Chapter 16 — Barrow-in-Furness.
It gets some stick, but it’s ‘ite.
I got up far too early this morning considering the way I was feeling yesterday. But I overestimated my body’s ability to recover from a heavy night of partying and booked myself an 8:30am train to Barrow. I’m not sure what I was thinking at the time, but I’ve survived. I’m ready to embrace all that Barrow has to offer me for the next two days.
If you don’t know what or where Barrow is, count yourself lucky.
(I joke, my Mum hates it when I make negative comments about the place I grew up. Sorry, Mum.)
I’m only a little over two weeks in to my year-long Chapter marathon, but I’ve been itching to talk to you all about my hometown. Mainly because I genuinely believe there isn’t a more unique place in the UK than the tiny, isolated piece of land at the bottom of Cumbria called Barrow-in-Furness.
To give a little bit of background, Barrow has a population of about 56,000. We’re pretty small, and there is only one road in and out of the town. If there was ever a zombie apocolypse, we’d either be totally fine, or absolutely screwed.
Actually, the flooding of a few months ago meant we went without fresh bread and daily newspapers for a couple days, so I guess we’d struggle if the rest of the country started eating each other.
A good chunk of Barrow works for BAE Systems, although it’s a struggle to educate people on your town’s largest employer when its name is used as an acronym for endearment. I just chalk it down as another classic Barrow thing, though.
BAE builds big things that defend us, so it’s important. It operates all around the world, but in Barrow we just make ships and submarines. I don’t think we help in the building of planes and security systems and whatever else, but I might be wrong. Pretty sure we just do all the sea stuff though.
Barrow is also in the news quite a lot — if not usually for all the wrong reasons. The press loves to tell us how unhappy and un-trendy we all are, reminding us that Barrow is generally a pretty terrible place to live.
Except it’s not. Barrow is absolutely exceptional.
In fact, for all the love I give Manchester even it can’t compete with Barrow sometimes.
The Lake District
It can’t compete on location for one. Sure, Manchester is a great, big, incredible city, but is it 30 minutes from one of the most beautiful National Parks in the world? Nope.
Manchester is in a good location of course; it has the Peak District about an hour away. But The Lake District just has something about it that puts it above all else for me. Maybe because it’s so far way from any busy, bustling cities.
Sometimes, cities are just the worst. The more time I spend out of Barrow, the more I miss seeing a night sky free of haze and light pollution. I’m not one for astronomy and space, but stars are pretty cool, and living in a city limits your star-seeing opportunities.
Plus, cities are pretty flat. I’m also not much of a hiker, but The Lake District offers a bit of height that is made by the Earth, not a group of builders in Hi Vis jackets and work helmets.
I could post stunning photos of Barrow and The Lake District all day, so I’ll control myself and point you in the direction of two Facebook groups: one and two.
The History
You’ve also got to give Barrow credit for how proud it is of its working class roots. Our heritage is built on serious, blue-collar graft, and everyone in the town is moulded by that heritage.
Sure, some are moulded better than others. And to make a controversial, sweeping statement: there are a stupid amount of dead-ends in Barrow. Too many people who went down the wrong path and never righted themselves. It sucks, but so many of those people have no motivation to ever do more than sit in a council house and rake in the benefits.
Luckily, I’ve met even more people who do have that motivation and drive. That deeply-embedded Barrow hustle. It’s there in every Barrovian (yes, we’re called Barrovians) and it’ll continue to be there for generations to come.
We work hard in Barrow, and I owe a lot to this little town. I’ll never return here to work — I hope — but I’ll always return. Manchester is where I want my future to be, but you can’t erase your roots.
I’ll talk more about those roots in later Chapters, but for now, ciao.
I could write for hours about the best and worst bits of Barrow, but I thought I’d dedicate something small to this place while I’m in the early days of these Chapters. Gives me some personality, you know? More to come in the future.
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