Jonathan Schofield Manchester Tours
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Meat hunters, delightful stand-up comedians and scary monikers

22/5/2025

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By way of introduction to this article let's start with the one of the weirdest intros I've ever had.

I was in Oldham to give a talk about architecture and development in Greater Manchester from 1945 onwards. The audience was a U3A group (the University of the Third Age, elderly folk in other words).

"Welcome everyone," the chair of group said. "Sad news first. Tom, who many of you knew, and a member for many years, has passed away. Moving on, let me introduce you to Jonathan Schofield who will talk to us today about post-war architecture."

I confess I didn’t quite know how to start: recent death and deck access flats all caught up in the same breath. 
PictureLS Lowry waits by the bar in Sam's Chop House
“Hey Mr Jonathan, if we want to eat meat where should we go?”

Strange the requests a guide gets. A tour of charming eighteen-year-old Spaniards visiting Alty boys grammar on an exchange programme featured such a request. “There’s a lot of meat out there, lads,” I said. The leader of the trio who were posing the question said: “We’d like a steak, a true British steak,” adding the word, “meaty.” His friend said, ‘We hear British steak is very good.”

I gave them choices, Hawksmoor, Blacklock, Black Friar but they went to Sam’s Chop House because they preferred somewhere “traditional and old” and they seemed excited about sharing the bar space with a big, bronze, moody miserabilist. In other words, the seated statue of ex-regular, the late Laurence Stephen Lowry who at Sam’s Chop House is anything but a ‘matchstick man’ (see the picture above). 
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I get a lot of questions about good restaurant recommendations which is to be expected given dining out is one of the joys of visiting or living in a city. This was unusual as it concerned a single food type. Still, it wasn't as strange as the request I received many years ago for a recommendation for a restaurant that specialised in carrots. That remains still an unexplored restaurant opportunity within Manchester’s hospitality sector. There were vegetarian and vegan options of course but not one that specialised in carrots. 

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Some of these young Spaniards are craving steak

Speaking of food stuffs, a couple of days after the steak question I was taking an Oslo-based housing association group on architectural tour. They were in Manchester and Liverpool on a ‘study visit’. In my experience study visits largely consist of a couple of morning sessions and meetings and then some tourism, shopping and finally it's “where’s the best pub?”

Northern European countries are particularly good at study visits, both civic and commercial, which retreat into inverted commas as ‘study visits’ the longer they go on.

At the end of this tour one of the guests asked me to wait with her colleagues for a moment. We’d finished at their hotel (Innside by Melia if anyone's asking). She skipped to her room and returned with a gift. Scandis have this finey custom of always bringing small gifts for the people they've arranged to meet.

The woman returned and said: “This is traditional Norwegian chocolate from Oslo.” It was branded ‘Freia’ and it was milk chocolate but as she was handing it over she read the wrapper. “Oh,” she said, “this was made in Lithuania not Norway, oh dear, ha, ha.”
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The slogan of the chocolate is Et lite stykke Norge which means ‘a little piece of Norway’ but doesn't include the extra words 'sometimes, not from Norway'. Globalising and its cost cutting trips us all. Dyson vacuum cleaners - so British eh? 
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A Norwegian study group on a study tour

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A little piece of Norway made in Lithuania
Taking so many people around reveals unexpected connections with Manchester.

Jed was a cheerful, American 'soccer' fan. His team is Minnesota United. After I’d played an Oasis song, Jed said: “The Minnesota United fans all sing Wonderwall if we win a match.” Bewildered, I asked why? He said, “We had this coach and before the players went out on to the pitch he used to sing them Wonderwall. When the team won promotion, they came over to the fans and sang Wonderwall to us so we now sing it back to them if they win. It’s become a tradition. The scarves even have Wonderwall on them.”

I said, “How strange, but from a Mancunian point of view, very lovely too."

Then something he’d said puzzled me: "You only sing it when you win?”

He said yes. I told him the phrase ‘You only sing when you’re winning’, was sung as sarcasm by UK fans to indicate the opposition fans were not true fans and didn't stick with the team through thick and thin.

I'm not sure he understood, the Americans often have a different mentality to the Brits.

Jed did understand about Oasis though. “Is it true the brothers are both real fans of Manchester City and hate Man Utd? Would they hate we sing Wonderwall as we’re Minnesota United?”

“Absolutely, they might fight you,” I laughed.

This is the link to the fans crooning like Liam, or something like that. 
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Jed is the third from the left

Music. The passions it delivers are immeasurable. One woman from Finland declared on a music tour how she was a massive fan of Joy Division and Nick Cave. She was in Manchester for the former not the latter of course. She surprised me by declaring she’s given her son the forenames of Ian Curtis Cave. Wow. As people probably know, both have tragic histories, one with his depression and subsequent suicide and the other with the death of two children and with his addictions. The Nick Cave Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 is at times a very difficult listen.
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I think all I managed was a suprised "oh".

