Scuttler gangs roaming streets

Torrid tales to tell of pain

Suffering, in a hell on earth

back in Victorian Manchester

 

Air unbelievably polluted, poisoned 

sickening smell dominates the landscape

Row upon row of slum and tenement,

amid gas works and dingy ale houses

 

Vast areas of warehouse, mill, and chimney stack

protrude throughout the city black

Acrid smog created by this industrial hub,

of tannery, dye works, foundry, and brewery,

hangs around like the Grim Reaper,

 

Disease waiting to snare it’s next victim,

amid the phlegm ridden coughs of the sickly pale

half starved, downtrodden workers

Any hope now in the distant past

 

A field of blood where paupers laid

Too poor to honour them with a grave

Their bones dug up, crushed and sold

Many a horrid tale would be told

 

Yet from the remnants of demolished church

A bombed out Angel Meadow too

New life breathed fresh air once again

People coming together in harmony

The Lowry Steps leading the way 

Angel Meadow lives today!

May 2023