'All the unsung heroes who clean, underpin and keep the city going are my favourites...'
What’s your name?
Chrissy Brand
What do you do?
I have worked in many places in Manchester in my time, including half
a dozen offices on Oxford Road alone. Other cities I’ve been fortunate to work
in include London for six years, and places as diverse as Oxford and Helsinki,
Brussels and Barnsley. Having worked in both the public and private sectors I
am now very happily ensconced as Research and Knowledge Exchange Manager at the
RNCM. I’m also a published writer with a book and a decade’s worth of magazine
columns. All views below are my own.
Where do you live?
When I first lived in Manchester it was by lovely Chorlton Green
in a shared cottage with four others right by The Beech (but sadly not the
beach). Now I divide my time between a crash pad in the city centre and a family
home at the southern end of the tramline. Best of both worlds, lucky me.
Tell us the story of how you
ended up in Manchester.
Manchester became my home but it was nowt to do with the city's
charms. Simply that I was living in London and fell in love. The love of my
life was headed to Manchester to study so a year later I dropped everything and
followed. It wasn't long before Manchester and the North cast its spell on me too
and I have been here ever since.
But before that, the first time I came to the city was to visit a
friend at Uni. I remember a long coach journey from London, staying in amazing
old student halls in Whalley Range, an all night film showing which included The Blues Brothers and Magic Roundabout and then queuing at
breakfast time for banquette seats at the Royal Exchange. Manchester was
exciting and had a very different feel from the South. It made me realise how
important it was to move away from the places you grow up in and to explore
elsewhere and lay down new roots of your own.
What’s great about this city?
The diversity of people who have moved here from all over the
world and now call Manchester home. And the fact you can talk to anyone,
whatever age they are or image they project, if you feel in a sociable enough
mood. There's an air of friendliness if you look for it.
The fact that the city is big and varied enough for so much art,
culture and fun, yet small enough to feel you can be a big part of it. I love
the Northern Quarter’s independence, the buzz of Chinatown at night, Castlefield
on a sunny afternoon, watching a film or sporting event on the lawn at
Spinningfields, the jazz festival and other music in the tents at Albert Square,
and the magical Christmas markets that light up the whole city in December.
There’s also the variety of good food and drink, the ease of
getting around by public transport, the history and beauty of the understated
architectural gems, the sense of history, and the revamped waterways.
The amazing countryside all around makes for a perfect escape when
you need it too – the Peaks, the Lakes, north Wales, the Cheshire ring canals…
What’s not so great?
The city centre is a wee bit on the small side with not quite
enough ‘obvious’ sights to see for the visitor. Although you only have to look
up to see street after street of honey-coloured stone and red brick dripping
with the wealth from nineteenth-century merchants, so maybe I am being harsh.
More greenery in the city centre would be good, and the Castlefield
beach should be permanent or at least May to September. More could be made of the
River Irwell and the canals – they should be more of the beating heart of the
city than the tucked away offshoots that they currently are, though I must
admit great strides have been made since I first visited Manchester in the
1980s, making the canals and rivers more into a café society than a place to
park your supermarket trolley.
While the quote ‘The streets
of London are paved with gold’ is a lie (unless you work in the City), sadly
in Manchester it is all too true to say the streets are paved with chewing gum.
Why?
Do you have a favourite Manchester
building?
Too many to choose from really. I love the little carved statues
and ornamental windows and ledges zand architrave whenever you look up above
the first floor all over the city centre. Art Deco is a favourite era of mine
but there's not much of that I can think of in Manchester.
But If I chose two, very different buildings, one would be the
John Rylands Library. It looks like it’s made from Cheshire sandstone (is it?)
and is so beautiful, especially when it takes on a magical glow with the late
afternoon sun reflecting on its Deansgate frontage. I also like it because it’s
all that is left in
the area from that
era. It reminds me of a castle, it stands out and holds its own amongst the twenty-first
century shopping vibe that surrounds it.
Campfield Arcade is lovely too (funnily
enough that used to house a library too). When you look at it as a whole from
across the road it’s a beautiful example of Manchester’s famous red bricks, and
it’s got that lovely old clock that reminds me of a more famous one outside Macy’s
in Chicago. Inside is the lovely arcade itself where you can imagine you are
eating alfresco in Spain, Greece or Italy. Good restaurants and bars and the
culture from the Spanish Institute too. And rarely crowded.
