Sunday, April 19, 2009

Slabtown




Morley... my birthplace, although Gildersome where I grew up is the place I regard as my home town.
I was born in Morley Hall, which was the towns maternity home until reorganisation saw it closed & absorbed in to larger conurbation's nearby.I do not even know if the building itself is still standing.
Morley has changed drastically over the years, but for me it was never a place I loved nor was proud of, it was a map reference, I had to escape from.

In later years nights out would be spent anywhere but in that place, even though it was the closest town to Gildersome. It was a dangerous violent world in which to spend an evening out, If like me you were a musician with bohemian tastes, outlandish clothes & long hair....well you might as well have painted a target on your head. Even though it was a large city, Leeds was a much safer option for an evening out.

Morley is the birth place of Sir Titus Salt the philanthropist mill owner who founded " Saltaire " for his work force. Complete with decent sanitary housing, a school & library, it is interesting to note that he founded his utopian dream miles away from Morley ( I guess he too wanted to get as far away as I did ).

I wish I could be proud of the place where I was born & attended school but the truth is I cannot. In ten words I can sum up how I feel about it: Plebeian, Tedious, Artless, Violent, Despondent, Dogmatic, Meagre, Coarse, Ugly, Nihilist. In the late Seventies when the CB craze swept the country Morley's call sign was " Slabtown "....How appropriate.

Listening to:

Shihad
Satie
Holst
Beausoleil

1 comment:

Yorkshire Pudding said...

I thought Morley was that old geezer in "A Christmas Carol"... Outlandish clothes and long hair? You were a flipping hippie! No wonder you were exiled to NZ David!