Manchester Road is a place of pride (From Swindon Advertiser)

Manchester Road is a place of pride

10:40pm Friday 20th August 2010 in News By Charley Morgan

Angelo De Mello who owns the Goan Bites restaurant

MANCHESTER Road is often described as one of the most colourful areas of Swindon.

The traditional Victorian terrace-lined street has a wide range of shops and residents from all four corners of the globe.

Whereas it once suffered from drug dealing and prostitution, neighbours say it is now a million times better.

But it is still a far cry from when Carole Coates moved here when she was a little girl of seven.

Mrs Coates, now 63, still lives with her husband Richard in the house her father bought when they family moved to Swindon from Cornwall in the 1950s.

“When I first came here I couldn’t believe it. It was such a contrast to me,” she said.

“It seemed like a massive city, full of noise and people and I wasn’t used to that.”

She went to Drove School, which was an all girls’ school then, and remembers the house had an old-fashioned back garden with an outside toilet.

“The road has changed dramatically. It was never snobbish but it was certainly an address you were proud to say you lived in. The houses were beautifully kept,” she said.

“There was an old lady who lived opposite who would always be out cleaning her ‘door furniture’, like the brass knob and letterbox, every morning come rain or shine.

“I often look out and think she would break her heart to see it now.”

Carole said the worst period was when the drug dealing and prostitution took hold in the area.

She said women would be propositioned numerous times, even if they were just popping across to the shops.

“Suddenly you were ashamed to say where you lived because immediately people thought ‘red light district,’” she said.

“It wasn’t so much the working girls, it was their pimps that were the problem.

“It’s a far safer environment on the streets now than it was 10 years ago though.”

She says there have been many benefits, such as traffic calming measures slowing the traffic down.

And in the summer the cosmopolitan area is full of people standing outside their houses on the pavement chatting to neighbours.

“I’ve had different types of neighbour from an old crotchety lady when we first moved in to a young couple who played their music too loud and then a lovely family from Pakistan,” she said.

“They even invited me to their daughter’s wedding, which lasted three days and was amazing.

“I honestly can say I get on better with them than some of my white neighbours from when we first came here.”

Further down Manchester Road, Angelo de Mello, 52, set up his brightly-decorated restaurant Goan Bites back in May.

Mr de Mello, who also works in the mortgage industry and is a part-time musician, said: “There is a massive Goan population in the area and I thought it was high time someone opened a small restaurant for them.

“Especially for the older people – it’s somewhere they can pop in for a chat and a cup of tea.”

But he said the traditional Goan dishes, which feature a lot of pork as well as vinegar, are popular with British customers too.

“Manchester Road used to be an area for prostitution in the past and some people are still worried about that,” he said.

“But now it’s a much more pleasant area compared with 10-15 years ago.”

He said the area has had a transient community for a long time, starting with Italians in the 1950s and ‘60s, then Punjabis, followed by Bangladeshis and now Goans.

“Give it a few years and someone else will move in,“ he said.

Mr de Mello, who often plays his guitar in The Tap and Barrel pub further down the road,said the best thing about the road was that it was good for business as there was a lot of passing trade.

Ivo Pinto, 31, runs a Portuguese cafe called A Tasca just a few doors down from Goan Bites.

He set up his place for similar reasons – to provide a meeting point for the expanding Portuguese population in the area.

Walking into his shop you are immediately hit with the smell of freshly made espresso and traditional Portuguese packets of beans and ground cornmeal line the shelves.

Mr Pinto has lived in Swindon for seven years and used to work in a factory in Chippenham and then in Iceland supermarket, but he saw an opportunity to run his own business.

“It’s good for me, but it’s a lot of work,” he said.

“People told me Manchester Road was dangerous but I have never realised that.

“I always walk around at night time and I have never had any problems.”

Dan Bateman, 33, of Dan’s Cycles, has worked on Manchester Road for the best part of 15 years.

He says it is a great place to run his business from.

“It’s very mixed culturally, and I would say about 80 per cent of my customers are foreign,” he said.

“They all tend to ride bikes rather than drive so it’s very good for our business.”