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WARM TRIBUTES PAID TO SALFORD COUNCILLOR WHO PASSED AWAY SUDDENLY
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Star date: 20th September 2017 SALFORD COUNCIL REFLECTS ON DEPRESSION OF COUNCILLOR WHO PASSED AWAY SUDDENLY At today's full meeting of Salford Council, councillors paid glowing tributes to Paul Longshaw, Lead Member for Housing, who was found dead at his home two weeks ago. Amongst the many eulogies, Councillor Jane Hamilton pleaded for depression to be talked about more. And Councillor Kate Lewis summed up the feelings..."as we all know there isn't a better off place without Paul Longshaw..." Full details here...
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..."he couldn't see the light at either end of the tunnel"
Today, Salford councillors spent over an hour of the full meeting of Salford City Council paying tribute to the late Paul Longshaw, councillor for Langworthy and Lead Member for Housing, whose funeral took place yesterday.
Amongst many humorous memories regaled, of drinking in the New Oxford, of strange sock habits and a fondness for The Fall, Councillor Jane Hamilton told of the "elephant in the room" which couldn't be ignored... "I don't want to stand here and say this, but depression needs to be talked about more" she explained "His fantastic wife and daughter yesterday shared with us part of the letter that Paul wrote, which was that he couldn't see the light at either end of the tunnel...in all my years as a psychotherapist I've never heard it put like that. "I know we're looking at mental health but let's get a surge on this depression" she added "...how many people in here have had depression or the start of it?...things that are happening, it's not just to people out there, it's to all of us as well. And I think we have a duty to carry that on..." Councillor Hamilton was building on a theme previously raised by Councillor Kate Lewis..."people who commit suicide often feel that the world is a better off place without them, that people are better off without them, they've come to that conclusion...As we all know, there isn't a better off place without Paul Longshaw but I do hope that if we keep his memory in mind we may come eventually to a better place." Deputy Mayor, John Merry, talked about Paul Longshaw's work on a new affordable housing model... "Nothing would be a finer legacy for Paul than to see the work that he carried out in the last twelve months come to fruition, and we should be thinking about how we should be honouring him when we do deliver those houses..." Despite speculation that the late councillor's death was related to the cladding scandal, which will see ACM panels stripped from nine Pendleton Together blocks at an estimated cost of £25million, John Merry explained that Paul Longshaw himself instigated an investigation on the issue... "I think this is the sign of the integrity of Paul as a person" he explained "He came to me and the City Mayor to say that he wanted an inquiry into how the cladding was procured for Pendleton, and he wanted to exclude himself from being involved in that work because he had been the director of that particular project. "There was no need for him to do that, there was no legal requirement for him to do it but he wanted the truth, he wanted to know what had happened and whether he had been responsible" Councillor Merry added "One of things in retrospect that I was pleased about was that, just before I went on holiday, the report landed on my desk about the Council's procurement strategy during that period, and came to the conclusion that there were no fundamental flaws in the way it had been procured. "In many ways it had been an exemplary process and I'm pleased now that I was able to tell Paul that before the dreadful event happened, because this was clearly something that he wanted resolved in his own mind" he said "I wonder how many people in that sort of public life would have their first priority to get at the truth, to find out if they had been responsible for anything and to find out if there were any lessons to learn for the future? "I suggest to you that that was an exemplar of how he lived his life" he added "That he had a very clear and shining vision of what needed to be done in the public sector, and he wanted to be clear even when he himself felt he had a responsibility of working out whether there was any blame to be attached, and there wasn't any. I'm delighted about that. "I make this pledge to this Council" John Merry concluded "We will continue the work in Paul's name to deliver what he wanted to see, which was decent housing for the people of this city..."
To view the full Salford Council meeting and tributes see the webcast - click here
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Chris Hattie McBride wrote
at 07:52:58 on 06 December 2017 |
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| Some memories from growing up in Salford.
Christine Mcbride
1 Dec (5 days ago)
to me
I would imagine that my memories of post WW2 Salford are similar to lots of others' recollections, but OK, here are some.
SMELLS. (Have chosen this sensation as a first offering, as apparently it's our most primitive sense!)
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As a very young girl, in the late 1940s, I remember the sweet sickly smell of mounds of rubbish and rotting food, around bomb sites, (even though food was rationed,) as I suppose the refuse collection service had yet to get itself properly organised, following 6 years of conflict, and the musty, mouldy odours of bricks, old furnishings and wallpaper, as many houses were either bombed or in the process of demolition. There was a lot of dust, brick dust and general dust, and we kids seemed to become dirty, (mucky,) within minutes of leaving the house to play.
