Red Flag Walks specialise in bringing local history alive by walking round real sites of working class historical importance. Next Sunday, April 28th, there's a special walk around Radical Salford which will include the real life sites connected with the General Strike of 1842, vegetarian Christians, Salford's first birth control clinic, early Socialists, and the Bexley Square riot in 1932.
Also on the agenda is the site of the old Flat Iron Market described by artist Jack Yeats, brother of W B Yeats, as… "the hunting-park of the bargain hunters who want, or think they want, or imagine that they may some day want, a rusty old cavalry sword, or a pair of skates, or a bunch of curtain rings, or a pair of half-wellington boots, or a toy engine, or a bank of cord, green or red, or a little round looking-glass, or a pair of cork soles, or a bunch of old keys, or an old rusty lock, or a pink ice-cream, or a handful of hot chestnuts, or a small but cheerfully coloured copy of The Angelus - for a penny. You can even buy a policeman's helmet…
"Oh, you can enjoy buying in the Flat Iron market" he added "And you can buy almost anything that heart could wish, but never a flat iron could I see. This surprised me, for you can get petticoats in Petticoat Lane."
Salford's modern equivalent, the Precinct Flea Market with its Flat Iron pub, was bulldozed last year but hopefully people will be taking historic walks around that site in years to come…
Meanwhile, almost two centuries ago, Salford was buzzing with radicalism, and the walk throws in the Flat Iron site en route – a bargain if ever there was one…
"Salford is often overshadowed by Manchester yet it has rich and diverse radical history of its own which included Chartism, trade unionism, Socialism, the suffrage movement and much else" says Red Flag Walks 'Michael Herbert, who's written books on local history and is one of the leading lights at Salford's Working Class Movement Library.
Radical Salford
Sunday 28th April 10.45am
Black Lion pub
Chapel Street £6/£5
To book a place or find out more information email redflagwalks@gmail.com
Flat Iron Market photo c Manchester Libraries
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