She wasn’t with her son though. She was with her daughter. "So what's your name then?" I asked. The young woman said: "She called me Eliza Day." That is the title of an unremittingly grim Nick Cave ballad featuring Kylie Minogue. It has a haunting dark beauty that ends with the male protagonist killing the female with a rock and throwing her in a river. 

The mother, Hannele I think, was happy about one thing. While on a visit to Curtis’s grave in Macclesfield she’d bumped into Stephen Morris, the drummer of Joy Division and New Order in the humdrum surroundings of an Aldi car park. 

"That really made my day,” Hennele said. “Did it give you True Faith?” I quipped referencing my favourite New Order song. Eliza Day nodded her head in agreement and carried on the joke with the line: "I used to think the day would never come." You’ll have to be familiar with New Order songs to get that reference.
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The cover of the New Order single True Faith with its beautiful design by Peter Saville

​One of the most remarkable and stimulating people who came on a recent Saturday music tour was Dasha. She was early thirties and from Russia although she currently lives in Spain. She had a far more comprehensive knowledge of music, British and international, than I will ever have.

We went for a drink after the tour. This often happens with guests. It’s a good way of getting to know people beyond the necessarily one way street relationship of a guide talking at people for ninety minutes or so.
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Dasha was great company and had diverse interests and hobbies to say the least. She was naturally funny with superb English. Both the humour and the English would come in handy as the following evening she was off to an open-mic comedy night, not to watch, but to perform. In English.

Indeed, due to return to Spain on the Monday she stayed in Manchester for the best part of a week working remotely, won over by the city. She took part in several open-mic nights in Manchester and Liverpool and nearly in Chorley when she got on the wrong train.

Tour guiding is performance. A good tour guide entertains, a bad tour guide lectures. I use a lot of humour but people haven’t come on the tour for the humour as such, it’s a bonus. Stand-up comedy is there for one thing to make people laugh. Apparently Dasha made her audience laugh and while she had done some stand-up in Spain she’s really just started and is not a seasoned professional. You have to admire her bravery in coming to the UK and getting up in front of an audience. 

I meet a lot of remarkable people on my tours and Dasha was one of them. 
 
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Dasha in full flow
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Buildings, new restaurants and 'We'll Meet Again'

13/4/2025

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I was doing some research the other day and I had no idea that the writers of one of the most famous British songs of all time were Mancunian. Ross Parker and Hughie Charles were the team behind ‘We’ll Meet Again’, the forces and people’s favourite wartime song and performed by  Vera Lynn of course. I’m going to do more digging about the composers who also scored a hit with ‘There’ll Always Be An England’.
 
For foodies three excellent restaurants have opened in the city centre. Winsome is very British in style (here’s the menu) from the superb chef Shaun Moffat, big portions too and is at 74 Princess Street. Pip is modern British from another local and excellent chef in Mary-Ellen McTeague, elegant food this one with the menu yet to be posted online but the fish pie is excellent. It sits on Blackfriars Street in the old Renaissance Hotel, now the Treehouse Hotel.  Then there’s Bruco in Ancoats on Murray Street with, I suppose, one would call, modern Italian and a coolly and beautifully simple dining space (here’s the menu).
 
Robert de Niro anyone? He wants to be involved with the new towering giant of Manchester’s growing skyline. This is Viadux Two, the 243m (that’s 807ft in old money) high residential block that will somehow be crammed in the already jammed spot next to Deansgate-Castlefield Station and Beetham Tower. This will the third tallest tower in the UK and easily the highest outside London, given that at present the highest tower outside London is South Tower at nearby Deansgate Square at 201m (659ft).
 
Viadux Two will include a high-end (literally) restaurant, 160-bed five-star hotel, and 452 luxury branded residences. The entire building will be operated by the American hospitality brand Nobu part-owned by Mr De Niro. The tower will be designed by Simpson Haugh, Manchester’s go-to tower designing practice. Here’s gentle criticism of the repeated use of one designer back before the Nobu connection.
 
Also here’s a short Instagram video of a ride past Strangeways Prison with in the text a bit of history. And here's another one about the mad monsters in Salford.

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William Mitchell's mad concrete monsters

8/4/2025

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This is Robert Waterhouse writing on 12 June 1967 in The Guardian the year these beasts appeared. Clearly Salford students were well up on classical allusion.

‘At the entrance to the inner square of Salford Technical College three concrete figures stand guard. They link the solid, functional north-west wing with the more elegant, sculptural lecture theatre. They are seen as easily from the main road as from a third-floor teaching room. They are of Florentine size, though the students have understood their more primitive nature and christened them the Three Aphrodites - Urania, the heavenly one. Genetrex, the earth mother, and Pome, purveyor of lust.

‘To William Mitchell, their creator, they are simply decorative objects, a landscaping commission which he completed in ten days, casting each figure on site straight from the mixer into four or five polyurethane moulds at the low approximate cost of £4,000. Mitchell's gay, gargantuan objects were included in the architects' contract for the college; it was they who suggested to Mitchell that he should work on three figures. They also felt that the large end wall of the first floor concourse needed decoration, but they couldn't afford to allow far this in their estimates.
‘Incongruous in Salford? The Victorians loved extravaganzas in the heart of their industrial miasmas. Here are worthy successors, and in much better planned surroundings.’