Another smell was of tar, coal and smoke, both in the houses, (especially when the burning coal was jabbed with a poker and then spat and hissed, but emitted the most wonderful oily,tarry smell.) and there was a generally smokey tang in the atmosphere from factory chimneys and trains and the docks.
In Summer, we used to sit on the kerb and dig lollipop sticks into the tar on the street, to make "black lollies",and sniff at the tar, which, unfortunately was usually transferred onto hair and clothing, which had to be scrubbed or cut off, and sometimes even teeth had to be scraped, where some optimistic souls believed the lollies were actually eatable.
We were fascinated by grids and drains, (long before Stephen King films!) and spent time staring down drains, and dropping stones into the foetid water, claiming we had seen huge rats or even ghosts! Damp, mildewy smells came from drains, but we never became ill due to this, (unlike a lot of the obsessively cleaned children of today,) Sorry, thinking out loud again! A very similar smell emanated from the local river, (in our case, the Irwell,) When I was a little older, (11 years old,) there were miniscule "clouds" of yellowish foam, which floated from the weir on Silk Street and through our classroom windows, which we had to dodge, and when they "popped", there was an abominable odour of sulphur and bad eggs.
There were of course, many more pleasant smells, like stews and pies in coal ovens, with lots of onions and gravy, whilst passing open doors, and fresh bread and jam sponge from the baker's entrance, and the smell of an unsliced loaf bought with ration coupons, when we tore off bits from the end to eat on the way home and incur our mothers' wrath. My grandmother's house always smelled of wax polish, from her huge Victorian dresser and cumbersome wooden furniture, and from her furious polishing the frames of portraits of austere and grim-faced military men which adorned the walls of her parlour. Smells of coal tar disinfectant in outside lavatories and back yards showed that some mother "kept a clean house."
"Clean kids" always had an aroma of carbolic soap or coal tar soap, whilst the " scruffs" from huge and poor families seemed to smell of stale sheets and incontinent brothers and sisters, all of whom shared the same beds in tiny houses.
Our classroom smells at junior school:- old wooden desks, chalk and ink and old books, paint and crayons, washed and unwashed rowdy kids.
The smell of the Whit walks, and other school processions:-to me, huge lilies and carnations always remind me of this.
Quick summary of other familiar smells:- fish and chips, and brilliantine from the barber's open door, on Liverpool Street, the washing boilers in back utility rooms and Hodge Lane wash-house, starch smells on best frocks for Sunday church, Borax, nit lotion, (which nobody ever mentioned but most had had applied at some stage of infancy!) Sitting in the first rows in church to inhale the intoxicating smell of incense, and the indescribable but fascinating smell of holy water from the font in church entrances. The pungent aroma when my mother cleaned the windows with newspaper soaked in vinegar. The gluey smell of rag dolls , kewpie dolls and teddy bears.
Getting a bit older and teenage years evokes the smells of new books for Christmas and birthdays, the smell of BHS and Woolworth on Regent Road, economic scented soaps and quickly-emptied tester bottles of "Evening in Paris", "Californian Poppy" and or the more sophisticated, "Coty L'Aimant." and "4711." Hardware shops, with the distinctive metallic and paraffin smell the rare ones still existing still have. The toilets in the public library at Peel Park, and Izal toilet paper. The fairs at Cross Lane Market , a melange of oily machinery, new paint on swings, candy floss and hot dogs.
The market itself on Saturday afternoons:- black puddings, mustard, tripe and vinegar, fresh vegetables straight from farms, raw meat and fish, baking smells, pots and pans and scouring pads and soap powder, stalls full of starchy cotton clothing and bedding, just beginning to come from India and China and replacing the Lancashire textiles, the plastic, resin-like smells of the "latest records" stall . The pet food stalls, pungent with pigs ears and dog bones.
Particular Salford smells were those of cotton mill workers on their way home, clothes covered in white cotton fluff, dry, vaguely chemical, and dried perspiration from hard work, metallic smelling electrical component factory workers and smokey miners.
But for myself, the predominant smell of Salford was not the famous docks, but the gasworks. A tang of gas and coke appeared to be everywhere around the area of Ordsall, Regent and Eccles New Road/Cross Lane. Those are my recollections. Altogether now:- "I smelled the smoooke on the Salford air....... |
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