Is this the end for Rochdale Market?
by Trevor Hoyle
MY ten pen’orth, Brian, for what it’s worth, is that we’re decades
too late to do anything about reviving Rochdale’s market. I have fond
memories from the 50s of both outdoor and indoor markets — the latter
especially where I used to buy ninepenny SF paperbacks
from the book stall. A very warm and welcoming place, especially on a
winter’s day. Somebody told me that Todmorden’s market is very much how
ours used to be, and that it’s a pleasure to visit. We tore it down and
ripped out the heart of the town.
For some reason Bury has kept its market going over the years and
even has coach parties coming from places like Stoke and towns in
Yorkshire to spend a day there. Any hopes that Rochdale can emulate that
is pure fairyland. When the council boasted that
the Metro would bring in floods of eager visitors, my immediate thought
was that the Metro would make it easier for Rochdale folk to escape to
Manchester and Oldham.
A few wind- and rainswept stalls on the Butts was never going to
succeed, any fool could see that. A town centre that can’t sustain a
McDonalds is on a hiding to nothing. When I say I don’t know what the
answer is, I’m really saying there is no answer.
We’re building, for god’s sake, another shopping centre when we have
two that are half-empty to begin with — so then we’ll have THREE
half-empty shopping centres (more like threequarters empty) which the
rate-payers will be paying for for the next forty years.
It’s madness.
Over ten years ago (when I was involved with saving Touchstones
from being massively underfunded by Link4Life) I put forward a strategy
for the town based on its heritage of the Co-op, cotton and Gracie
Fields. The idea was to turn our magnificent town
hall into a cultural heritage centre with exhibits telling the story of
cotton and the industrial revolution. Included would be a Gracie Fields
Experience showing off all the artefacts held in the museum archives of
Gracie’s stage costumes, films, original
recordings and her life story (like the one already in Touchstones but
on a much grander scale). Also there would be a smaller John Bright
display showing the furniture and books we have in the archive.
Alongside this you’d have the Pioneers store on Toad Lane — but
greatly enlarged to include several shops and stalls done up as they
were in the 1800s with shopkeepers dressed in costume. The idea would
be to focus on the cultural and historical romance
of Rochdale’s past and let the commercial side take care of itself. If
people started coming to experience it — via advertising and
word-of-mouth — this would quickly feed through to shops and cafes
opening up to cater for the visitors. The point here is not
to build the shopping centre first — there are shopping centres
everywhere — but to launch a genuine attraction that people want to
visit and then tell their friends about.
Someone asked me if enough people would be interested in such a
venture. I pointed out that the ‘grey’ pound of pensioners and retired
folk amounts to billions in this country, and just such a historical
heritage of cotton mills and Gracie Fields would
appeal to that generation. But it would have to be on a grand scale,
worth the visit, designed and staged by a professional company, and not
just a few tatty exhibits inside dusty glass cases.
Anyway, it’s probably too late now to try this idea, we should have
done it 10 or 15 years ago when I first suggested it.
The last rites, in Roman Catholicism, are the last prayers and ministrations given to an individual of the faith, when possible, shortly before death. The last rites go by various names. They may be administered to those awaiting execution, mortally injured, or terminally ill.
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