India House and Lancaster House are fabulous neighbours on
Princess Street and I had to mention them here as being buildings that give me
a shiver of excitement whenever I look at them…
My least favourite is the ‘Berlin Wall’ in Piccadilly, although iy
barely qualifies as architecture. It is ugly and stark. It should be a place
for commissioned street art and ivy – a hanging gardens is what they should be
aiming for. At least there’s a campaign underway to green it, though that seems
to have gone a bit quiet.
The Arndale and what it represents, likewise the Trafford Centre,
would be least favourite. Manchester has all this beautiful countryside, art
and cool places to go and yet people spend their weekends and evenings shopping
in American malls. I just don’t get it!
Do you have a favourite
Mancunian?
I’m not one for putting people on pedestals really. I’d say the
exploited workforce that suffered under industrialisation in the nineteenth century
should be favourites as they did so much for the city. And today, all the other
unsung heroes who clean, underpin and keep the city going are my favourites.
But if we are talking famous Mancunians, obviously Morrissey for
his views on the monarchy and for being veggie, and for most things he says
really. I place his music second to his views these days.
The Pankhursts, although the suffragettes who would get my vote are the
trio of Annie Briggs, Evelyn Manesta and
Lillian Forrester. They demonstrated at the City Art gallery 100 years ago, in 1913. ‘We broke the glass of some pictures as a
protest but we did not intend to damage the pictures’. In court, supporters
in the gallery unfurled a Votes for Women banner. The full history, or herstory, is at
the ever excellent Radical
Manchester blog.
Alison
Uttley who was to Lancashire and Cheshire what Beatrix Potter was to
Cumbria but with less reward and fame. She went to Manchester University and
died in 1976. Little Grey Rabbit lives on…
What’s your favourite
pub/bar/club/restaurant/park/venue?
I like Dimitri’s on Deansgate and if I’m
in the right mood Font and Gorilla too. Apotheca looks fabulous but it's been
ages since I was there.
If I just want somewhere nearby, The
Molly House can be good – enough of an atmosphere but quiet enough to chat. I'd
like to try some of those pubs in Northern Quarter that look like old men's
pubs but seem to now be hangouts for young creative types. I'd probably need
someone to take me there though.... I like the look of Cuba Cafe Bar too but need
to pluck up courage to go in!
My preferred venues would be Band on
the Wall and the Deaf Institute, but if the right band is playing I'd go
anywhere. I’m waiting for Flunk to come over from Norway to play Manchester, or
All India Radio from Australia, or Dave Dark and the Sharks. And I wish The Egg
would head north too.
My coffee shop would be North Tea
Power. Oklahoma is fabulous too. My favourite cafes are Earth and Eighth Day. Bistro
1847 would be my choice for an evening meal.
Last year I had a fellow blogger and
her family visit from the USA and I had to think about how best to show them Manchester in an evening. We had a busy walking tour! From
Piccadilly Station we went down Granby Row past the Vimto statue along to
Albert Square, Lincoln Square, through the ginnels to St Ann's Square and the
Royal Exchange Theatre. Then onto the medieval quarter of the cathedral and
Shambles Square, and into Victoria Station. Then back through the Northern Quarter
to see all the independent bars, record stores and restaurants, and the innovative
and rotating street art. I would have added Spinningfields and Castlefield if
there was time.
What do you think is missing from
Manchester?
A museum of popular Manchester music, some city centre tree-lined
boulevards, and a tower like the Space Needle in Seattle or the Eiffel Tower in
France or Blackpool Tower.
If I was Mayor for a day I would
…
It would need to be a long day to implement all the changes I have
planned for my fellow Mancunians! As the clock chimed midnight I would unroll
my sepia scroll and get the town crier to proclaim the following:
A congestion charge on cars coming into the city. Pedestrianising
great swathes of the city, planting trees and opening roof gardens to grow
crops. Taking over the Old Fire Station and converting it to public space of
studio spaces for artists and musicians, galleries and a children's
playgrounds, cheap housing and shops.
Banning fast food shops, implementing a living wage for all who
work in the area. A heavily subsidised free public transport system paid for by
a tax on multinational chains that have shops in the city.
Bringing back the statue of Oliver Cromwell that was at Victoria
station and was decamped to Wythenshawe Park -and putting it in a prominent
space. Commissioning new statues, including one of the Pankhursts and
Suffragettes, one of Marx and Engels and another of animals in commemoration to
all those murdered daily.
Who else would you like to
nominate to answer this questionnaire?
These three Mancunians would have all something interesting to
say: Political cartoonist Polyp, Zoe at the Vegetarian Society, and Ursula at Eighth
Day.
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