My home town of Oldham is the sort of place people imagine when they think of ‘The North’. It has mill chimneys, redbrick terraced streets and a rain-swept football ground (the third highest in the country) where supporters of the perpetually struggling Oldham Athletic queue for hot Vimto or a bag of black peas.
Oldham is now the most deprived town in England, according to the Office for National Statistics. Crime and unemployment are high; investment, wages and prospects generally are pitifully low. Boarded-up shops and dilapidated factories tell a sorry tale of economic woe.
It wasn’t always like this. My family’s home, in the leafy suburb of Werneth, was in one of many large houses built around 1900 for the managers of the local textile mills. From the fine mahogany mantelpieces to the art-nouveau fittings, everything was of the best, testimony to the industrial wealth that once coursed through Oldham’s veins.
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