Now, this is one of the pictures I took of a demonstration in the 1980s.
We are on Oxford Road just a little down from All Saints and it is a landscape we have lost forever.
To our right is an open bit of land which was beside the old Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall, while across the road that space is now inhabited by the Manchester Aquatics Centre and a office modern block.
In the distance the bridge that spans Oxford Road and connected the two big red brick buildings has gone as has one half of that complex, and the tall Maths Tower.
For as long as I can remember those bits of open space were the gathering spot for demonstrations. The first I went on was the anti Apartheid protest during the South African Rugby Tour in November 1969.
All that now remains of those open spaces is a car park to the north of the swimming baths.
But once stretching back in to the late 19th century, this stretch of Oxford Road was home to rows of shops running down from the Grosvenor cinema and on towards Rusholme.
Makes you wonder what is next.
Location; Oxford Road, sometime in the 1980s
Picture; Oxford Road, sometime in the 1980s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
To our right is an open bit of land which was beside the old Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall, while across the road that space is now inhabited by the Manchester Aquatics Centre and a office modern block.
In the distance the bridge that spans Oxford Road and connected the two big red brick buildings has gone as has one half of that complex, and the tall Maths Tower.
For as long as I can remember those bits of open space were the gathering spot for demonstrations. The first I went on was the anti Apartheid protest during the South African Rugby Tour in November 1969.
All that now remains of those open spaces is a car park to the north of the swimming baths.
But once stretching back in to the late 19th century, this stretch of Oxford Road was home to rows of shops running down from the Grosvenor cinema and on towards Rusholme.
Makes you wonder what is next.
Location; Oxford Road, sometime in the 1980s
Picture; Oxford Road, sometime in the 1980s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
Yes, I wondered why the police men were there and I immediately thought they were there to control a demonstration. I too was on the demonstration you mentioned. It was planned to terminate on another piece of "waste ground" at the rear of White City, in Old Trafford, where the rugby match was being played. However, the "waste Ground" was locked (for reasons unknown) and the demonstrators were forced down Talbot Road. A group of about 20 mounted policemen were coming up Talbot and force the demonstrators back, resulting in a crush. The pressure on my body was unbelievable, I thought I was going to die. I managed to get through a gate and into a garden. The force of the crush pushed over the stone garden wall. Eventually, when the demonstration was broken up, I came out of the garden to see about 50 odd shoes left in the road. A realisation that the forces of the State machine have the upper hand.
ReplyDeleteYep we must have shared the same garden.
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