"I'd be the first one there with a shovel" (E4)

This week we're getting deeper into some local history, with a focus on one question in particular: why was the canal filled in? We'll hear about the effect that had on the local area, how it changed Salford, and some other ways Salford has changed since. We'll also hear from some people who aren't very happy about those changes, and some perspectives on gentrification.

We'll also hear some beautiful stories about working on Salford's docks, another very important body of water in the city of Salford. And we'll even hear about some passionate love affairs on the banks of the canal...

This project was created by Walk the Plank and the Manchester Bury and Bolton Canal Society with Whose Art Whose Culture funding from Salford CVS and the GMCA.

Recorded and produced by David McFarlane.

Music by David McFarlane and Ugnė Makselytė. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the Hidden Canal Podcast. Hello, and welcome to episode four of the Hidden Canal Podcast. This week we're getting deeper into some local history, with a focus on one question in particular. Why was the Manchester Boltonbury Canal filled in? We'll hear about the effect that had on the local area, how that changed Salford, and some other ways Salford has changed since 1961. We'll hear from some people who aren't happy about those changes and have some things to say about gentrification. We're also going to hear some stories about working and living on Salford's docks, another very important body of water in the city of Salford. And we'll even hear about some passionate love affairs on the banks of the canal. See you on the other side.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

I remember the docks because my dad was the docker. I remember Peel Park in the water there, and we used a waggett and go to drink water back.

SPEAKER_11 1:31

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

Other than that, I don't remember any.

SPEAKER_11 1:34

Do you not remember anything? No. And we're telling docks. 1963. Well we do we weren't from uh Old Wars, we were at the Irish dock, uh Green Elevator, Nine Dock, Eight Dock, Seven Six, to Pomona, all the way down to Melmere Park.

SPEAKER_07 2:07

But I didn't know there was a hidden canal. Um the canal is hidden because um it went out of its primary use. Its primary use was to transport coal. There were numerous collieries down the Irwell Valley from Bolton and Berry down to Salford, and the idea was that the canal was a cheaper and easier way to transport coal to Cotonopolis as Salford and Manchester were known at the end of the 18th century. So um the Berry Bolton canal.

SPEAKER_11 2:42

Oh yeah, and many a passionate affair on the banks of that. And fishing.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Mostly passionate love affairs. It was a bit like a mother's lady.

SPEAKER_11 2:59

Yeah, there was a bit few there because it was quite if you were there of a night time, you didn't get fishermen around and patrols. You might get the odd uh fishing rod inspector, but they didn't bother you. Long as your stroke was good. Because leading up to the canal was a row of steps. And at the bottom of the stacks and the pool called the lion. That's where the honey was. That's where the honey was. So you didn't have far to go. And a game of book, a game of dominoes, a few pints, a chet up, a walk for 50 yards up some steps, home free. I can't name her, but er right after that they started feeling it into me.

SPEAKER_09 3:49

I actually wanted to be a docker, I wanted to work on the dock, but it was all closing down by the time I was leaving school.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

When my dad was a docker, we lived in a terraced house facing a dock back up in the road. And there's where the taliyami used to be, I think he was there. And we ended up first having every single thing like a colour TV and look at it. And I think he was tea leaking after that. To be honest. I mean he's dying back. I think he was like, oh look, he's a pineapple. Exotic thing. You know, he was bringing all sorts of. Yeah, he worked on the docks for a long time. But yeah, the only water near me I remember was the docks growing up.

SPEAKER_11 4:31

It was the best estate for a working class people to have the docks. Because you always get a job. And you saw all the ships coming in, all the foreigners coming in. Especially when the logboats came in from Russia. You know, they had ladies on board. The Arabs had boys. And New Year's Eve when the buzzers went and the lights flashed. You missed out, kid. It was absolutely magical. You've heard of the fog on on a ship. Imagine that multiplied. At midnight it blew. And what was the ship like at midnight in New Year's Eve?

