In my own childhood I knew this kind of industrial landscape and its culture very well, and
empathize with the mixed feelings it produces – the love-hate relationship. My mother’s family was
from Preston, a mere 30 miles away, another seminal town of the Industrial Revolution. And like
Salford, Preston was initially based on the cotton industry but also had its engineering, its wood yards
and docks, back-to-back Coronation Street housing and cobbled streets as well as its own folklore –
which I know a little of. There was even a song about Marsh Lane where my mother was brought up
and where I remember her mother living in a tiny, dingy industrial terrace till she was aged and blind.

Down Marsh Lane there are some dirty women
If tha wants to kiss ‘em, tha has to pay a shilling
Soldiers half a crown, sailors half a guinea
Single men two pound ten, little kids a penny

Pg 3-4 of the script "THE BALLAD OF EWAN MacCOLL" by Sam Richards. See online here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/601d943f3b66f8616eac3746/t/6090f10ba385900847943b0c/1620111628297/Sam-Richards-on-MacColl+%281%29.pdf