The Lowry Outlet Mall, Salford Quays...

I’d planned to spend the day at Old Trafford football ground, attending seminars about ‘website optimisation’ and ‘developing an online presence’. But the moment I arrived, and collected my delegate’s badge, I felt out of place amongst the stands offering hi-tech ‘business to business solutions’. Plan B was to escape from Old Trafford and spend a few hours photographing Salford Quays instead.

Signs point the way - to the Lowry Centre, the Imperial War Museum North, the Lowry Outlet Mall, etc - though I’d swear that one or two of the signs were pointing the wrong way. No matter... you can see these iconic buildings from wherever you are.

The only people who might get disorientated are those who used to live and work around Salford Docks... which is what The Quays used to be until this grandiose scheme was planned and realised. This is urban regeneration on a vast scale, though the docks haven’t been regenerated - building-by-building, or street-by-street - so much as re-imagined entirely. Salford Docks were wiped clean off the map, leaving just the Manchester Ship Canal, along with its spurs and canal basins. The rebuilding began in 1985.

According to their effusive website (written, no doubt, by people who’ve attended seminars on writing online ‘copy’), the Quays create a “wonderful mix of culture, retail and leisure around a continually evolving waterfront destination”. ‘Retail‘ and ‘leisure‘ are almost synonymous in this brave new world of waterfront living and “world class” urban regeneration. However you won’t find anything as common as a shop at Salford Quays, just the sprawling ‘outlet mall’.

It’s a soulless place, as most of these grand urban gestures tend to be; even on a sunny day in May there were few people about. ‘Signature’ buildings overlook windswept concourses, offering ‘exclusive waterside apartments‘ for well-heeled people prepared to pay a premium to live in close proximity to the Manchester Ship Canal. Like the stately homes of previous centuries, they are meant to be admired... and viewed from afar.

The effect of wandering around this “leisure destination” was curiously uninvolving. I wondered what L S Lowry (whose name was requisitioned for the project) would make of it all. He would have painted it, I’m sure. Instead of being dwarfed by the old mills of Salford, belching smoke from mill chimneys, his stick figures would scuttle around The Quays, being dwarfed by office blocks, retail outlets and city lofts.

Having wandered around taking pictures, I fancied a pint and a sit down. As the website suggests (“from smart restaurants to trendy cafes and friendly bars”) there’s nothing as common as a pub at The Quays either. I settled for a glass of Stella in a ‘diner and bar‘ offering a panoramic view of cranes and building sites. I realised what the euphemistic phrase “continually evolving” actually meant: “it looks like a building site”.

Access is never straightforward in these private/public places. As I was photographing the Victoria Harbour Building, my tripod-mounted camera attracted the attention of a ‘community policeman’. He mentioned “privacy laws” and said “they” weren’t too keen on photographers wandering around the Quays, without specifying who “they” might be. I suggested he should wait until I’d broken an actual law, and not just a fantasy law he’d made up.

The official line seems rather different: on the website’s home page is a photographic competition called Capturing The Quays. Winners will get "an ‘all expenses paid for’ weekend at The Quays and the opportunity for their image to be used to promote The Quays around the world"...

The Brown Horse, Winster... in happier times...

With the World Cup just a month away, the flags of St George are starting to appear, like a red and white rash. Pubs are usually the first to fly the flag - informing their customers, in a simple, graphic way, that 1) the football will be shown live on Sky, and 2) that racism, nationalism and rampant xenophobia will be tolerated - even encouraged - for the duration of the competition. And beyond...

I’ve never been a big fan of what Pele called “the beautiful game”. For every moment of beauty and drama (Gazza’s exquisite goal, say, against Scotland at Euro ‘96) there are hours of cheating, diving, time-wasting, passing the ball sideways across the park, booting the ball into the stands, making cynical, career-threatening tackles, claiming the ball, for a throw-in or corner, every time it goes out of play, arguing with the referee about every decision that goes against them, and a sustained level of boorishness and aggression that makes football hard for me to watch with much pleasure.

