'Everyone knew and looked after each other': Manchester's lost estate where people would go back to live 'in a heartbeat'
A housing estate remembered for the way "every one looked after each other" met a sad end as part an extensive programme of city-wide demolition.
The ground floor of one of the blocks was taken up by a shopping precinct, while smack in the middle of the estate was a public wash house – later a laundrette. The superintendent's office was also part of the wash house building – a title given to the estate's caretaker, handyman and rent collector.
Susan told the Manchester Evening News: "Our was a special one for my dad's job, I think. It had carpets and a lot of them didn't." Susan said the arguments regularly concerned whose turn it was to use the racks. That was until her dad came up with a booking system with a designated time slot.Another busy hub of the estate was the long row of shops that made up the precinct. "There was a green grocers, an iron mongers, a chemist, a shop that sold everything, there was Paris the cake shop, there was an opticians," Susan said.
One terrifying incident which could have ended in tragedy, demonstrated the way the families looked out for each other, Susan recalls. Despite leaving at an early age, Susan has kept in touch with many of the friends she made at Brook House flats, something she puts down to the "solid relationships" she made there. "It gave me a happy and secure childhood," she says.
"It could have been any colour any time of day because of the chemicals that were dumped in there. And it did stink to high-heaven. As kids you didn't realise that and you still played around there. From the mid-1970s, the council began moving families out of the soon to be demolished Brook House flats. David and his family moved out when he was nearly 16-years old in 1977.
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