THE MANCHESTER MECHANISM

© 1999 C S Barlow (UK)

Print this one out? Approx 7 pages of A4 text

The bright winter sky gradually faded behind clouds of ever-darkening ochre as our mono passed beneath the fringes of the Manchester Hood.

Outside our compartment, through thick plastic and occasionally flickering line shielding, I watched the bomb craters of the blasted moorland increase in size and regularity, yet lose sharp definition in the worsening light.

An excited shout from the youngest of those sharing the compartment drew all attention in our direction of travel. There, rising up beyond the Rochdale Ruins, treble plumes of the blackest smoke imaginable spewing from the Britannia's Trident cowl, was the graceful porcelain spire of the Manchester Mechanism's primary stack.

One of the tallest structures the Empire had been able to build and still adequately shield, it gleamed like a gigantic finger of pearl in its arc-lights. The stack was an embarrassment to the Yanks in its defiance of their missiles and bombs, and a source of unending pride to unthinking patriots.

 

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