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Hardest Place in Britain

Finnegan said:
I remember in the 80’s and 90’s Aberdeen FC’s football hooligans were amongst the most feared.
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birmingham city fans used to have a reputation , i remember many years ago standing at manchester piccadilly station with hundreds and hundreds of Man united fans trying to look inconspicuous , then one of the blokes phones wnt off loudly with the theme tune " keep right on !!! rather embarrassing


 
some incredible stories in this thread ..... thanks for sharing . and after reading Twotones post i will have to stop calling our local shops the gorbals !!! 😂
 
Mick P said:
The reason why Rochdale suffers is that it not only has it not had any decent MPs to look after its interest, the local councillors don't exactly help Rochdale either.
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No, the reason why Rochdale and much of the north of England suffers is that the further north you go the less Westminster is interested. Doubly so if Tories are in power. It's been that way for decades and while people think Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds are so much better than they were 30 years ago is because of EU investment, not government investment.

Want an example? The northern leg of HS2 was cancelled by the Tories and the money saved pledged to the north of England.... until it was discovered that Project North also included north... London, where money was spent on the roads. London gets way more investment in infrastructure and business than the rest of the UK and we are then told it's because it generates more money for the economy... well I wonder why that is? :rolleyes:

Yes some areas of the north of England are worse than others and there are some other reasons that contribute to that, but for the main it is because Westminster is not interested or prepared to invest in it!
 
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tiggers said:
No, the reason why Rochdale and much of the north of England suffers is that the further north you go the less Westminster is interested. Doubly so if Tories are in power. It's been that way for decades and while people think Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds are so much better than they ewre 30 years ago is because of EU investment, not government investment.

Want an example? The northern leg of HS2 was cancelled by the Tories and the money saved pledged to the north of England.... until it was discovered that Project North also included north... London, where money was spent on the roads. London gets way more investment in infrastructure and business than the rest of the UK and we are then told it's because it generates more money for the economy... well I wonder why that is? :rolleyes:

Yes some areas of the north of England are worse than others and there are some other reasons that contribute to that, but for the main it is because Westminster is not interested or prepared to invest in it!
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That is almost certainly correct but what the local MP should do is to fight for Rochdale's corner. My point is that these MPs have not done so because they seem to lack the ability and even the inclination.

Do you honestly think George Garraway gives a damn about Rochdale, so why vote for him.

Rochdale is merely a stepping stone for him.
 
Mick P said:
He has always struck me as not being much of a politician and is probably being controlled what to say behind the scenes.

For a start I did not even mention the textile industry which went down the plug before Cyril Smith was around. If you genuinely think Smith looked after Rochdale then fair enough but there are not many like you.

I lived there for 4 years and the local councillors were all on personal ego trips and criticised not only their opponents but even their own party members. This gave Cyril the excuse to move parties.

The reason why Rochdale suffers is that it not only has it not had any decent MPs to look after its interest, the local councillors don't exactly help Rochdale either.
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I am fully aware you didn’t mention the textile industry @Mick P. That was my whole point. The state of Rochdale when you lived there was determined by the decline of the textile industry and not poor politicians. Smith was a dreadful human being but it’s a hard fact that he thrre times obtained significant regeneration/development monies for Rochdale only to see that money twice reallocated to SE England and once explicitly to London. As you didn’t live there for even a full election cycle I’d suggest your perspective has little credibility or local knowledge.

The idea that the area suffers because it’s had no decent politicians is, I assume, something you gave little thought to before saying out loud on an internet forum? A significant amount of Tory run councils in areas with Tory MPs, which are smaller than Rochdale but richer, get more money. Why is that? Presumably that’s because they have a better class of MP i.e. one of a specific political colour? I’m guessing that’s what you meant?
 