I love these monsters. Lots of people despise them. At first sight they seem as dated as footage from Woodstock with beads, mini-skirts and headbands. But get up close, walk around them, peep into their nooks and crannies, rub your hands over their folds and bulges, and there’s a certain sensual attractive horror to them. Mitchell deliberately mixed up the colour scheme, the types of concrete and even included bits of mosaic.

He was naughty though in offering no interpretation of what they might mean (his title was 'Untitled') although we know he was having an 'Aztec moment' as you can tell from the style? Was he teasing us with a work that subsequently he knew might sum up urban alienation? Probably not but the good news is that in 2012 the monsters were Grade II listed.  
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Zurich, music,  Corrie & love ain’t easy or is it?

2/4/2025

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It was a music tour and a man in a cap and in his mid-forties was telling me in perfect English how he’s from Zurich and called Etienne.

He said: “I’m here for this tour and it’s my birthday so my partner has treated me. I love Manchester music. It’s always talked to me. She’s also got tickets for the Coronation Street tour tomorrow”.

I said: “You like Coronation Street? A bit of a contrast to Zurich I imagine.”

Etienne said: “I like how it depicts the life here, I mean in Manchester, or I suppose it does. I love the accents and how people say things. I like the humour. I also like how The Smiths had the Coronation Street sign over their heads with that famous picture of Salford Lads Club on The Queen is Dead album.”
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One of these places is Zurich and one is Coronation Street
Before I could say anything, he smiled and held up a hand. “Oh I know it’s not the same Coronation Street as on the album.” Etienne was proud of his Manchester knowledge.

“It’s not far away from the original,” I said. “I interviewed the original script writer Tony Warren many years ago. He said he’d based his first scripts on Archie Street which is the same area of Salford, a place called Ordsall. But I don’t watch the soap. I watched it for a while ages ago in the eighties when it was more like a sitcom, it was very light-hearted. I’m pretty sure it didn’t accurately depict life here then nor does it do now probably. Anyway, isn’t it supposed to be all issues-based these days?”

Etienne laughed. He said: “There is a lot of that.” He put on a stern tone and in a very convincing generic North Western accent recited:  “If you have been affected by any of the issues in this programme please call…” He laughed and said: “That happens after almost every programme.”

He paused: “I believe I am the only Corrie, as you say I think, fan in Switzerland.”

I said: “Etienne, that would be difficult to prove that but I’m very prepared to believe you.”

“You know,” he said, “this weekend break with first Manchester music and then a tour of Coronation Street will be one of finest times of my life.”

His partner overhearing this laughed and gave him a hug.
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Etienne is in the cap to the right of the man with the sunglasses and a cap
Music tours are very joyous things. All ages and all nationalities come along. Mostly they come for the famous eighties and nineties bands but get dragged in by other music too.

On a recent tour there was a Columbian and a Brazilian women, both previously unknown to each other along for the ride. They were both mid-twenties and both loved the eighties and nineties bands. But then they loved all the music.

The Columbian danced to every intro I played and clapped her hands in delight to a complete range of wildly disparate tunes and bands from Love Will Tear Us Apart through Relight My Fire, Supersonic, I Am The Resurrection, There Is A Light and Never Gonna Give You Up. Others started involuntarily joining in.


The two Latina women were friends by the end of the tour and went off to lunch together.   
 
When I started the Manchester music tours I’d expected lots of people my age to respond, or even those a generation younger, but when twenty-something Americans, as happened this month, start singing along to the Buzzcocks this is clearly not the case.

As stated above the tours have pan-generational appeal.

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The Smiths drag more music fans to Manchester than any other band
There can be dark shades to the tours. When I mentioned to a mid-fifties German couple who’d paid for a private tour how people can get married in The Smiths’ room in Salford Lads Club, they got excited and simultaneously exclaimed: “Let’s do that!”

I deadpanned that I might have to get to know them better first.

They explained their reaction in an unexpected way.

Or rather the woman did, saying: “We love our kids  but we both hate our ex-spouses.”

“They are not ex yet,” said the man, “we are waiting for our divorces, then we can get married.”

“But when that happens we’ll come back and get married in The Smiths’ room,” said the woman ecstatically.

“Oh yes,” he boomed just as passionately and high-fived her saying: “And that will be us free at last.”

These were clearly a wealthy couple. They travelled ten times a year to watch gigs all across Europe and the globe. Apparently their exes had hated gigging which to quote Guy Garvey of Elbow had clearly become Grounds For Divorce.


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The Smiths' room at Salford Lads Club
Earlier the tours that weekend had delivered a sweeter story while taking people around the mighty Kimpton Clock Tower Hotel, formerly the Refuge Assurance Building from the late 1890s and extended in the early twentieth century.

I always ask if anybody in the group had worked in the building before the founding company left in 1987.

David and Pat had.