I’ve tried, at various times, to get involved in the game... especially when the big international competitions come around. On a warm sunny day, four years ago, during the World Cup in Germany, I walked over the fells to a pub that was showing one of the games. England v Portugal, I think it was. Usually a tranquil haven (as evidenced by my photo), the village pub was packed: mostly big guys with abbreviated necks, wearing rugby shirts, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of a massive TV screen. I fought my way to the bar, bought a beer and found somewhere to stand.

The football itself seemed cagey and unexceptional, as big, important games so often are. No-one wants to lose, of course, but all too often it looks like no-one really wants to win either. What I do remember was the relentless fusilage of racist abuse aimed at the Portugese players. I looked around me, at these red-faced buffoons shouting at a TV screen in a pub in the Cumbrian countryside; then I looked out of the window at the countryside itself. I drained my glass, squeezed through the scrum of people and made my escape. I carried on walking, through the beautiful Winster valley, and never looked back.

I don’t have any photographs of football... just the pub.

When you phone a big company these days, you’re lost before you start. You’re presented with half a dozen options, but not the one you want: which is to talk to a fellow human being about whatever’s on your mind. It seems like there’s no way into the organisation... only a labyrinth of corridors and connecting doors, which allow you to be shunted from one place to another without actually getting anywhere. You get a couple of minutes of tinny music, before an unseen hand pulls the plug. You’re cast adrift once again, left holding a phone that’s connecting you to nobody. If there’s no way into the organisation, there’s certainly a way out...

The strategy seems to be ‘customer disorientation’. Phoning a business these days is like being blindfolded by Mafia hoodlums and driven to some secret destination. Big business wants to practise ‘customer care’ - managers go to seminars and everything - but few of them know what customer care actually means. I know what it doesn’t mean: being connected to someone in a call centre in Mumbai.

I went to see Dave today. He’s a garage mechanic who works for himself and by himself, in a lock-up workshop. I can call in for a quick chat about whatever’s wrong with my car (my dismal record of maintenance ensures there’s always something). He may be under a car on the ramp, or down in the inspection pit, or, as yesterday, catching up with his paperwork in his tiny ‘office’. Before I’d even described what was the problem with the car, he’d noticed that one of my brake lights had gone, taken out the dud bulb and put in a new one. “That front tyre needs some air”, he said, so he pumped it up as he talked.

I needed a new exhaust too: something that I had worked out for myself, since my Vauxhall Astra sounded like a sports car... but without the corresponding surge of sports car performance.

There are hundreds of garages closer to my home than Dave’s. Dave works in town, but it’s not my home town any more. It’s two hours drive away. I take my car to Dave because he’s cheerful and he doesn’t give me a hard time for letting my car get into such a state; I trust him to replace only the parts that need replacing and charge what the job is worth. Best of all, he says what you want to hear: “I can fix it. Come back at five o’clock”. And when the dread day approaches, when the repairs are costing more than the car is worth, he’ll try to stop you throwing good money after bad, and suggest you keep an eye on the ‘Cars for sale’ section of the local newspaper. “Truthfully?”, he’ll say, if pressed, “Your car is fucked”.

Dave has no baffling phone system to make customers weep in impotent frustration. If he’s near the phone, he’ll pick it up; if he’s down the inspection pit, he won’t... and you’ll have to phone back a bit later. But you don’t have to speak to some bored receptionist, or listen while a disembodied voice gives you a long list of options, and numbers to press. You get Dave himself, a damn good mechanic who wipes the grease from his hands before he picks up the phone. “I can do the job Tuesday”, he’ll say.

Or you can call round and he’ll be there... unless he’s nipped out for a sandwich. The modern world has passed him by, some might say (there’s no concession to comfort in the creative chaos of his workshop), but he’s right up-to-date with his notions of ‘customer care’. Except that it isn’t ‘customer care’ at all. I don’t imagine he’s attended any seminars on the subject; he’s just available, during the advertised hours, to the people who want to get their car fixed, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without a smile on his face.

