From the North

I've just started reading The North by the music journalist Paul Morley.

The book is largely about the places I was born, grew up and live in – Manchester, Stockport and Wythenshawe  – and the music associated with them from Morrissey and The Smiths to The Stone Roses and Oasis.

Like me, Morley is fascinated by borders – the Lancashire-Cheshire one along the River Mersey just south of his childhood home in Reddish and the fuzzier one between the North and the Midlands, clearly defined where Cheshire meets Staffordshire and South Yorkshire Derbyshire but harder to draw where Lancashire and Cheshire meet Derbyshire and South and East Yorkshire Lincolnshire.

This is the kind of book you can happily dip into for hours, perusing the index from the Ardwick Apollo to Tony Wilson via Coronation Street and the Free Trade Hall.

.