They’d met at the Refuge in 1961 when she was 15 and he was 16. They’d starting flirting with each other as soon as they’d met and before they were twenty they’d married. They had now amassed upwards of 54 years of companionship and brought up children along the way. They appeared almost extravagantly in love as though the years hadn’t touched their affections.   

Conditions were different back when they’d started. They both talked about how women were paid much lower wages (not exactly an extinct practice) than men even though as David said: “She was much cleverer than me.” And of course married women had to leave work if they got pregnant. The state believed that motherhood had become their job whether they wanted to give up work or not.

With a grin David said: “It was great at the Refuge, there was a 10 to one ratio of females to males. Great odds that.”

And then he added: “Why would anybody want to work from home? Especially if you’re young. How do you meet people?”

“Online,” said a member of the group in a tone dryer than the Atacama.

Next time: Steak, Spanish lads & Norwegian chocolate

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David and Pat and the group in the Kimpton Clock Tower Hotel
There's sixteen pages of music tour in the new edition of my guidebook. You can buy it here. There's a picture of a happy customer from Switzerland below.
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Big Strangeways changes proposed plus a bit of background

7/3/2025

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Of all the scruffy areas of the central conurbation, the Strangeways/Cheetham Hill Road area on the border between Manchester and Salford is the worst. There are lots of wholesale retail, rag trade and food outlets with too much litter. Buildings are often rundown and look either temporary or obsolete.

For years the area was known as the counterfeit capital of Europe although this is now changing as the local authorities and police have clamped down.

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Architecturally it’s crazy, with good, even significant buildings, cheek by jowl with the aforementioned decrepitude. Sadly even the good buildings are usually in a state of hopeless disrepair.

There are former theatres, a decayed ice skating rink, old synagogues, a former town hall, zillions of modern warehouses and a brewery - the magnificent Joseph Holt brewery. On the picture below a man who so loves Joseph Holt beer he's got the Derby Street entrance to the brewery tattooed on his back.
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The biggest fan of Joseph Holt brewery has the entrance tattooed on his back.
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Derby Street, the former Jewish School on the left and the former headquarters of Marks &Spencer on the right.
The traders in Cheetham Hill and around Bury New Road are largely of Asian and Middle-Eastern origin. Before these traders arrived there was a Jewish community here, hence the Jewish Museum on the main road. In Derby Street an Asian wholesaler sits inside a former Jewish School from 1869. This was built by the established Sephardic community (originally from around the Mediterranean basin) who wanted to teach the incoming Ashkenazi folk, poorer Jewish immigrants, how to be more British. Yiddish wasn’t allowed. 

​Across the road is the former headquarters of Marks and Spencer from 1901-1923, also a clothing wholesaler. The working class Ashkenazi came to Britain to make a living and find opportunity in a safe and stable place and that’s what many of the recent immigrants have done. It’s the way history in cities flows in these types of places, different groups replace each other.

Cycling around the location I also noticed the area is the home of Town Girls Manchester which opens from 11am to 5am every day apparently. No idea what that place does. 
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A film crew about to interview yours truly on a sunny day some years ago with the old entrance to Strangeways Prison behind.
There’s also the prison here; Strangeways Prison now known as His Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Manchester.

And this is the big problem with redevelopment.

Manchester have politely asked the Ministry of Justice if they wouldn’t mind vacating the prison and building one somewhere else. They’ve asked coyly with a pretty please and a big-eyed disarming look. It hasn’t worked. The Ministry of Justice are going nowhere. The prison has a capacity of 745 and as anybody following the news will know the Ministry needs all the beds it can muster.

Still, despite the problems the councils of Manchester and Salford are approving a masterplan for the area which will go to public consultation at the end of March.

This is what they have released to the press.

The draft Strategic Regeneration Framework (SRF) reports will be heard by both Councils’ respective executive and cabinet committees outlining the vision that will guide wide-scale investment and development across the 130 hectare city fringe location over the coming decades.   

The draft Strangeways and Cambridge (the Salford side of the project) SRF presents a high-level vision for the area, building on the work of the Operation Vulcan policing operation, to provide a platform for legitimate businesses to grow and thrive, alongside a major new urban park, significant new housing – including affordable homes – and significant commercial and employment opportunities.  
 
The programme of investment estimates the combined development areas could see up to 7,000 new homes across seven distinct ‘neighbourhood’ areas, increased commercial floorspace of around 1.75m sqft, and the regeneration could support an additional 4,500 jobs. 

The draft SRF presents a development approach that will support Manchester’s target to become a zero-carbon city by 2038 and reacts to other environmental factors in the areas, including potential flooding linked to climate change.   
 
The SRF also reflects how HM Prison Manchester – formerly Strangeways Prison – remains a significant barrier to the regeneration ambitions in this part of the city and the framework will act as an engagement tool with the Ministry of Justice around the long-term future of the prison. 

