Not Manchester

Salford is not Manchester. It has never been Manchester.

For a thousand years, the River Irwell has divided two cities that the rest of the world treats as one. On one side: Manchester, the city everyone has heard of. On the other: Salford, the city almost nobody has.

This book tells Salford's story, from the Domesday Book, when Manchester was a footnote within the Salford Hundred, through the Industrial Revolution, two world wars, the rise and fall of the docks, and the reinvention of the Quays. Along the way, the author's own family appear: a grandfather at the docks, an uncle at the power station, aunties at the factories, and a Salford legend called Chunky Baby.

Warm, honest, and unsentimental, Not Manchester is popular history at its best, written by a man who grew up in Salford, lives in Normandy, and has never stopped correcting people who get it wrong.

"Salford was already everywhere its people went."

DAVID OLDHAM is a British author, military historian, and Guardian of the British Normandy Memorial at Ver-sur-Mer. He grew up in Salford and now lives in Normandy, France, with his wife Helen. Not Manchester is his most personal work.