This is a bust of John Rylands, a Victorian entrepreneur and philanthropist who lived between 1801 and 1899. The bust is in Stretford Town Hall- a friend had an exhibition of her print making art there recently. I saw Rylands in the foyer, peaking out modestly from a sideboard. He moved to Manchester from Wigan in 1823 and opened a warehouse for his textiles business. Textiles made Manchester. John settled in Manchester and set up his home in Stretford (a mile up the road from us in Sale). In the middle of the 19th century Stretford was a village near Manchester. Now it's very much South Manchester suburb. Maybe Stretford's most famous son is Morrissey who grew up on King's Road and kissed under the iron bridge that now crosses the Metrolink line.
John Rylands did a lot for Stretford- he paid for the Town Hall, a swimming baths, a library and a coffee house. The Town Hall and library still exist though the baths have gone. There are several coffee houses but possibly not the one Rylands paid for. When he died his widow Augustina paid for a permanent memorial to her late- husband, the famous neo- gothic John Rylands library on Deansgate.
Down Chester Road towards Sale is Stretford Mall, formerly Arndale, currently in the process of being demolished and the town centre rebuilt and regenerated. Stretford Arndale had some rather nice late 60s features, a top deck with a sweeping staircase but 60s modernism is not fashionable and many people did not love the Arndale. In 1971 Muhammed Ali visited Stretford Arndale, promoting Ovaltine at the Tesco supermarket .
Ali caused such a crowd to turn up and the crush of locals to get so excited about seeing the three time heavyweight champion of the world, in Stretford Arndale!, that he had to be rescued by police. This picture shows Ali retreating from the baying hoard who wanted a glimpse of the great man and some free Ovaltine. Ali is on the right, his head visible as he backs into a corner between stacks of tinned goods.
This potted history of Stretford is a long winded way of getting round to this- tonight at Head, a former branch of Barclays but now a really nice bar, Martin and myself are representing The Flightpath Estate live on the decks, an all vinyl set, from 8.30pm until 11. There is a regular Thursday night slot, Club Solo, which goes out as a livestream on Solo Stream and in person live from Head once a month. Club Solo was born out of lockdown by Stephen Mollynoodles and the archive of previous nights is here. I think you can watch it live and join in on the chat, watching us mess up the transitions and heckle us from the comfort of your front room. Or come down and do it in person. What else would you be doing tonight? Watching Switzerland play Bosnia-Herzegovina while waiting for news from the Makerfield by- election?
Andy Burnham for the win eh?
Martin and myself will be playing our usual eclectic smorgasbord of dub, Balearic, leftfield indie, Weatherall remixes, Joe Strummer B- sides and maybe some oompty- boompty music for the last hour.
Mango Street is a largely instrumental version of Island Hopping from Joe Strummer's 1989 solo album Earthquake Weather. It came out on a one sided 12" in October '89, tropical flavours and catgut guitars with spoon percussion. I love it. When I played it at The Golden Lion last September Martin asked, 'what the fuck am I supposed to follow that with?!'.
