There’s a charming little article in the news today the headline of which is ‘Steer clear of Manchester to avoid an early grave.’ It goes on to say that the city has the highest rates of premature death in England. Cue lots of jokey comments about people in Manchester being glad to die, and lots of indignant rebuttals from Mancunians.

When I was a little girl, Piccadilly Gardens in the centre of Manchester was a place of jewel tinted flower beds, sparkling fountains, smooth green lawns and, if memory serves, a bandstand. Nice elderly couples would sit on the benches and eat fish paste sandwiches and drink tea out of flasks. The last time I was there, a year ago; it looked like somewhere junkies go to shoot up. Maybe that’s what it is. It certainly wasn’t a place to linger.

I was born (literally as in ‘Call the Midwife’) in a prefab in Wythenshawe. Now the ASBO capital of Britain, it was then a pleasant place to grow up, with immaculate grass verges, flower beds, well-kept council houses full of upwardly mobile people. The men had mostly been recently demobbed, and a lot of the women too. They had horizons, aspirations, and a good education. Now it’s the setting for ‘Shameless’.

I used to love visiting my grandparents in Harpurhey, then a place of two–up-two-down mill workers’ cottages, cobbled streets and outside toilets. The kids all played out in the street, the little parlour windows were hung with crisp white lace curtains and the front steps were donkey-stoned to a lovely cream colour.  The tiny pub had a bowling green in the back, probably the only bit of grass for miles. My dear granddad, who loved the sun, used to climb on the outhouse roof to sunbathe. He always looked like he’d just come back from the Riviera. They didn’t have much but they had a community. What happened? In the Sixties crooked developers knocked down whole neighbourhoods and built hideous, cheap, rattraps for people to move into. Now it’s been called the most deprived area of the UK.

When my eldest son was five years old and we were living in Los Angeles, we visited my parents and I took him for a ride on the top of the bus from Didsbury, where they lived, into central Manchester. In a loud and very American voice he demanded to know where all the palm trees were. Unfortunately, a lack of palm trees seems to be the least of Manchester’s problems.