The key themes of the SRF include: 
Business and Employment: Increase business and employment opportunities – supporting ongoing economic growth in both Manchester and Salford. 
Green and Blue Infrastructure: Create a network of green spaces and celebrate the River Irwell – including the creation of a large new city centre park (working title: Copper Park) - and respond to flood risk 
Movement: Prioritise a ‘people first’ approach to the regeneration, including active travel while carefully managing parking, servicing and delivery requirements.  
Heritage and Culture: Celebrate the existing architecture and heritage buildings in the area as part of the comprehensive regeneration plans. 

This  draft Strangeways and Cambridge SRF document has been prepared on behalf of MCC and SCC by Avison Young with Maccreanor Lavington Architects, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Schulze+Grassov, Civic Engineers, Useful Projects and PLACED. 

Following the respective Council approvals, consultation around the SRF document will begin at the end of March, the results of which will be reported to future Executive and Cabinet meetings. 


Further information on the SRF can be found here. 

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Modern map showing the area where redevelopment is planned
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Strangeways Prison in the 1940s with the bombed out Assize Courts on the right.
By the way the strange name of Strangeways, which seems totally appropriate for a prison, refers to a family name meaning a place next to a stream or a river with a strong current. Perhaps the Manchester family of the Strangeways derived their name from the River Irwell or River Irk both of which bordered their estate.

Strangeways must have been idyllic once. We have a picture of Strangeways Hall from the middle of the 18th century by mapmakers Casson & Berry when it was in the ownership of Francis Rynolds.

A later map, with the south at the top of the page, shows Strangeways Park with extravagant water features. The growing city blew all that away and in 1868 the vast and gloomy Strangeways Prison opened designed by Manchester Town Hall architect Alfred Waterhouse who had already completed the spectacular Assize Courts which were destroyed by bombs in World War II.

Maybe that promised new park can restore something of the former Strangeways Park beauty.

I am conducting a tour of this area on Sunday 4 May.  Book here.
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NAPOLEON INVADES, THE LAKES, RARE TREES, AND THE PROBLEMS OF FARMERS' DAUGHTERS

6/2/2025

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This is a draft post I made in 2021 which I hadn't published on my website although I had in other media. Seems a shame to waste it so here it is.

I travelled up to the Lakes last week and met up with my brother to pay homage to a five acre parcel of land in the South Lakes my late dad purchased in the seventies. It’s a piece of paradise.

But let’s begin with an entertaining conversation I overheard on the way back. I’m all for a bit of travel eavesdropping on trains, especially when it’s accidental and the people chatting coerce you, in a manner of speaking, to listen.

I got the train back to Manchester from Oxenholme. I wasn’t the only passenger boarding. Two young women in their early twenties, boarded as well and sat on the table across the aisle from mine. Their volume control was broken and stuck on ten.

​Initially I was thinking why aren’t you both staring silently and raptly at your phones like everyone normal at your age. Yet the conversation started to drag me in, complete with the girls’ lovely Westmorland accents, that odd combination of north Lancashire, Yorkshire and Geordie.

Here’s part of the conversation.

K: Do you think people can tell we’re farmers?
D: Farmer’s daughters you mean?
K: (laughing): It’s not like we smell of barns.
D: (laughing): Not usually.
K: Well, why do meet so few interesting lads?
D: Interesting people, you mean?
K: It’s the friends’ group. It’s too small. We all end up going with each other. Then it’s embarrassing.
D: I know. I broke out once remember. For a bit. I had that thing with that lad in Skipton. Another farmer of course and dead good-looking but thick and ate awfully. Chomp, chomp. It was disgusting. Like a pig.
K: And can you remember that one I went with up at Kirkby Stephen for a couple of months.
D (laughing): Yeah, he really did smell like manure.

That made me laugh too, but I gave up, as the volume became too much, and put my headphones on and watched Morecambe Bay pass by to music. There were glimpses of the sands and over them the Lake District mountains appeared, Old Man Coniston prominent and then the last outlier, the dark humped bulk of Black Combe. It’s curious how the Lake District is so-called given it has so many mountains. Did ‘the Mountain District’ ever look likely to stick? Lakes are more distinctive I suppose. The Lake District is better, describes a characteristic.
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Then we crossed the River Lune north of Lancaster. The tide was out and it occurred to me, as a non-sequitur, that rail travel is far more like floating than flight. Flight is a pointless bouncy castle of an experience compared to rail travel, usually conducted in a fog of cloud. The train, tied by gravity to the earth, flies smoothly through landscapes, with just enough fluctuations of movement, bumps for want of a better word, to show we still have the soil under our rails. It’s fast enough to get to places quickly, slow enough to watch the landscape change, yet close enough to almost feel it.

The next major river, the chatty girls and I crossed, was the Ribble. Ah lovely Ribble, a noble river, that starts in the Dales and flows into the Irish Sea fresh as daisy from its ramble through the north west of England.
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I wondered at geography and geology lately on a walk up Pen-y-ghent mountain in the Dales where we'd found rare purple saxifrage flowering close to the summit almost artfully sited next to some residual snow. On one side of that very good-looking Pennine peak the waters all flow east into the North Sea and on the other side they flow west into the Irish Sea.

