Ode to Pomona

"Woe, Woe and Thrice Woe", as Frankie Howard used to lament in Up Pompei. As usual, I should have been spending my limited time working from home today, on paid commercial work. But hey, Friday's so often end up in unpaid interesting diversions and little aberrations. Today was no exception, as I reacquainted myself with an old friend, the Roman Goddess called Pomona.

I am running a site tour on Monday with a group of planning research students. I need to brief them before they explore the design potential of a still derelict Pomona Docks in Manchester (just 'up-river' from the Ship Canal and on an island spit between River Irwell and Bridgewater Canal). The group's research is for the Canal and River Trust, but I feel an urge to share my detailed knowledge of the site gained during a year spent on my Diploma scheme in '86.

By way of preparation, I dug out my old presentations from a dusty portfolio. Big mistake. That was it then, off down memory lane. It seemed strange to be looking back over collages of pencil drawings, stick-on transfers and Letraset lettering, but Computer Aided Design was only just coming in then, and so the standard default was still the good old fashioned drawing board. I'm a Grumpy Old Man, no doubt (MrsB tells me often enough, and I even got the mug from her saying so for Christmas), but I can't help feel that something has been lost in the creative design process nowadays.

Pomona was the Roman Goddess of fruit trees. Because of that, the name link to this old victorian dock seems odd. However, before all that industry it was a genteel public 'Pleasure Garden' as well as the location of a grand Pomona Palace, where Disraeli spoke once. More recent times (well the 70's) even saw a floating pub and 'ship with seven bars' called the North Westward Ho!; as well as a restaurant based in an ex RAF DeHavilland Comet for goodness sake.

I have always loved the place for it's odd eccentricity. I am hoping it can be reborn again with something equally potty.