In praise of Manchester and Salford, Bury, Rochdale, Ashton, Stockport and lots more

Now the thing about Manchester is that it is a big city able to offer exciting theatre, good restaurants, fine galleries as well as museums but with a city centre small enough to be able to come across people you know.

So on Tuesday morning I bumped into someone from Chorlton and just a little later an ex colleague in Watersones with a party of students.

That said there are always those mainly friends and family from London who look upon the city as a provincial backwater where nothing much could be expected to happen but rain.

Once here they marvel at the Central Ref, the Town Hall and the Royal Exchange and fall in love with Castlefield and the Quays

Being clever we then mix the new swanking restaurants of Spinningfields with Mr Thomas’s and Sam’s throwing in the odd iconic pub like the Peveril or the Salutation.

And that is just in the city centre.

Once they feel brave enough it is back to Chorlton and then on to Didsbury later picking up the tram track that takes them east to Ashton-under-Lyne and on to Bury and Rochdale, not of course missing out more of Salford and plenty of Stockport.

All of which is really just an outrageous roundabout way of showing off a few of the places I like in Manchester.

And to be fair I did not get out of St Ann's Square.

There will be those that say in that case why not feature the Arcade or the Royal Exchange, and for good measure the theatre inside, which always knocks my southern visitors for six.

And I could have done along with the Shambles and the new Exchange Square with what was once the Urbis.

In my defence a chap can only do so much when he is supposed to be on a shopping adventure.

So more another time with perhaps a bit of serious history.

We shall see.



Pictures, around St Ann’s Square on a sunny July day in 2104 from the collection of Andrew Simpson