One of those ‘waters’ is the River Ribble. I don’t know why the watershed there creates wonder in me but it does. It seems significant in intuitive ways. Something to do with how the planet moves, how gravity falls, how nature behaves, how brief it makes our lives appear when compared to a geological timescale. I find nothing melancholy in that thought, on the contrary it’s reassuring.
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Anyway, as stated, the purpose of the visit to the Lakes was to stroll a parcel of land the family call with great cunning ‘the Land’. We do this on the anniversary of my late mum’s birthday. There are three pasture meadows with extreme height differences in the terrain, turned into a sanctuary for flora and fauna by my dad’s monomania with trees. Much remains grassed of course, often sprinkled with cowslips, but the list of rare trees and shrubs impresses anybody interested in such matters.

​The views are superb, north up the A6 to the dramatic ridge of Whinfell and south over Kendal, seven miles away, then into Lancashire. To the south east, at night and three miles distant, the west coast mainline trains and their lit compartments appear as snakes, bodies sparkling with bright light, winding over the shoulder of Benson Knott.
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After ‘the Land’ we went to Bowness for a drink and a meal in the sunny April chill. My brother Robert likes to discover rare books in charity shops so we had to stop off in one of those. There was nothing for him but I found Napoleon Bonaparte.

Or to give him his full name and title: ‘Napoleon Bonaparte, by the Grace of God and the Constitutions of the Republic, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Mediator of the Swiss Confederation’. Old Boney (as he was known over here) seemed a bit confused back then. Can you be an emperor through the constitution of a republic?

My Boney is about a foot high and ceramic. I knew he was small but not that small. He was priced £3 and is totally rubbish but it amused me to buy him and then we posed him all across Bowness, next to swans, on grassy mounds, on the lunch table.

The following day we went to Shap Abbey, which is perfectly hidden in a fold of the hills between the Lakes and the Pennines. It is a noble ruin with the principal feature the west tower. We posed old Bonaparte there too. Nobody was about, until as we left, over a footbridge, we passed a couple in their thirties with matching rambling poles. They did that tiresome Covid-shimmy to one side as though we had bubos popping out of our cheekbones, even though we were in miles of open country.

Best thing was as they retreated we heard one of them say, “That’s odd. Do you think Napoleon had something to do with Shap Abbey?” It’s the sort of thing that creates a rumour that turns into a myth that becomes a fact. So, when you hear somebody say that Napoleon made a secret visit to England and stayed at Shap Abbey you’ll know it started with a daft man who bought a tacky ceramic statuette from a charity shop as a laugh.
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When I got back to the flat my subscription of ‘History Today’ was in the letter box. One of my sons bought me this subscription as a Christmas present. The main story was called: ‘Napoleon, Life after Death’, and there was Boney with exactly the same coat as my statuette on the cover.

​I love a good coincidence, which was compounded when on a walk across town to the excellent Ducie Street Warehouse for a meal I discovered there’s a new casino, bar and restaurant, opening on Portland Street called Napoleon’s - although by then I was beginning to worry something sinister was afoot.
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Favourite Mcr buildings. Part 1: The Former YMCA

31/1/2025

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Here's the former YMCA (1911), now St George's House, on Peter Street by Woodhouse, Corbett and Dean. The first UK building to be built of reinforced concrete on the Kahn system, named after a German-born American engineer). 

​The buff and brown terracotta-faced building mingles tremendous Art Nouveau motifs with an essentially Baroque form. That Art Nouveau though. Wow. Look at that stretched Manchester coat of arms, bees and ship and all? Magnificent.
There’s a cracking copy of Renaissance artist Donatello's St George too. St George seems to be staring at the queue for coffee-shop Ezra & Gil wondering whether a coffee is worth queuing outside in all weathers. The festoons are hung vertically not dropping from two higher fold points. Crazy stuff. 
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The massive arched entrance could be the entrance to a fancy road tunnel under a mountain. The YMCA was strong in Manchester with its own sports teams in local leagues. Keeping a body beautiful was part of having a clean spirit in the Young Men’s Christian Association. To this effect the building hosted a gym, a running track, two fives courts on the roof and a top floor with a swimming pool.

​If co-working had been a thing when the building was converted twenty years or so back then maybe these would have been retained. It’s a building that whiffs of the changes taking place in architecture in the early 20th century. Catch it in the sun and that terracotta glows. 
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The building replaced a building of 1833 for the Natural History Museum of Manchester. The collection was transferred to Manchester Museum when that opened down Oxford Road, the building closed but in 1876 the YMCA moved in and then demolished it and gave the city this real Manchester gem: a gem presently hosting excellent food and drink Haunt and Exhibition.