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Wow. I was a little girl in my house, was at the back. And when it was New Year's Eve, all the horns at 12 o'clock would go off. Everybody would be going.

SPEAKER_11 5:32

Magical.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Everybody'd be clapping, yeah, happy New Year.

SPEAKER_11 5:35

Yeah, everybody'd come out with the door as soon as the horn started.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

That was your things, that was like your time to go, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 5:45

Because we had now.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

But we had everything.

SPEAKER_11 5:48

But we had everything. You know, and what have they done? They've come along now. I live close to nine dock. My dad was a crane driver there. Uh 50 years. My brother-in-law was the head weared on the drain elevator. To see the ships coming in and going out was magical. You know, now it's always it's just a bigger state. But it's not as good as they thought it was going to be. Because underneath, underneath the ship canal, like you've got that this mystery canal here. Underneath the ship canal, it's miles of tunnels with conveyor belts on. When the green ship grain ships came in, when they dumped it, it went down a hopper onto a belt. Travelled along, and that's where we came into it. We directed it to whatever hopper it was going to go to. Imagine how much corn dust is down there. The rats can live around there for donkeys years. And they they supposedly poisoned it, but no. No. They destroyed sulfur when they destroyed the docks and the canal ways. Because you can always get on the golden arrow or the silver arrow and go throwing all the canals. The Irish line was in Pomona. And they uh they brought the guineas up before it was watered down. And if you had no point, you were good for the day. It was the uh tourist barge. They had two, the gold ladder and the silver ladder. They've got one now, but I don't know what it's called. And you could get on it and it tore down all the docks and uh showing you where all everything was. They do it now, uh, but you you can book a party on it. So even that they're ruined.

SPEAKER_08 7:51

Uh I've lived in Salford for 79 years. I don't look 79, I know, but I've lived I've lived within uh a quarter of a mile of that canal there on the crescent. I've lived within within a quarter of a mile for 79 years, so I've seen all the changes that happened around there. And uh I think I think the idea of having a bit of water near it near the property, it lifts it lifts the price of the housing up, doesn't it? Like with the locks, Middlewood locks and and Salford Keys. As soon as you've got a bit of water at the bottom of your house, I think you can put an extra 12 grand on the price of your house. And I think that's what they've done with Middlewood Locks. They made it into a little marina with all them houses around it, but them houses are not for Solfords, I'm afraid. No Solfordians move into these re-jigged areas. I've noticed that.

SPEAKER_11 8:56

I'm 85, born and bred in Salford. This isn't Salford.

SPEAKER_08 9:00

Nowhere near Solvent. There used to be, there used to be a movement of the young lads and they'd say, Yuppie's out, we want the Yuppies out here. It was all these middle class professionals moving into these up market areas that have been done up that they wouldn't have been seen dead in 30 years ago when when they were real slum areas, but because they did them up, they moved that them exist, it's called gentrification, but you can see it happening now in Salford, and I think that with Middlewood locks, that was about gentrification, making it a nice area to live in with a marina there. That was slum land that 40 years ago. I remembered it well. But but the existing Sulfordians, they pushed to the margins, aren't they? They moved out. It's been happening down Chapel Street for 40 years. They've been moving, the money's been moving down from Manchester all the way down Chapel Street, and it's got as far here now as the university. And I thought, is it gonna go any further? I don't know. It's like a juggernaut coming down the main road. And well, everything everything stands in its way, just gets trampled over. There's about 14 pubs on Chapel Street, they've all been closed. All of them have been closed. How has that been allowed to happen?

SPEAKER_11 10:28

Facing me uh was one, two, four mansions. The Snowdons had one, the Conservative Club had one, the Salamarie had one, and our ladies Navina had one. Big huge buildings in their own grounds.

SPEAKER_08 10:52

For what? Because the local communities have been pushed out, it's been gentrified, and now you're sat on the main road having your tapas with a pina collada, getting choked with all the traffic fumes. I thought, what's all that about? It's not Mon Martin, France, sit sitting on cafes with the furniture on the outside, watching the people go by smiling on the buses. I thought, wow.

