Picture Book Moss Side

The ten foot snowman in front of Mrs Powell's was of no interest to James. Neither was the giant snowball as big as a big man that was rolling at a rate of knots towards him. He did a neat little side step just in case it didn't miss. No, all he was interested in was the snow all around, everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Last night on the telly, Burt Ford the weatherman said it would snow really deep but James didn't believe him as the snow in Moss Side was only as thin as skin on custard. Even when the wind blew very hard in the night James thought at the very least there'd be a few bins blown over. So you can imagine his surprise when he opened the curtains and there outside the window was a winterwonderland straight off a Bing Crosby Christmas Special. In two seconds flat he'd brushed his teeth, combed his hair, fought with his sisters and eaten his cornflakes. Now he was having another breakfast, a gobful of crunched up snow. Snow three foot deep tasted different to the usual snow they had in Moss Side. For a start you could actually taste the snow and not bits of tar or whatever was left on the street the night before. And it tasted like the pictures of snow in the encyclopaedias in the front room, sparkling decorations of ice that tingled your tongue and made you glad to be alive. As far as James was concerned Cadogen Street could stay covered in snow like this forever and ever amen. And he would have told Aunty Mary too when she suddenly turned up from nowhere as usual but she had other things on her mind. So instead of saying hello and how are you, she cuffed James across the head.

'You're late, you're late, for a very important date,' said Aunty Mary and she handed James a plastic bag which had in it a small glockenspiel exactly like the one he played in the school orchestra. 'If we run we might just make it for the last bit.'

James was used to Aunty Mary turning up unexpected like this but he had to make sure. 'Run where?' he asked.

'Alexandra Park of course silly,' said Aunt Mary.

Alexandra Park was the park at the end of Claremont Road. On a normal day it was a five minute sprint even if you were the second fastest runner in the class. Not today though. Moss Side wasn't used to having three feet of snow. Besides there were also other things that weren't the same. First of all, from what he could tell, there were cobbles under the snow instead of the usual tarmac, even off Princess Road. And the cars and buses had turned into horses and carriages and people were dressed like they'd just got off a George Formby film. The snow made the horses slip and slide all over the place whilst kids with buckets and shovels followed behind. The people on the pavement just stood there and laughed.

'Eee mother, they're off again,' they said, in their cloth caps, scarves and clogs, waiting for the signal to all join hands and parade down the street singing With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock.

(Forever and ever amen, pages 171 to 172)