Secret Geographies

When we go to the Esplanade by bus, to save on the exorbitant parking, and because we enjoy a bus journey once in a while, Noi and I take the underpass to the bus stop over the road on the way home. I did the same last Friday and, as usual, the space below the road was crowded with kids, teenagers, making the area their own. There are always at least three dance groups rehearsing, practising, performing down there with conflicting music in attendance. Most of these look pretty funky, sometimes to the point of being a wee bit intimidating, but there're also geeky ones to even the score. And there's generally a few skate-boarders around. I don't know whether the authorities are aware of what goes on - surely they can't miss it? do they actually encourage it? - but if they are then they are turning an unusually wise blind eye.

It all looks splendid to me, though the lingering smell of perspiration, and the need to catch the bus, means I never stay to watch too long. The guys down there seem to be making the city, one small part of it, their own, almost as if it were their secret.

I remember doing something similar, with my friends, in a little bit of grassland, a park of sorts, near where I lived in Audenshaw when I was around ten years old, except that was a place kids were expected to make their own, I suppose. After England won the World Cup we were down there for a kick around, late on a Saturday afternoon, with coats for goalposts. There was real pitch there, with real posts, but someone must have been using it then because I distinctly remember using our coats. We played soldiers a lot, Japs vs Americans, near the railway lines. We got to be good at dying. There was always plenty of grass to hide in, and a sewage works in the distance for glamour.

The last time I was there was with Noi, some four years ago, and it was all very small, very tawdry, very ordinary. But I remember its days of glory on the endless Saturdays of 1966.

You never really know a city. You can only guess at its secret places and you're lucky if you've had access to just one.