Islington Park

It’s always nice to have a public park on your route home from Deansgate. Walking through it though, well… that’s a different story. Because Islington Park is scary. And I don’t want to sound like some naïve little middle-​class flibbertigibbet who’s been wrapped in cotton wool during her upbringing and writes about life rather than living through the gritty realism of it, but when you see someone peeing in the middle of an open grassland area, near what presumably is supposed to be a scenic little bench to sit on, it unnerves you slightly.
It’s a popular spot for dog walkers, and not the kind with poodles and schitzus, the kind with illegally bred pitbulls. (Oh my, imagine if they cross-​bred a pitbull and a schitzu! You could call it a schitpit.) I’ve also seen many a can of Special Brew consumed with relish on the presumably urine-​ridden bench by unkempt looking gentlemen in clothes older than them. It’s a very strangely emblematic borderline between Chapel Street’s more affluent residences, healthy and wealthy Spinningfields, and the crumbling ancient and burnt out buildings, the boarded-​up newsagents and the council habitation area. Talk about a buffer zone. I’m not trying to cast snobby aspersions on anybody here, but there’s a reason the street’s being regenerated.
I just hope the TNT doesn’t destroy entirely the old-​world Salford charm. You have to squint to see it, but it’s there. It’s there in pubs like the Crescent, King’s Arms and New Oxford, it’s there in beautiful buildings like the Courthouse, and it’s there in the converted Royal Hospital in which I reside. The plan is to enlarge and modernise Islington Park, and I for one think this is a great idea… if it works. One cannot forget that right behind this park is the dubious area around St Philip’s Primary School where fireworks are set off in broad daylight, a tower block more depressing than your average Mike Leigh film resides and the streets around Islington Mill which look to be the perfect setting for a horror film.
As it stands now I don’t like to spend too much time here. It looks to be a dangerous hotspot and one of the reasons Salford gets an undeserved bad reputation. So let’s watch this space and see if the regeneration breathes some much-​needed life into this park, but manage to keep that almost intangible sense of Salfordism rather than brainwash it into the 21^st century. Because just think, if the park epitomised the best of both worlds, it’d be the ideal place to walk your aptly symbolic schitpit.