Incidehtally, come back and talk to me when
  • you were sat in a social work team when you had to be evacuated because a grenade had just been popped down the chimney.
  • your Citizens Advice client base included IRA members on the run and only too happy to introduce you to their weaponry.
  • a helpless 80 year old is being attacked at a bus stop by a 20 year old drug dealer. The local welfare rights officer gets out of his car and beats the 20 year old up. Weirdly the local drug addicts don‘t then want benefits advice.
  • your local community copper is late to your Neighbourhood Watch meeting becuase he was accosted by a 12 year old with 2 knives. He got on his way after simply punching him out cold.
  • a volunteer resigns via a note attached to a brick which flies through your office window.
  • local ambulance crew ambushed by locals with snooker balls.
  • every pub you drank in over a 3 year period closed after a mysterious unfortunate fire after failing to pay their protection money.
 
Mike Hughes said:
  • local ambulance crew ambushed by locals with snooker balls.
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(I'm about to say something which is probably tangential to your discussion with Mick P)

Can you say a bit more about this ambush of an ambulance crew? It sounds like the sort of thing people say happens in "no go areas" -- areas where it's not safe for police or ambulance or fire crews to go. It's never been clear to me whether these no go areas are real or whether they're a myth.
 
Mick P said:
Do you honestly think George Garraway gives a damn about Rochdale, so why vote for him.
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Because a) the alternative was worse and b) his stance on Gaza was to call Israel out for war crimes and genocide as opposed to the other candidates who stated what Israel was (and still are) doing is justifiable.

P.S. Galloway :D
 
Re the discussion of Cheetham Hill, I think a lot of it was demolished as part of slum clearance in the late 1960s -early 1970s, the residents rehoused in Moss Side and Hulme. I guess that must have made for some sort of improvement -- God knows what the conditions were like before that.

The part that Bob talked about, from the old Half Way House up Cheetham Hill Road for about a mile was called The Village I think. It was indeed very leafy, and still is I think. Things began to deteriorate somewhere near the Temperance Billiard Halls, all the way down to Strangeways. I sometimes go from The Village to Town (the Manc words are coming back!) now -- it still seems pretty unattractive, but just urban unattractiveness. I know it's connected now with some serious crime and gang problems.

Anyway it brought back a memory of drinking Chesters Mild at The Half Way House with my father -- one of the very few good memories I have of the old bastard. Oh for a pint of Chesters Mild again.
 
Undoubtedly Hull ('ull). After all, Ronnie Pickering lives there. Hessle Road and the docks were almost no go areas in the 60's
 
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stevec67 said:
Christ. Did you have to settle for the '96?
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Mike Hughes said:
Looks like only the OP has made the clear connection between poverty and behaviour. Love how @Mick P manages to disrespect an entire town and hospital and blame the downfall of the textile industry and subsequent failure to diversify on a local MP rather than the Tory governments who repeatedly cut everything Labour tried to put in place for the area. It was far from perfect but each Tory government in the 60s/70s absolutely slashed support for Greater Manchester and used the money in the South East.

If Mrs. P. thought the hospital in Rochdale was poor then she should see what 14 years of fake austerity have done to it.

Personally I have never worked anywhere tougher/harder than the west end of Rhyl, the Lache area of Chester and M28 in Salford. Given the association with poverty I see nothing to celebrate.
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My parents moved from Whitby to Prestatyn when my Dad retired. Prestatyn was okay but I wasn’t prepared for Rhyl, I wouldn’t go for a night out there. It was a drug dealers paradise.

Cheers BB
 
mandryka said:
(I'm about to say something which is probably tangential to your discussion with Mick P)

Can you say a bit more about this ambush of an ambulance crew? It sounds like the sort of thing people say happens in "no go areas" -- areas where it's not safe for police or ambulance or fire crews to go. It's never been clear to me whether these no go areas are real or whether they're a myth.
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There are plenty of places where the Police walk round in 3s, or these days don't walk anywhere. Finnegan mentioned Gipton and Seacroft in Leeds, both areas I have driven through and swiftly drove out of. In these areas the fire brigade never park closer than 50 feet to the flats when they have a callout becuse there have been a number of incidences of fridges being tossed off roofs after a 999 call. The same goes for the other emergency services, they park nearby, walk in and check the sky before they step up to the door.
 
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