Dirty Old Town at 75

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Archive on 4: Dirty Old Town at 75

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Dirty Old Town at 75

A look back at programmes and recordings from the BBC archives

Presenter Mike Sweeney

In 2024 Dirty Old Town will be 75 years old. Its lyrics were written about the Salford streets they were written on and its writer Ewan McColl used the song to celebrate his grimy, industrial, smoky hometown, starting life as a melody to bridge a tricky junction in his play about Salford - 'Landscape with Chimneys’.

Salford is now a brighter, gleaming city – millions will be invested in new buildings to make it as big as Manchester by the middle of the century 
Presenter Mike Sweeney is as old as the song itself, living alongside the changes in his home city. In fact his life echoes it; having had his own extraordinary journey from working on the docks immortalised in the song , to musician and now to a broadcaster on BBC Radio Manchester just a few yards from where he worked.

Mike will be the guide from the old Salford to the new, how the city has been transformed and how despite the huge changes in the cities character Dirty Old Town is being reclaimed by the city.

The documentary is the central point for a much bigger, exciting project to engage Salford’s working-class audiences with the BBC Networks and departments within BBC North will work together on a project
 
There is already real enthusiasm for the BBC to use the anniversary as a big set piece moment; working with the BBC Philharmonic at ‘We Invented the Weekend’ in June, a festival designed to change the perceptions of Salfordians have about MediaCityUK.

This is a real opportunity to take an iconic song and build a big exciting meaningful event around it to celebrate Salford with Radio Manchester the BBC Philharmonic and Radio 3 6Music and 5live.

Just after McColl first wrote the song, Salford council demanded the city’s name be removed from the lyrics, it just didn’t want to be associated with the image. Now Salford City FC walk out on to the pitch to their fans proudly singing it and the whole city of Salford wants to help us pay tribute to Dirty Old Town.

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