eccles has a nicer library than Altringham.
One person's reality is another person's hell! I heard a belly laugh on the street in Eccles. People and places eh? You should go home to Wales and stop being so judgemental Shark Fisherman.

As I like to see myself on the Metrolink Tram