James King(fisher) and The Lone Wolves - Fly Away - UKTV 1985.

I saw something resembling a miracle today. I saw more evidence of the regeneration of what I was told as a kid was 'the most polluted river in Europe'. A river that was constantly dyed some sort of dayglo nightmare colour. A river that, on his first day at work, in, weirdly, coincidentally the same place I witnessed my tiny miracle, my friend Geoff saw a corpse floating upriver. Towards the confluence wiith the Mersey. In dayglo pink water.

Today, I leaned over Victoria Bridge, looking up towards The Lowry Hotel, searching the water and the banks for life, at a spot where I've seen the Peregrines, young and old, a few times when zoooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmm!!! an intense blue streak appeared ahead of me. Straight line. Fast. It disappeared under the bridge.

I've half-spotted them twice before. The first time from the pedestrian bridge designed to take Inland Revenue staff from Salford to Manchester. The second time when I was crossing the bizzarely-desolate bridge over the Irwell at the bottom end of the Museum of Science and Industry.

I came home, glowing, and took up my usual bird guide. Inside it says:
"Exotic, jewel-like bird, most often seen as a flash of bright blue as it dashes upstream....declining resident, becoming decidedly scarce."

Now playing in post-industrial, post-pollution, post-punk Manchester...

The Kingfisher