You’re not lost, after all. You know where you are with Dave.

Windermere from Wansfell...

When I’m out walking there are two, apparently contradictory, impulses at work: the perfectly rational desire to get away from other people, and the equally rational desire to socialise. Walking beyond the walled packets of land, out onto the breezy tops, I enjoy the silence and the solitude. But I also enjoy the special smiles that people share when they meet in the open air.

They’re sharing the landscape too, perhaps a favourite view. Now, I know what you’re thinking: it’s not hard to share something you don’t actually own. Nevertheless, it’s good to get away from the proprietorial attitude that rules our everyday lives, that “this is mine” and “that is yours”. On the fells we make no demands of one another; up here, above the tree line, there’s neither guest nor host. No-one’s trying to sell you anything (with the exception of the bedraggled Jehovah’s Witness, on the summit of Great Gable, who tried to thrust a soggy pamphlet into my hand).

Walking is democratic. When walkers meet, it’s as equals. It doesn’t matter whether they came by car or took the bus. It doesn’t matter what they do to make a living. Walking does little to promote social status; the folk who want to make a big impression stay closer to the lake, where their boats and cars will attract more envious glances. The people we meet on the hills may have little in common beyond a love of walking and the outdoor life, but, for the purpose of striking up a conversation, that’s enough.

Wainman's Pinnacle...

There’s a folly, on a rocky outcrop in Yorkshire, that has sentimental value for me. Each time I pass Wainman’s Pinnacle, my thoughts turn to my dad, a down-to-earth Yorkshire patrician not normally given to flights of fancy. It was he who engendered in me a love of walking and wildlife, even though that came about almost by accident.

As a wee lad I used to grub around in the garden for whatever treasures I could find: stones, snails, worms, dung and the like. Amongst the more salubrious items were birds' feathers. With the optimism of youth, I would present them to my father for identification. Hoping to maintain his facade of all-knowing omnipotence for as long as possible, he would put down the Yorkshire Post at every time of asking and give me his undivided attention. Not bad for a man who, to avoid joining in a conversation at meal-times, would concentrate intently on reading the back of a Worcester Sauce bottle.

Knowing I would label the feathers for my collection, he tried to ascribe a different bird's name to each one. After the roster of sparrows and finches, however, he found it an increasingly difficult task. Which is why my little museum featured feathers that had come from such unlikely species as the Scarlet Ibis and Wandering Albatross. No matter. His feats of inspired guesswork left me with a lifelong interest in birds.

In terms of imparting fatherly wisdom, this was only the beginning. I must have been seven or eight years old when he first took me to see the folly. We stood on the rocks and gazed at the view. “From here”, he announced, portentiously, “you can get to anywhere in the world”. I was stunned: "What? Anywhere, dad?" "Anywhere", he confirmed.

The implications were staggering to a boy whose experience of life extended little further than house, garden and the nearby woods that witnessed so many games and adventures. I wasn't a street-wise child. Even when I decided to run away from home, piqued by a parental telling-off, my progress was halted by the main road that I wasn't allowed to cross. But this view seemed to suggest an infinity of possibilities. The world opened up, like the petals of a flower, as my youthful imagination took flight.

The Lancaster Canal at Garstang...

England’s canal network may be the last technology that everybody could understand... as well as marking the moment in our history when we abandoned the notion of self-reliance and put our faith in ‘experts’ and ‘professionals’ instead. It’s amazing to think of the time, effort and money expended, mostly during the 18th century, to create two thousand miles of man-made waterways. They were the future of bulk transport... for a while.

Canals made commercial sense: a barge, pulled by a single horse and carrying a typical payload of, say, 30 tons, could do the work of a hundred packhorses. By the end of the 18th century, though, the canal-building boom was almost over, and wealthy entrepreneurs were looking to invest in the railways. With few exceptions the canals went into an irreversible decline. Lock gates rotted away; the waterways silted up; when land was needed for building, sections of canal were filled in.

