Hulme Through My Ages
Concrete concrete concrete
Burning shimmering dusty concrete -
the balconies the crescents the walkways,
concrete to climb on jump on fall down on
grit indented on knees
Tribes of kids running and screaming on dried out patches
of hard core grass that refused to give up
On good days
life dictated by your next adventure under the crescents play scheme or over the bridge park
Up at the crack of dawn,
already dressed, nearly out the door,
then I hear her - oi!
All the belly! You can get me messages before you go off gallivanting with yourself. A ham shank and a bottle of sterra!
Off I run down the balcony, heart beating fast –
I'm going faster than the six million dollar man!
Run down three steps
jump down five. I'm dreaming of that tyre swing!
Here you are mam, I'm at the door...Madam Falange
you can take your sister with you.
Gutted! I stomp down the landing with our Mandy shrieking behind me.
Get down the stairs,
sneak a quick glance
up at the flat she's there,
so I bend down all concerned like
and say to our Mandy
‘if you button it you can have some of me blackjacks’, but I don't swear just in case me mam can lip read.
A backing track made up "save all your kisses for me,"
whilst our Liz forced me to learn the dance routine even though I hated it!
Gangs of catholic kids attend the evangelical Sunday school -[..]
a great free babysitting service […]when the mothers
were nursing a head.
Mothers shouting from three floors up chanting a list of their kids names
and if you were out of hearing range
some kid would find you:
"Your mam’s shouting… your well in for it!"
Mumbling old men and dads muted in the background
tobacco stained brown
The women loud brash survivors,
battle faced - faced life head on with a smile,
sometimes brittle or fragile but always there just the same.
My mam - Irish Kath, mother by day, party girl by night,
packs of American tan tights size extra large,
ten park drive and a bottle of Guinness for me blood.
On special nights pan stick and cherry b.
Little Margaret, Big Margaret and singing Esther
with her bright red coarse beehive hair that didn't move
an inch in the most legendary of her fights.
You could work out time and what type of night she had
as she left Hulme labour club
with the sound of Esther's Argument followed by a song and her cork platforms clonking unsteadily towards the chippy.
As I lay next to our Caroline in the big bed
with the window wide open and the heat wrapping me
into a dream like state
New Hulme… old voices, faded echos
like the concrete blasted or crumbling into oblivion
to make way for the new builds, new faces and a sense of respectability that didn't sit comfortably with those left behind. The die hards: those who still wanted bicarbonate of soda
and boiling bacon in the shops
where now they only sell hummus and kale.
We're just a community of ghosts love, he said
We're just a community of ghosts
These invisible souls drifting amongst us like air like light
like they’re almost too frightened to take up this tiny pinhole
of space that as a community we've allowed them.
But these men, they worked brick by brick
stone by stone, pint by pint, worked with all their might
fingers crack hard like steel.
Young boys with men's jobs
earning a few bob sending it all home
to a land of make believe
So they worked and they worked - but how they suffered
for this land eyes became bleary hearts, became weary, quieter
and quieter they grew
Until suddenly they aren't big men
They sit and think back when, well when
my life was.
But if you listen carefully you can still hear the gentlest whisper and sense the tiniest tremor
beneath their Celtic heartbeats
of dreams of passion of a grand old tale
that might just happen
I see you, you and you, and the sparks sharp edges
unspoken pledges winning and losing loving and leaving
wearing your heart like a road map of just dreaming
dreaming, dreaming…
You boys, you’re still warriors
And now the dust has settled in Hulme
we begin to hear a heartbeat returning.
You will see some of our tribe
shaking down their feathers
peeking out behind the new apartments and university buildings.
We recognise each other
we have part concrete in our veins
[it] gives us strength knowledge and determination
to come together
to rise and fly like only a true Hulmite can.
We are here to RECLAIM! To have a community that shares, we need a community that cares.
We need our spaces filled with the old the new temporary or just visiting.
Filled with the legends.
The believers, dreamers, the thinkers and the solitary figures. Hulme was and still - is a home
to ALL. Inclusive risk taking and forever changing.
A place that inspires and captures your heart like the softest rainfall
My Hulme
Tina Cribbin