SPEAKER_11 11:19

They've ripped the art out of it.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 11:21

I was born facing Nine Dock. Uh you got Howard Street, Embid Street, Broadway. They were the heart of Salford 5, the Central Mission. Uh the Seaman's Club. They were they were the heart of the city. They tore them apart.

SPEAKER_08 11:45

I told my mate, I said, every time a building now closes in Manchester, a tapas bar opens up or a smoothie bar. I'm sick to death with these tapas and smoothie bars opening up every time anywhere closes. That's the first thing. Don't people work in Manchester and Salford? They're just eating tapas all the time and stuffing smoothies and latte's. I don't think anybody works anymore. The entertainment industry's taking over in Salford.

SPEAKER_11 12:14

Full stop. They've got a canal way and now I have to recognise where it is. And they filled in. I don't know why they filled in. Whether it was going to be from all way.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

Diverting it.

SPEAKER_09 12:27

What they built over it, said. Well I was saying when when we moved, we moved from Odsell, from the Terrace Stows is in Odsell up to Cross Lane, and when we got up to Cross Lane, there was a place called the Cook Canal, which was over towards the university. And we used to go and play, we used to go play there, but the canal was actually all filled in at the time.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

So whereabouts was it on the uni campus?

SPEAKER_09 12:55

Do you know Frederick Road? Yeah. If you went if you walk down Frederick Road as well towards Broughton, we used to jump over the wall. There's a bridge, and we used to jump over the wall on the bridge on the right hand side and go down onto the canal.

SPEAKER_11 13:09

You know, I don't know the reason for filling it in. Either hit me with a bowl. It wasn't like I mean now you can go and fish on the canal. Manchester ship. Plenty of fish in there. That's where that's where my lad goes. But they've chucked away. What have they built over the berry bone? What have they built over the berry bowl?

SPEAKER_06 13:36

What? There's nothing built over it, it's just filled in. Why have you filled it in? Just because it became safe.

SPEAKER_11 13:43

Okay, what? Oh shit.

SPEAKER_06 13:47

Yeah, no, that's right.

SPEAKER_11 13:48

I'm sorry, well, haven't they?

SPEAKER_06 13:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 13:51

Absolutely rummy.

SPEAKER_06 13:52

I know. I should have kept it.

SPEAKER_11 13:53

We thought they were filling it in to build some on it.

SPEAKER_06 13:56

No, no, no, they're not.

SPEAKER_05 13:58

I think it was just um that you know from very early on um the railway started to compete with the Manchester Boltonbury Canal. Uh in fact I think the owners of the uh uh the the canal because they own so much land uh either side of the canal, they thought that actually building the railway would be a good idea. So you find out that uh uh most of the shareholders of the canal were also shareholders uh of the uh the the the railway which eventually um was so competitive that uh the canal became um um uh uh disused uh and when it's disused then it becomes a liability. When it's a liability you end that liability by filling it in.

SPEAKER_08 14:49

And there's there was railway sleepers being floated down there to the woodworks for chopping up for firewood. So that's an interesting point you can pick up. That's because it was filled in, that part has been filled in. Uh it was the it was the last bit to go, and it was it was from it was from the railway station there on the crescent all the way down to Frederick Road. Right? That I think that was the last part to be filled in, and uh there has been plans to reopen it, but I don't I don't think that's ever gonna happen. There's too many firms in the way, you know. Uh and it was just logistically, I think it's out of the question opening that part.

SPEAKER_10 15:36

Well, uh it was what really signalled the death of this canal was uh little lever at a gloriously named spot just above the top of Not End Lot. It's uh it's high at the top of the lock it comes on there's a level pound then that ran all the way from Bolton right through to Berry. And then at the lot there's an arm the arm came off that comes down here to Solfrey. Well I suppose really it should be called the Sulfy Bolton Bay, yeah, actually stuff banging the bang go, man. But yeah.

