Bolton, Lancashire, UK
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
*work in progress*
*comments welcomed*
I used to live in Bolton about five years ago. It's a very very depressing place. A Northern mill town, much of its Industrial Revolution glory fading fast, it now resembles more closely the set of famed soap opera Coronation Street.
There are quite a few pubs - many with nice little gardens, which is good in warm weather. And the locals are quite proud of their gardens, which make the whole town more cheery in the summer months.
In the winter however the entire town becomes grey and drab. Unless you want to spend your day in an out-of-town shopping centre (or wandering around the grubby town centre, with its deserted shops and factory outlets with their permanent 'everything £1' sales)
you might as well jump on a bus or a train and head into Manchester.
In fact, the best thing about Bolton is that it's 20 minutes away from Manchester on the train. (Bolton train station is ugly, too. Not astoundingly, respect-inducingly ugly; just plain old slightly insultingly ugly. Which actually makes the whole thing worse, if that's possible).
And if any current Bolton residents read this and get cross about it, I'd like to say in mitigation that the second best thing about the town is its residents, who possess the kind of tolerance, forbearance and cheerfulness against all the odds (and the weather - it rains a lot in Bolton) that has become renowned as 'the spirit of the Blitz'.
Of course, it could just be sheer bloody-mindedness that stops them from up and moving elsewhere.
*comments welcomed*
I used to live in Bolton about five years ago. It's a very very depressing place. A Northern mill town, much of its Industrial Revolution glory fading fast, it now resembles more closely the set of famed soap opera Coronation Street.
There are quite a few pubs - many with nice little gardens, which is good in warm weather. And the locals are quite proud of their gardens, which make the whole town more cheery in the summer months.
In the winter however the entire town becomes grey and drab. Unless you want to spend your day in an out-of-town shopping centre (or wandering around the grubby town centre, with its deserted shops and factory outlets with their permanent 'everything £1' sales)
you might as well jump on a bus or a train and head into Manchester.
In fact, the best thing about Bolton is that it's 20 minutes away from Manchester on the train. (Bolton train station is ugly, too. Not astoundingly, respect-inducingly ugly; just plain old slightly insultingly ugly. Which actually makes the whole thing worse, if that's possible).
And if any current Bolton residents read this and get cross about it, I'd like to say in mitigation that the second best thing about the town is its residents, who possess the kind of tolerance, forbearance and cheerfulness against all the odds (and the weather - it rains a lot in Bolton) that has become renowned as 'the spirit of the Blitz'.
Of course, it could just be sheer bloody-mindedness that stops them from up and moving elsewhere.
