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Maconie's North West tips

Paul Taylor
22/ 9/2008

WITH the credit crunch in full swing, airlines going bump and the word "staycation" entering the language, it is a good time to be rediscovering the tourist delights on our own doorstep.

If only the British weather would do its bit.

"If ever there was a bad summer to launch the concept of `staycation', it would be this summer," agrees Maconie, sipping tea in the bar at the Malmaison Hotel in Manchester.

"Even loving England and the North West as much as I do, there have been times this year when I've thought it would be nice to be in Marbella."

Affectionate

But, grey skies aside, Maconie slips easily into a new role championing tourism on behalf of the Northwest Regional Development Agency.

It's not a great stretch for the man whose best-selling Pies And Prejudice was an affectionate travelogue around the north of England.

"I was more than happy to do it," says Maconie. I did say at the initial meetings `You do know Pies And Prejudice isn't a puff piece for the north?'

"It's a travel book, and while it does come to the conclusion that the north of England is great, it's not supposed to be a `God's own country' attitude.

"I can say with a completely clear conscience `Come to Manchester or Liverpool for a city break'. But I would not say with a clear conscience that you can have a lovely relaxing weekend off on a sink estate in Wigan."

Maconie has turned his thoughts about the region into a series of essays to appear in national newspapers and glossy magazines in coming months. They are available online and can even be ordered as a book.

Irony

Maconie talks with genuine enthusiasm about Manchester's "buzzing urban life". He will rave about the city's museums and Roman heritage, but is almost equally tickled by the fact that you can get a panini and a latte 24 hours a day.

Now aged 47, Maconie recalls the "desolate" city centre of the 1970s, which emptied every evening when the office workers went home.

"Joy Division could not have happened in the Manchester of 2008," he says. "But the members of Joy Division and New Order say they would rather live in the Manchester of today. I'm not one of these who complains about gentrification.

"There is a certain irony that someone who celebrated the street life of Lancashire has given his name to a chi-chi hotel like the Lowry. But that's good. I gave the Lowry Lecture at the Lowry theatre and in it I said that it was an irony he would have enjoyed."

Read Stuart Maconie's travel diary of the north west and download podcasts narrated by him by going to www.stuartsstories.com .