Let's move to: Saddleworth, Greater Manchester | Money | The Guardian

Let's move to: Saddleworth, Greater Manchester | Money | The Guardian

What's going for it? You'll hear people in Manchester refer to it – as in, "Oooh, she lives up in Saddleworth" – but you'll search in vain for it on the map. They mention it on Corrie, and you'll see road signs. But you never really seem to get to a place called Saddleworth. It's more a collective noun for a straggle of small towns and villages clinging, down deep valleys, to the side of Saddleworth Moor. Saddleworth is, perhaps, less a place than a state of mind, a sort of Guardian-reading, Sunday-walk-along-the-canal, comfortably-off state of mind. Imagine one of Ken Barlow's artsier friends – beads, floral blouse, a retired lecturer perhaps, with a taste for stirring views, a converted 19th-century stone mill and a place on the parish committee. Yes, they're very community minded here. I doubt they have an evening off with all the brass band competitions, morris dancing festivals and nights out at the White Rose Society.