You can read more about Manchester buildings in some of my Manchester books at or on Manchester Confidential
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Favourite Manchester Buildings: Part 2. St Wilfrid's, Church, Hulme

29/1/2025

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​Here’s the former St Wilfrid’s RC Church in Hulme, converted to workspaces in the 1980s. It looks a little dowdy and plain but it’s important. It was designed by famed and controversial nineteenth century architect Pugin who like Pele has a somewhat more elaborate full name, in the architect’s case, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. 
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The church was finished in 1842 when Pugin was a relatively young man of thirty two. In some respects this most talented of designers would remain young dying just ten years later. He’s perhaps best known for the interiors of the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) but if you want your eyes to pop out of your head in terms of rich decoration nip down to Cheadle, Staffordshire (not GM) and ogle St Giles’ Church - pictured below.
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Pugin was a key player in the Gothic revival and a return to spirituality in church architecture. He was making a religious point over this as he’d converted to Catholicism and was very passionate about his new faith. As with St Giles, St Wilfrid’s was paid for by John Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury, Pugin’s patron, another Roman Catholic.
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There was very little money though so St Wilfrid’s is simplicity itself with a bump on one side for a tower that was never built beyond eave level. The windows are mostly small, they’re called lancet windows, with a bigger rose window on the east. It’s all about the massing, the overall appearance, rising from a large brick and stone plinth. One authority describes it as a ‘seminal building in the history of 19th century church architecture’ because it led other architects to look more closely at genuine medieval churches and attempt to replicate that mood of spirituality.
 
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Pugin’s son added the three gabbled confessionals on the south side. That was Edward who also designed the spectacular St Francis’s, now Gorton Monastery, and several other churches in the region.

St Wilfrid was a 7th century English saint known for being a truculent and difficult character. Speaking of which…

This is Johnny Rogan in his Morrissey & Marr biography: ‘While the Moors (murder) controversy raged, Steven (Morrissey) was taking his first communion at St Wilfrid’s Church. It was an eventful morning for the class of ’66 who turned out in the best clothes to receive the Host. Afterwards, they were treated to a post-Mass boiled egg breakfast.’

Very religious.

There’s now a tattoo studio in St Wilfrid’s called Sabbath Church. Times change.
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The black & white picture by the way here is from 1964 and features a brick field wasteland.


This is Johnny Rogan in his Morrissey & Marr biography: ‘While the Moors (murder) controversy raged, Steven was taking his first communion at St Wilfrid’s Church. It was an eventful morning for the class of ’66 who turned out in the best clothes to receive the Host. Afterwards, they were treated to a post-Mass boiled egg breakfast.’ Mass boiled eggs, so to speak.

Very religious.

There’s now a tattoo studio in St Wilfrid’s called Sabbath Church. Times change.
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The black & white picture by the way here is from 1964 and features a brick field wasteland.
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MEETING HENRY V, BLUSHING TURKEYS, HODNET GARDENS, THE GUARDIAN AND DEAD GERMAN COMMUNISTS

5/5/2021

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​A six or seven minute read or you can listen to the story in the audio file above.


I met a turkey last week and asked the silliest question. It was alive and well and was a 'rescue turkey'. Who knew there were rescue turkeys?

I was delivering three of my books to a reader in a pretty place called, appropriately, if spelt differently, Buxworth, just off the A6 in Derbyshire. The house was large and the garden huge. Gerri Ross, who’d bought the books, greeted us and explained how her family took in ducks, hens and even turkeys and looked after them if people couldn’t cope with their care anymore. The family used the eggs, of course, but as vegetarians they didn’t kill their feathery guests.

The turkey was a male and had been part of a pair but a year ago, just before Christmas, the female had been stolen.

“Why would somebody steal a turkey?” I said foolishly, thinking it’s a big job to kill, pluck, gut and clean such a huge bird.

Ask a silly question… The amused response was, “It was before Christmas, that’s why.”

The turkey was a chameleon in a manner of speaking. When we’d arrived into the car park of the house the turkey apparently became distressed. Gerri explained how its head is normally Manchester City sky blue in shade but, as we could see, was now Manchester United scarlet. Birds are related to reptiles, and lizards such as chameleons are part of the reptile family so it sort of makes sense, although I'd never known turkey's could do that.

My suggestion the turkey was protesting against the European Super League by displaying the colours of two of the ‘big six’ was pooh-poohed, but I was glad this complete change of head colour doesn’t happen to humans, well, aside from a little blushing. I wouldn’t like it if my whole head went, say, vivid green after a particularly difficult question on one of the guided tours I conduct.

Bright colour was on my mind back in the city too. I went for a meal at Salvi’s in Exchange Square, my favourite Italian restaurant. Walking there I passed the pawlonia tomentosas, aka Empress Trees, in St Peter’s Square. Every spring these trees go crazy with over-the-top horse chestnut sized blossoms on leafless branches, exploding like pinky mauve Roman candles. The flowers only last three weeks so I give them a few more days at most. The name comes from the origin of these trees in China. A tree would start to blossom after the same number of years it would take for a princess or empress to be ready to marry, hence the name.
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Not far from Salvi’s restaurant is Manchester Cathedral. I was lucky last week to visit that venerable institution’s strong room, up winding stairs and through antique studded doors. The visit was courtesy of Anthony O’Connor, the director of fundraising and development at the Cathedral. I was there to photograph the Henry V charter that led to the building we have today. That’s from 22 May 1421, so it’s the 600th anniversary this year and I’m doing a Zoom tour as a fundraiser.

