Offline for awhile...

I'm back, although not without difficulty.

Not long after I arrived at my girlfriend's village did the trouble come. Manchester has, like I've written before, fallen into red and green zones; unfortunately, the red zones have happened in the poorest and areas already ridden with crime before the shock. This includes Moss Side, Rusholme, and some of the abandoned industrial sites on the outskirts of the city centre. As the red zones worsened, gangs became more prevalent. the weapons of choice are anything that looks dangerous, swings hard, or fires a bullet.

I wouldn't have foreseen this, but I can now see the regression to the waterways as inevitable. small barges were hijacked and refitted to transport food. Some of the villages along the Bridgewater Canal used eminent domain to claim water vehicles for this purpose early on. Now the hungry, homeless, and essentially helpless have created it as a tactic for piracy.

We heard about it before they reached us. A mass exodus has taken place, and people are trying to distance themselves as far away from the waterways as possible. Towns further up, such as Sale, were hit. The gangs stole vegetables, destroyed irrigation systems, set fire to community barges. I'm sure far worse atrocities were taken out on those who didn't off the fruits of their labours.

My girlfriend, her family, and I didn't know what to do. The town was being torn apart. Some wanted to fight when the gangs came, others wanted to hike into the country. I was inclined to stay, but the best line of defense I had was my horn. I couldn't fight with that!

Or could I? We realized it could be a warning signal. I would station near the canal, and other brass musicians further afield. We used simple tunes to convey messages. Every 3 hours during the day, and once before going to sleep, I would play "God Save the Queen" as a way of establishing all being well and safe. If I spotted anything suspicious, I would use a tune from my youth, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" I taught it to the other musicians, and it was established every several days we would run a "mock" drill, to keep people fresh.

///Continued Tomorrow///