The Welcome Return of Child Labour

Jump to Comments

I’d like to think it’s something to do with ‘The Spirit Salon’ but maybe it’s just a coincidence that the quintessentially Victorian practice of child labour has made on comeback on the streets of Manchester this week. Three days ago, walking past the park I was confronted by a gauntlet of young scallywags, ruffians and urchins armed with paintbrushes, most of them clad in matching jumpers with the name of some sort of youth ‘project’ prominently displayed (but not prominently enough for me to bother reading). Several of them tried to give me a leaflet, accompanied by the bewildering question, “have you already got one, or…?” Now, I’m naturally very much on the side of sentences ending in the word ‘or’ but apparently all these leaflets were promoting some sort of ‘fun day’ (remember, anything that has to go out of its way to describe itself as ‘fun’, by definition, isn’t) which as far as I could discern consisted entirely of human beings well below the legal working age ‘volunteering’ to paint the park’s extensive outer fence and being paid after several hours’ toil in the sweaty sun with nothing more than bottled water. Admittedly, there was a bouncy castle a few metres away, giving off its own an aroma of reluctance as only inanimate inflatables can: but apparently anyone old enough to walk and/or talk would have to earn the privilege of its anti-gravity delights through a hard afternoon’s fence-painting.

This, as far as I’m concerned, is great. Get the kids out of their homes, get their noses out of their Harry-fucking-Potter books and make them paint things that don’t need painting. Make them smell the nauseating odour of forced labour, chemicals and organised fun. Pay them in water. Tease them with the elusive prospect of a bouncy castle.

Still, there’s nothing particularly unusual about this. Summer’s coming and the kids must be occupied, otherwise they’ll be back hanging around in shop doorways and blasting happy hardcore out of their mobiles, which is ‘intimidating’, or something. What’s more remarkable though are the kids lurking around the taxi ranks of Manchester’s supermarkets, offering to “take yer trolley for yer” (in exchange for the pound coin with which you released it, and perhaps a cigarette or two, seems to be the unwritten law) and even carry your bags to the car and – get this – close the passenger door for you after you’ve got in. I half-expected the lad who did this for me last night to doff his cap to me and say, “much obliged, guv’nr”, before disappearing back up the chimney from whence he surely came. He wasn’t wearing a cap though, and was born in 1999, so probably didn’t even know what a chimney was. He wasn’t wearing a hoody though, either: just jeans, a tee-shirt, an eager demeanour and a genuinely deferential presence. I didn’t have a cigarette to give him, so I gave him a nod instead, which is the next best thing; and he nodded back. No calling me a twat, no ‘wanker’ gestures from his mates at a safe distance. Just a nod in return: a nod that, had it lasted another half a second, I’d have to class as a bow. What the bloody hell’s going on?

1 Comment

Filed under In-ger-land, historical facts

Tags: Manchester, monkey-business, what's going on?