Marvellous Manningham

There's a narrative that does the rounds that Bradford and the area of Manningham is not nice, all riots, racial disharmony, the worst excesses of poverty......I've lived there and today I visited and that's all a load of tripe to put it politely.

Bradford rocks!! and Manningham is Marvellous.

This morning I went to join a friend of mine with a dozen others on a short photo walk around the streets of Manningham where we discovered another story. For those who don't know the area it is populated in the main by folks of a Pakistani origin and more recently East European economic migrants. It's a thriving community, full of optimism, hard work, strong families, small and large business. As we walked around people were spontanous in their greetings, hospitality and generosity. One of my mini group was a 9 year old who had never wielded a camera before, she has quiet an eye.

Of my many photo's I like this one, they've developed the back of the old library into a beautiful small park, I love that this mum and her two girls have taken out loads of books, the older girl has 8 books in her hands and is holding them like treasure, the younger has a book called Picasso's Trousers (the mind boggles).

I could go on but will leave you with mine and Mark's shots of Marvellous Manningham