To get up close, so to speak, to one of the most famous kings in European history, Henry V (Agincourt, French princess wife, Shakespeare and so on), was stirring. The sense of history was thick in the air. Henry V’s seal, a smiting knight on horseback, could only have been wielded by his hand, because there was only one monarch’s seal created for each king or queen. This was to ensure the unique nature of the impression in the hot wax they made as they pressed. The seal was the monarch’s bond. If you copied the seal and were caught you would have had a very unpleasant death, forgery as High Treason.

There are other charters in the strong room, those of Elizabeth 1 and Charles 1. They carry their seals, of course. That’s a great hat-trick, all three monarchs are of primary importance in British history, mighty historical characters. Standing there gazing at them, knowing the seals were made by their hand, is as close to being in their presence as it’s possible to be, especially given the charters were not behind glass in some museum but right there, unguarded, in front of me.
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Speaking of important figures, on 1 May I did an Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx in Manchester tour as it’s Karl Marx’s 203rd birthday on 5 May. Engels lived for 22 years in the city and Karl Marx would visit him for months at a time. Authors of the Communist Manifesto, theirs was the most important bromance in political history and Manchester played a central role in the formation of their ideas. It’s a rich story whatever one’s politics.

The pair studied together at Manchester's most beautiful building, Chetham’s Library. I recall leading a tour around the building and to the famous ‘desk’ mentioned in a letter from Engels to Marx. A few days later a couple from the USA who'd attended, gushed on Tripadvisor how pleased they were to have seen the table where ‘Marks & Spencer’ had met. Inaccurate in so many ways but amusing. ‘Retailers of the world unite’.
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00Busy week this one. 5 May is also the 200th anniversary of the foundation of The Manchester Guardian (now just The Guardian) by editor John Edward Taylor. In the prospectus he wrote: "No former period, in the history of our country, has been marked by the agitation of questions of a more important character than those which are now claiming the attention of the public." The new newspaper was to have a "spirited discussion of political questions" and “the accurate detail of facts”. This sounds somewhat familiar. I’ve written about the founding of what today is The Guardian here: https://confidentials.com/manchester/the-manchester-guardian-is-200-years-old?id=60922f5bdf6ae

The week finished with more beauty. Hodnet Hall Gardens is sixty miles south-south west of Manchester in lovely Shropshire countryside. The gardens were given their big boost by Brigadier Heber-Percy (don’t ya know) in the 1920s although the family have been there for centuries. It’s a sort of earthly paradise now, immaculately kept and with brilliant colours especially this azalea season. I was down there to write about it and the sense of peace was so overwhelming I wanted to lie down for a while and breathe it all in. If you’ve not been then go, it’s got to be in the top ten of British gardens.​
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And finally, strawberries.

The loneliest thing I found this week was an abandoned strawberry plant on the tram. It was just sat there on its own seat in its own little plant pot minding its business. How it had got there, whether it had been abandoned or was just out for a ride it wasn’t saying. The tram’s destination was Rochdale. I put some pictures out on Twitter of my lonely strawberry plant. My favourite response was along the lines of: ‘Perhaps it’s changing at Victoria Station and then going off to meet friends in Berry.’ Very droll.
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The Manchester Music Zoom tour playlist

15/1/2021

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Suggested playlist for Manchester Music Tour at 6pm, 15 January 2021

The songs are not in chronological order because the Zoom tour follows my actual walking tour route. And yes, I know there are loads of bands and performers missing but I can’t cover everyone.

I will mention the performers in the list but not play their songs through Zoom as Zoom does not deliver good sound quality for music.

You can play them of course, while I'm conducting the tour, although you’ll have to have the dexterity of a DJ mixing snippets of songs because I’ll be working through the Manchester Music story at my usual pace.

It’s going to be great fun.

New Order - True faith
Dobie Gray  - Out on the floor (Not a Manchester sound but representive of Northern Soul)
Buzzcocks - Ever fallen in love
Magazine - Songs from under the floorboards
The Hollies - The air that I breathe
10cc- I’m not in love
Bee Gees – Night fever
Sad Cafe - Every day hurts
Elkie Brooks – Pearl’s a singer
Joy Division – Love will tear us apart
New Order – Bizarre love triangle
Happy Mondays – Kinky afro
Simply Red – Money’s too tight to mention
A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray
808 State – Pacific State
Doves - Here comes the fear
James – Laid
Lamb – Gorecki
Durutti Column – Sketch for summer
Oasis – Morning glory
Rick Astley – Never gonna give you up
Lisa Stansfield – People hold on
Stone Roses – Made of Stone
Josephine Oniyama – What a day (very entertaining Youtube video featuring a walk around the city)
The Smiths – Nowhere fast
The Fall – British people in hot weather
Elbow – Leaders of the free world
I am Kloot – From your favourite sky
Blossoms - Charlemagne
Carnival Club – House of cards
Broke Casino – Wedding (My son’s band, got to be included of course)
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