Taken at face value it would appear that ‘St. Ockport’ is about to collapse under the weight of sportswear and gold chains and in this respect thanks are due in no small part to the single-minded dedication to the cause shown by the local indigenous personnel.
I have found myself living in Stockport on two occasions and despite several years between these occasions nothing has changed for the better unless it was so blindingly inconsequential that I missed it. A mildly depressing former industrial town where nowadays little is produced or in fact ever happens, Stockport is, for the most part, a sprawling array of shabby terraced housing and shabby terraced people with a giant collective chip on its shoulder brought about by being close to Manchester in geographical terms alone.
Don’t let the fact that it is in Cheshire fool you as to what awaits you or you’ll be setting new benchmarks in disappointment with almost immediate effect.
Despite having only recently learnt to walk upright, a sizeable proportion of the male population seek to further burden themselves by increasing their body weight and centre of gravity with metallic trinkets and earrings the likes of which are seldom seen outside the beacon-esque lessons of taste and class that are Footballers Wives and The Royle Family. Whereas most of us view these fictional televisual snapshots of other people’s lives with the same awe-struck sense of dismay that we would a car crash, the residents of Stockport see them as morally uplifting and aspirational.
A prime example of a Darwinist Exclusion Zone should such a thing exist.
At the epicentre of this insanity lies Chestergate, the town centre. A grey-faced concrete embarrassment conceived by similarly unimaginative people, it was probably never at the pinnacle of design even in the 50′s when it was lovingly hewn from lumps of Blue Circle’s finest. Several successive attempts to improve the facade have fallen victim to the old maxim regarding the likely success of attempted turd-polishing. The majority of the buildings in the immediate vicinity are old mill buildings in a criminal state of disrepair and is crying out for regeneration projects and investment that just never seems to be forthcoming.
Arguably Stockport’s greatest landmark is the enormous red-brick viaduct, and it is no surprise that it is such a popular monument – it carries a high-speed train line allowing the fastest direct route out of the place.