In the papers over the last few years you may have seen details of people who live in the disused railway tunnels that run under New York City. These are homeless people who have abandoned the streets to live underground. Although dark and lonely, they are safe from the robbers and the rain.
Most cities in the United Kingdom have networks of tunnels.
London for instance has old tube tunnels, mail delivery tunnels, sewers and
sub-surface rivers. To provide employment around Edge Hill in Liverpool, a
gentleman there hired labours to dig a vast maze of tunnels from the rocks
for no apparent reason. It seemed reasonable to me that Manchester would have
some tunnels of its own, be it nuclear shelters or links between basements.
I decided to look for entrances, although there were a few obvious examples
such as the steps on the eastern side of Piccadilly Gardens, I needed to find
more, so headed towards the Central Library. Upon referring to the local plans,
I found a large amounts of hidden entrances just yards from the busy shopping
streets and offices. Taking copies of the maps, I spent a couple of days searching
round the city noting entrances before I headed in.
My first visit to the tunnels could not have lasted more than five minutes.
I found a set of stairs just off Oldham street and descended into another
world. It took a good few seconds to adjust to the absence of light as I walked
down the passageway. Ahead of me the walls stretched away into the gloom.
I could touch both walls at one time and also the ceiling (which considering
I’m only about 5ft10 gives you a good impression of the cramped surroundings).
I wandered along for a bit, but in my haste, I forgot to bring a torch so
I had to turn back and wait for another day.
The next day I had a stroke of luck, somebody replied to my posts on the Internet
and I was going to meet him for lunch. His name was Philip, he was 31 and
a former Electronic Engineering Student from UMIST. He told me take he was
going to get married to a former course-mate a few weeks after they graduated,
but she and some of her friends decided to move into the tunnels and abandon
the outside world. He’d moved in with her for a few weeks, but he couldn’t
take the lifestyle and is now currently working at Siemens in South Manchester.
Although he had a wife and a family, he still met up with his ex-love for
a couple of hours a week, and he would take me to meet her and her group.
Philip took me to set of stairs in an alley off King Street and led me down.
Here the tunnels were larger, the size of a fairly wide corridor, our touches
traced circles along the damp ground. I looked around the walls and saw surprisingly
little graffiti, and also there was almost no litter on the floor. He guided
me round about ten corners and into a large room. Infront of me I saw ten
adults and two children in the corner sitting around a lamp, talking. A woman
got up and hugged Philip, and he introduced me to the group.
This group rather went against my view of homeless people. They weren’t
tattily dresses, they were washed, fed and the men seemed clean shaven. All
the adults were graduates from UMIST or the University. Their degrees ranged
from Engineering to Theology, mostly good grades. I asked my hosts why they
can here and they told me how easy it was to think down here. There was far
less competition between people to succeed in the tunnels and they said how
friendly life underground is. They lead me into another smaller room which
had a small sink in, I gathered that they had tapped into the electricity
and water mains, for once people actually putting their degrees to use.
Apparently the tunnels they lived in were built during the Napoleonic wars
by Mancunion factory owners to provide secret routes for the local soldiers
if Britain was ever invaded. The group who I found are just one of a dozen
that roam down here. All the groups work together, this one dealt with anything
running of the electric and water supplies, others managed waster, food and
clothing. I wanted to know if they ever thought of returning to the surface,
at this there was a split opinion. The two mothers of the group wanted to
give their children the chance to have a normal life, and when they where
older wanted to come back up, some of the others said that there was nothing
up there for them. Personally I could understand people wanting to live this
life after three years of hard graft in University, but after ten years still
being so dishearten by the world that they hide away from it just beneath
our feet.
They told me that none of them had been up above ground for 6 years, the children
had never been up the stairs.
I asked to meet some of the other groups, but they said that they didn’t
tend to associate with outsiders, so I was escorted towards the stairs.
After the silence and darkness below Manchester, the shock
of a bright Saturday on King Street was the perfect contrast of the two communities.
Up here the people were constantly moving, buying superficial items such as
the latest dress to keep up with society. People bumped into each other yet
took absolutely no notice of anybody they came in contact with. Nobody up
here was smiling, just the scowl what society deems acceptable. I’d just
come from a world where people worked for each other, existed to live rather
than lived to exist, but most of all, they were happy. I looked round to Philip
and he smiled, he knew that I’d realised why people still live down there.
Remember when you are walking round the city centre and
you see a set of stairs going down, just remember there are people living
under your feet.
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