"I am political and I do care, and there seems to be a lot of that about up here. I like Jeremy Corbyn..."
It seems that when housing developers or politicians want a bit of Salford credibility they turn straight to Shelagh Delaney. Which is a little ironic, as, back in the Sixties, the city's most famous playwright battled with those very people when they sniffed at her portrayal of the place (see here).
Today, Shelagh's daughter, Charlotte, is in Salford unveiling Delaney Heights in Pendleton, a refurbished block of affordable housing run by The Guinness Partnership which was previously the Matthias Court student accommodation.
"The Guinness Partnership approached me about a year ago to ask how I felt about a block of flats, affordable housing, being named after my mum and they kindly invited me up to see them before I made a decision" Charlotte explains "I looked at these flats, which are incredibly elegant, beautiful and affordable, and said 'Yes' immediately. Mainly because I want my mum's legacy to be more than A Taste of Honey, and it's like bringing her home a little bit."
What with the previous unpopular Salford Mayor jumping on Shelagh Delaney Day, and Pendleton Together using portraits on hoardings outside their towerblocks, does she not feel that Shelagh is being used by the authorities?
"There's statues all over the city of people who are recognised for doing things, so I think it's quite nice really and I don't feel like she's being used" Charlotte responds "Her public image is out there and that's what it is. I don't feel like I've come across anyone who's 'using it' for anything unpleasant. She loved Salford and was proud of Salford, and I think it's really nice that Salford's proud of her."
Although raised in London, with a thick southern accent, Charlotte is certainly proud to be associated with Salford, where she visited relatives many times when little...
"My grandma looked after me a lot, and my mum was very clear that the streets of Salford raised her" she recalls "She was safe on the streets of Salford; it taught her a lot and it would do the same for me.
"I'd play out with kids all day and all night in the summer...on the playing fields down Duchy Road, going to the sweet shop to look at the penny tray, riding knackered bikes down the hills...I just have these very rich, very full, very loving human memories of being part of the community, and my mum made sure that happened in Salford and in London
"Salford matters to me" she adds "In some ways it feels like home. It's my childhood. I'd arrive, someone would knock on the door and I'd play out...go to the Precinct, go up to the Height, and get chips and gravy, which you can't get in London because they've got no class.
"So it's hardwired into how I feel about myself and my history, and who I am and what I write and what I hear inside my head when I'm thinking of characters" she explains "I hear the lyricism of the voices and I love it, it makes me feel very sentimental.
"My mum moved to London when she was 18 or 19, and then when I was 14 I stopped coming up here as much because I started doing my own thing" she adds "My cousins don't live here anymore, and they're the ones I would have seen, I don't have those connections.
"I'm making new connections" she decides "And it's really nice for me because I am political and I do care, and there seems to be a lot of that about up here. I like Jeremy Corbyn, I want to get Labour in...all these people who are saying 'Oooh I like Labour but I can't vote for him'; just think! Get Labour in because they're better than the Tories..."
One 'political' - with a small 'p' - act that Shelagh tried to do in Salford - and got blocked by the authorities - was to set up a working class theatre workshop. Now this is coming to fruition through Charlotte's involvement, as the Delaney Theatre Group has been created and will be performing at the Delaney Heights opening today.
It's an unlikely collaboration between The Guinness Partnership, tenants from the new block, MaD Theatre Company, the Working Class Movement Library and the University of Oxford...
"Charlotte got together with myself and MaD Theatre company to start talking about whether some of Shelagh Delaney's work might be put on by MaD, which is a very unashamedly working class theatre company" explains Professor Selina Todd, who is co-Director of the Women in the Humanities programme at Oxford University, and is writing an authorised biography of Shelagh Delaney.
"MaD were keen on working in Salford and will do mainly what Shelagh Delaney would have done; bring theatre home to working class people who had always enjoyed theatre in Salford" she adds "The group's been running since January and is going very well; the youngest actor is 15, the oldest is over sixty."
The Delaney Theatre Group is to perform Sweetly Sings The Donkey, Charlotte's adaptation of three of Shelagh Delaney's radio plays at The Lowry on 7th September.
"It's very much in the vein of Theatre Workshop in Stretford that Joan Littlewood began; that theatre is for everybody and everybody has got a contribution to make" Charlotte explains "And I feel like that's what we're doing.
"The professional actors are from North Manchester and get on just fine with Salfordians, so it's been great" she adds "One of things we've been keen to do was to say 'Culture is working class'...what universities and sometimes theatre groups do is say 'We've got to take culture to the masses' and what we're saying is that it's already there..."
...and nowhere more so than Salford Arts Theatre, where Charlotte is to premiere her first stage play, Sweet Responsibility, between 20th and 24th June. Born from a road trip around Midwest America, re-tracing a previous journey of her mum, it's set in a rural village outside of Manchester where local politics and seventysomething women's relationships come to the fore...
"I now live in a rural place, having been brought up in London, and what I've noticed is that people are very passionate about what they think is a political subject" Charlotte explains "What they're doing is reading headlines and having emotional responses to that...
"Something is going to happen in this village and people are opposed to it, and for some of them their horribleness comes out and compassion comes out in others" she adds "The protagonists are the two friends."
The production came out of a draft reading at the Working Class Movement Library last year, which was well received. Afterwards, Roni Ellis from the Arts Theatre approached Charlotte with the idea of fully staging it.
"It's my first 'proper' play" says Charlotte "I've written for the Archers and stuff like that but this is my first on stage. I typed a lot of my mum's scripts out, so I had a privileged education when it comes to watching a script go from the start of the product to the finish. So I think, from osmosis, I picked up how to make voices and words convey more than their meaning...I hope I'm good at it!
"It's human, and we're all human beings and we all have relationships with each other, so that's what I'm interested in, humanity" she concludes.
Charlotte is certainly in the right place.
Sweet Responsibility
By Charlotte Delaney
Tuesday 20th June to Saturday 24th June
Salford Arts Theatre
Kemsing Walk M5 4BS
Tickets £8/£10/early bird £6 – click here to book
For more details see www.salfordartstheatre.com
Sweetly Sings The Donkey
Thursday 7th September
The Lowry
Tickets £10/£12 – click here for details
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