Memoirs: One day in Manchester

While looking for work in the city of Manchester in April 2012, life was rather different. I lived in Bradford at this time, but Bradford was not exactly the easiest place to find work. I was doing door-to-door direct sales for a wall cavity insulation outfit called Miller Pattinson and it wasn’t really a job. By the wording of the “contract” I had, I was actually self-employed, so I needed a real job real fast.

So when I came across a job advert in Manchester one day, I considered it. A normal person would think, “Bradford to Manchester is 75 miles. That is not a realistic everyday commute.” Me? I thought, well I have a car (which was falling apart, uninsured and had no road tax on it), and I can get up at 5am every morning. The interviewer at the agency was a lady called Sue. She wanted to know, “Do you live in Manchester?” I took in a bunch of information from her facial cues and body language and I decided that the correct answer to that question was “Yes.”

Hoping against hope

“Where?” she pressed further. I did not know much about Manchester. I just knew the major suburbs and areas around it. I did however know that there was a notorious area of the city called Longsight, which has a large black population. The negative of claiming to live here of course, would be that I would be associating myself with drugs and gun crime and all the negatives of a low-income neighbourhood.

There was a notorious area of the city called Longsight, which has a large black population. The negative of claiming to live here of course, would be that I would be associating myself with drugs and gun crime

On the plus side, it would be totally believable that someone that looked and sounded like me would live in Longsight. Which would improve my chances of getting the job. All this calculation was done in less than a second before I gave my answer “Longsight”. I got the job. It was at an outsourcing centre called BSS working on behalf of the Standards Testing Agency. It was a one-month fixed term contract for £6.05/hr and it was the first paid office job I had in my adult life. Now the story gets interesting here.

I had got myself to Manchester for the interview with my old sputtering uninsured Vauxhall Vectra which had less than a quarter tank of petrol in it. The 75 mile M-62 drive had wiped it out and as I got back onto the M-62 to head back to Bradford, the fuel light came on. Needless to say, I had not a penny of money anywhere in the world at that time.

I kept hoping against all hope that the reserve tank would carry me to Bradford somehow. But fat chance of that happening. Just after the 32nd mile, a few miles to the M1 junction, my trusty old jalopy sputtered and died on the road. No more fuel. I parked by the side of the road and held my head in my hands thinking, “How the hell will I get out of this one?”

Casual voyeurism as life unwinds

The answer walked in by itself. I just remembered somehow that a few weeks before, while I was at the bank negotiating for an overdraft (which was denied of course), I happened to see in the terms and conditions of my bank account something about free AA Breakdown cover with the Lloyds TSB Silver account.

I googled “AA breakdown number” on the faulty Blackberry Curve 8520 I was using at the time and I called their hotline number. I didn’t know if I qualified or not, it was just a Hail Mary, a hit-and-hope sort of thing. It turned out I was qualified and a breakdown truck was dispatched.

When he got there, I feigned ignorance about the cause of the problem, knowing full well that he would simply bill me for some petrol and I had nothing to pay him with. Eventually he towed my car to a petrol station and ended up paying for £7 of petrol, which got me home. That AA bill remained outstanding until the end of 2012.

While I was waiting at the side of the road for the AA Rescue van to arrive, I saw this white couple park a few metres ahead and disappear into the bushes for about 30 minutes. While they were gone, I occasionally caught a few grunts and shouts blown in my direction by the wind. They eventually reappeared, all dishevelled and rough. The man looked noticeably happier than the woman. They had no idea that I saw them.

Dogging, it’s apparently called.

I was just a 22 year-old Nigerian who was once a rich kid, and now a poor and desperate jobseeker, waiting at the side of the road for some petrol to get me home, becoming a casual voyeur in the process. That made no sense. But nothing did anymore.

The world was literally upside down.