SPEAKER_08 16:22

At the time it wasn't really affecting anyone's livelihoods, you know, work-wise and what have you. Because it was just a bit of the local history, you know, it wasn't really affecting anyone's work. So I think if it had affected local jobs and industries, people would have railed against it, but it just passed without you know too much uh you know, too much fuss. But uh I mean that's part of the local history. Uh you know, you live with you live through it, you see the changes, and you realise you've got little chance of you know putting a block on things happening. Well all the local history that's changed around here, uh it's just been pushed through with roads and businesses and uh business parts coming on the scene, and and you've got no say in the matter. So all your landmarks disappear, and you know, your history goes with them for a lot of people. Because they do identify with landmarks when you're walking around the old churches, you know, like the like the canals as well. Once them start to disappear, you you're losing a part of your history, you know, because landmarks are a part of your social history. I've heard people who've come back to Salford and they said, if it wasn't for that old church down there, you know, they just leave the just leave a little citadel up. They said, if it wasn't for that old church, I wouldn't know where it was. There's four to five churches that they've left up just as landmarks to identify where you were. If them if them were flattened, an old Salfordian coming here, they wouldn't know where they were.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

It's really weird. I grew up in a few of the pubs in Salford as well. But now West Ham Cross Lane is one I had made in from there. But we got to know a lot of the history of Salford because we'd had been a doctor and stepped up running pubs and all that, but I still never knew about the canals. And I've done my own research because I loved my city, but I never knew about that, so that's quite a bit.

SPEAKER_05 18:34

Uh I have to walk the stretch between uh Hcroft and uh Nut Nubend, and you can see uh that that you can see the outlines of the canal, uh this sort of ghostly uh outline of the canal, but it's actually bursting with life and colour um i i in the canal itself and some stretches of the canal, um particularly after uh uh uh rainy weather which we sometimes get in Salford, um it it the canal starts to fill up again and it's almost as if uh it's reclaiming back its life and you know it's just it's just wonderful. Um it's just a wonderful experience and it changes every time you walk, depending on the season, depending on the weather.

SPEAKER_07 19:23

That purpose largely um well it declined steadily until in the 1960s there were very few colliers left and very few were using the canal to transport coal. So therefore the um income from the canal collapsed so that the owners couldn't carry on trading, and there was no real reason. There was no after the Second World War there was a decline in those sorts of canals, and it was only through the work of numerous volunteers, and I'll give a mention to the Inland Waterways Association because it was their volunteers that made sure that those canals weren't turned into roads because there were lots of proposals that that's what should happen with them. But they encouraged the authorities to believe that actually canals could now be leisure facilities, resources, networks. So there has been a revival of canals for leisure. Very few of them are now used for any industry.

SPEAKER_11 20:28

Well where which one is the little rocks down Liverpool Street? There was a waterway going down Liverpool Street. The parks department had all the greenhouses. That was magical. You could come go as a kid and plant out flowers, seedlings. In them days the garden parks department grew their own flowers. And you could go in as a kid and plant seedlings. And then they'd show you where they went out to the park. Now they buy them in and broke down all the greenhouses. The mistakes they made is unbelievable. But to fill that canal in exactly dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

You know? Make sure you wear you well into the pub, we could be digging a canal later depending on how things go, you know. You never know how things end up, but I've never I've never ended up digging a canal after the pub, but it's uh there's no reason.

SPEAKER_11 21:49

Unless we've got a reason of what they're gonna do, and it's better. But personally I can't see what the reason was. You know, and it's only because I've remembered the name, they're very bold.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Because uh reopening the canal, then that's ugly.

SPEAKER_11 22:07

You brought a lot of memories back to an old man and made him happy.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Well, that's us done for this week. Thanks for listening, and if you have a canal story you'd like to share with us, you can leave us a voice message at www.speakpipe.com forward slash hidden canal. This project was created by Walker the Plank and the Manchester Bolton and Barry Canal Society, with who is our whose culture funding from South CVS and the GMCA.