When I visited my old home town today I wondered what had happened to the lovely trees that lined our small avenue.

The town of my birth is now surrounded by nothing but concrete and steel girders.

How did residents allow this to happen?

I’m pretty sure none of them opted for what they have today. I doubt they knew what the end result would be as the changes would have been made piecemeal over several years.

Nevertheless I won’t be going back. As far as I’m concerned the generations before me let it happen.

As I drove back to Cheshire I started to wonder what future generations will think of us. Aren’t we the ones watching the destruction of our open spaces for ‘affordable homes’ that will never be built?

Aren’t the young families desperate for affordable homes going to blame us for this deceit?

Big changes don’t happen all at once they are spoon-fed and sugar coated to a gullible public who ‘buy’ the excuses.

Did you know that according to Cheshire East’s own monitoring report in 2016/17, only 372 affordable homes were built compared to 638 in 2014/15?

In a period when CEC was pushing through planning consent at a record rate, the number of new affordable homes fell by almost half.

You may want to reflect on that when local elections come around next May.

If you care what your grandchildren think of you make a stand. Show them your fighting spirit.

MUSIC TO SOOTH YOU…I THINK NOT

I HAD a lot of driving to do this week so I decided to buy myself a couple of CDs to play in the car.

The tattooed sales girl was most helpful.

“Fancy a bit of Snoop Doggie Dog?” she enquired. “No thanks, love, I’m married.”

“How about Eminem?”

“M and who?”

“He’s that cool dude who raps about cutting up his mum with a chain saw.”

“Err…I don’t think so.”

“How about the Chemical Brothers?”

“How about you go and help that unfortunate young man over there with the safety pin sticking through his eyebrow and leave me to look around.”

She toddled off with a cheery, “See ya later,” and left me to wander the isles.

Judging by the ‘music’ playing in the shop the kids of today are going to struggle in years to come when the family get together at Christmas for a sing along.

‘Get down with your homies and slap up your bitch’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Mistletoe and Wine.

Despite their demise I noticed that Michael Jackson and Prince are still amazingly popular but I wasn’t in the mood for funky nostalgia.

I wanted something to ease the stress of motorway driving.

My little tattooed friend showed me to the ‘relaxation’ section and left me to rummage.

There were CDs of waterfalls; ocean waves lapping tropical shores and bird songs but by far the largest shelf space was given to whales.

It seems these aquatic marine mammals have a palliative effect on the human psyche.

Apparently five minutes listening to the call of a sperm whale is more beneficial than a month of psychoanalysis (and you don’t have to talk about your mother).

I decided to buy one but it wasn’t until I reached the checkout I discovered just how popular whales have become.

“Ah, Call of the Deep. Mega album that is, mate,” commented the young man on the till with a starter kit beard. “My mum listens to it twenty-four-seven. Do you know how many we move in a week?”

According to Till-Man these deep-sea divas are selling more albums than the Three Tenors. “So how come we never get to see them in concert?” I asked tongue in cheek.

“It’s the tour bus innit?” he replied without the faintest hint of a smile.

“The tour bus?”

“Can’t get ‘em all on can they? Just wait till the video comes out though, it’ll be wicked”.

I had the disturbing image of a dark cellar where his unfortunate mother sat in a rocking chair listening to a never-ending compilation of whale calls.

Suddenly Eminem seemed like an attractive proposition.

PARK AND FIGHT AT MANCHESTER AIRPORT

Returning from a recent holiday we arrived at Manchester Airport around 5.30pm as did a number of other large flights.

We had the usual wait for baggage but no big deal or so I thought. We were through customs without much delay and made our way to the multi-storey car park where we had left our car.

It was like the Wild West.

Dozens of taxis collecting passengers had simply gone to the nearest level and dumped their vehicles.

There were taxis in every emergency space, across every walkway, even blocking the exit – it was utter chaos.

We waited patiently to get out but to no avail.

A couple of angry arguments broke out in front of us and when we called the control room to report the situation we were told they already knew.

If they did then they had no staff on duty to deal with it.

It was chaos.

It took us 45 minutes to leave the car park plus a ringside seat at a fistfight.

No doubt Manchester Airport will find a way you can exit the car park quicker by introducing a ‘Fast Lane’ charge.

Every cloud has a silver lining (for them).

By Guardian columnist Vic Barlow