So it’s good to see canals being renovated, and brought back into use... even though it’s only non-urgent cargo that’s carried by barge these days, such as tax refunds and publishers’ royalty cheques. The bargees of old would recognise the canals as they are today, though they’d be nonplussed to discover that what they did to earn a living is now being done for recreation and relaxation. There are more boats on British canals now - nearly all for recreation - than there ever were during the heyday of commercial traffic.

For us the canals represent a benign fantasy: the freedom to enjoy a slower, less hectic pace of life. People buy a narrowboat and talk, in excitable tones, about the pleasures of being able to take off whenever they want. They can cast off, and explore the entire canal system. That’s the theory, anyway. The truth, alas, is more prosaic: they find a mooring, somewhere between the abattoir and the glue factory, and never go anywhere.

Never mind... everybody loves canals. They bring a smile to our faces, in the way that barrel organs and steam trains do, as we negotiate the locks and travel through the landscape at walking pace, before tying up at a waterside pub and dreaming the day away.

Dale End, Duddon Valley...

Will a week without planes make us reconsider our attitudes towards air travel? Probably not. In the space of a few years we’ve come to regard foreign holidays as a right, not a privilege. First it was one holiday each year, then two, then three. We’ll no doubt carry on flying to exotic locations, staying in the air-conditioned luxury of ‘international’ hotels, enjoying a week of sun, sand, sea and sangria. We’ll meet a few locals, of course - carrying our bags, serving us drinks - but mostly we’ll stay by the pool.

The experience of foreign holidays, though relaxing, leaves many people curiously unmoved. I’ve asked friends, on their return: “How was it?”, expecting to hear of adventures in faraway places, or, at the very least, some amusing anecdotes. Most people can only manage a shrug of the shoulders. “The hotel was good”, they’ll admit, while struggling to find anything else to say. They’d jetted off to a place that, until recently, had seemed achingly distant and exotic - more of a mirage than a holiday destination - and returned with little to show for the experience except for a tan acquired rather too quickly for comfort. It was just a holiday...

It must be about five years since I last got my passport stamped. It’s not that I’ve stopped travelling; it’s just that I’ve just been travelling in smaller circles. My ‘patch’ is the North of England. Now, the ‘North of England‘ isn’t an area you’ll find on any map. It’s not a county, or an administrative district, and whole books are written about what it is and what it means, usually accompanied by an attempt to define its boundaries. It’s a pointless exercise. The North of England is not a geographic area, it’s a state of mind. For Londoners it begins somewhere about Watford Gap services on the M1 and might as well be coloured an unrelieved brown on the map, with the legend ‘Here be dragons’. There are Geordies who look down on Yorkshire folk as “soft Southern bed-wetters”, and Yorkshiremen who insist they’re living in ‘God’s own County’.

My ‘North’ is a rather amorphous area; it expands and contracts, like a rubber band stretched between the fingers of both hands. To the north there’s the obvious boundary of Hadrian’s Wall, though I make occasional foreys into the Borders. To the east is the North Sea, to the west, the Irish Sea. To the South it’s more complicated, and my choices more whimsical. I include the Peak National Park, but not Lincolnshire. Cheshire reminds me of footballers‘ wives; it doesn’t say ‘North‘ to me.

Fortunately, none of this matters. My personal map of the North can continue to expand and contract. But what is important is to keep exploring. Yesterday I had a pint in a wonderful little pub I had never visited, in Broughton Mills, which, though sounding like a West Yorkshire textile town, is actually a tiny community of scattered farms in the middle of nowhere (well, the Duddon Valley). Whenever I think I know the North of England quite well, I am gently reminded that I barely know it at all. I will be happy to keep travelling - not outwards but inwards - for the rest of my days.

I have a favourite quote; it’s quite perceptive, which suggests it’s not an original thought of mine. But, having googled it, I can’t find any other attribution. Never mind: if you get to know one area well, your horizons are limitless...