A day in Manchester

Last Wednesday we caught the train into Manchester. I’d bought some tickets for a lunchtime concert by the Hallé – a programme of chamber music that was taking place at the orchestra’s smaller venue in Ancoats, the converted St Peter’s church. We had originally intended to return home before rush hour but on the train in decided to book into a restaurant in the Northern Quarter I’d had my eye on and make more of a day of it.

We arrived in Manchester a couple of hours before the concert was due to start so made our way through to the Northern Quarter and popped into the Craft & Design Centre and had a mooch round the various studios. The building is a former fish market, part of the old Victorian Smithfield Markets complex. There’s some really lovely ceramics, jewellery, art and other items on display and for sale and in some of the studios you can see the artists at work. Prices vary, of course, but you can buy some original works for quite reasonable prices. We were just window shopping this visit, though. However, as the alarm went off on my blood sugar monitoring app on my phone we did treat ourselves in the rather excellent little cafe in the centre

Feeling full and with blood sugar rising, we made our way through the Northern Quarter towards the old working class district of Ancoats and the renovated chrurch where the concert would take place.

The church was built in 1859 when Ancoats was rapidly expanding into major industrial complex of mills and working class housing

Hallé St Peter’s

The Hallé webiste tells us that

the Church had to be built on a budget of only £4,200. This meant that Isaac Holden, the architect and founder chairman of the Manchester Society of Architects, had to be imaginative and practical in his design. For example, brick was used instead of the more expensive stone.

Hallé St Peter’s – Rear view

Rose window

Inside cast iron was used for the columns and arches supporting the roof. With rounded, rather than pointed arches, and a campanile and other Italiante features, I’d probably describe it as “Industrial Romanesque“

In the mid 20th Century with industry in Ancots, and Manchester generally, in decline, and slum clearance reducing the population of the area, the congregation was in decline and the church was closed and deconsecrated. Inevitably the building deteriorated, partly due to vandalism and robbing of valuable materials, but in 2013 it was acquired by the Hallé and converted into a space for rehearsals, smaller concerts and other events.

The concert programme focused on three major influences on the Hallé’s Artist in Residence, the Anglo Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova: science, Renaissance music and folk music, culminating with her string sextet Such Different Paths, all performed by Hallé players, including the lead violinist (who looks about 18!!!)

Zoltan Kodaly – Duo for violin and cello 1st movement
John Dowland – Lachrimae Antiquae
Dobrinka Tabakova – Organum Light
Traditional, arranged Danish String Quartet – Æ Rømeser, Intermezzo & Shine You No More
Dobrinka Tabakova – Such Different Paths

I’m familiar with the three short pieces by the Danish String Quartet, but enjoyed the other works, none of which were too challenging or indigestible, so ideal for a lunchtime concert!

We enjoyed the concert and as I’ll hopefully start to have more time to do things other than work, I’m going to be on the look out for similar events both in Manchester and Liverpool.

Afterwards we decided to go and have a look at New Islington, an area of Ancoats between the Rochdale and Ashton canals that has been “regenerated”. Built on the site of what used to be a rundown council estate, funding to regenerate the area was secured in 2002. The development has been led by Urban Splash, a company who specialise in urban regeneration.

There’s a mix of apartment blocks and town houses, with eateries and a school built around the canal marina where once narrowboats would have been loaded with the produce from the nearby large cotton mills.

I checked out the cost of buying or renting a property here and they’re not exactly in the price range of the people who used to live around here. So it’s an example of gentrification of what was once a working class area. And the funding of the project is controversial as it involved serious investment from Abu Dhabi in a joint venture with Manchester City Council.

There’s an interesting article about the development by Manchester’s online newspaper the Mill.

Walking back towards Great Ancoats Street and the Northern Quarter, we passed a couple of streets of Victorian Terraced houses that have been restored. These would have been among the better quality houses in old Ancoats. Most workers would have lived in poor quality accommodation, probably including back to back houses and tenement blocks, like those shown on this series of pictures from the Manchester Evening News website.

We had a couple of hours before our restaurant booking so wandered over to the City Art Gallery. We’d visited only a few weeks before but decided to have another look around. Since our last visit, a display of newly purchased works had been installed. I particularly liked this photographic 21st century recreation by Emily Allchurch of a painting of Albert Square by Adolphe Valette

Albert Square, Manchester (after Valette), 2015, by Emily Allchurch

Here’s the original, that can also be seen in the Gallery.

Albert Square, Manchester by Adolphe Valette

This simple work of cockle shells cast in Victorian lead by Jamie Holman, commemorates the Chinese cockle pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay in 2004. There is one cockle for each of the drowned workers with the one displaced from the main group representing Dong Zin Wu who is still missing. 

Sea Fruit, 2020, by Jamie Holman

After looking round we wandered back over to Tibb Street in the Northern Quarter where we had a table booked at Evelyn’s Cafe Bar

Their evening menu is inspired by Middle Eastern and Pan-asian dishes. They serve “small plates” (although they weren’t so small!) so we ordered a selection of dishes to share between us. Delicious they were! and quite reasonably priced, too.

Then it was time to head over to Victoria to catch the train home. Luckily, ours wasn’t cancelled!

A little Christmas Music

Here’s a Swedish Christmas carol played by the Danish String Quartet.

They’re an accomplished classical quartet – three Danes and a Norwegian (he’s the cellist) – whose repertoire includes works by Classical composers such as Beethoven, but also traditional Scandinavian folk tunes

On a daily basis, we delve into works by great masters such as Beethoven and Mozart, but we also play the occasional folk music gig.

Here’s another version where they’re accompanied by a choir.

Snow Angel

I’ve just discovered this rather nice wintery, Christmassy song via Cerys Matthews show on Radio 6. One to add to the Christmas playlist

Music on Nature: Finding A Language For Landscape.

Every year in November, Kendal hosts a Mountain Festival – four days of of films, talks, exhibitions and events covering all aspects of mountain and adventure sports culture. It’s probably the major gathering of outdoor enthusiasts in the UK and I’ve never been – although I did buy a ticket to watch the talks which were shown on-line during the Pandemic. Now I have more free time I was thinking of spending some time there, but the weekend events clashed with the Rugby League World Cup final which took place on the Saturday. However, I’d spotted an event on the programme on the Friday evening – Music on Nature: Finding A Language For Landscape – “tracing the connections between nature and sound, … (and exploring) the landscapes around us through music, prose and poetry“. 

The publicity for the event told us that

In this new and exciting event, we welcome you on a sound journey to explore what the landscape means to you, how to tune into and unlock its hidden tracks. Set your ear to the earth and travel through its layers. Join us as we travel through deep time and sing the songs of the Anthropocene – enter a sonic world encompassing a nature rhythm to capture the visceral tones of our world – and dream of a history of things to come.

It sounded interesting so I booked a couple of tickets. I thought we might travel over and experience the exhibition and free events in the Base Camp and at the Brewery Arts Centre before the concert. A well intentioned plan didn’t work out quite so well as the weather that day was appalling. It was chucking it down and windy too so we delayed leaving and driving up the M6. We were lucky and managed to grab a space on the packed Parish Church car park, as someone was leaving just after we arrived.

It was only a short walk to the Base Camp which was on the park near Abbot Hall (we’ve missed our visits to the gallery while it’s been shut for over 2 years for refurbishment – crossed fingers it opens soon) so we were able to have a look round the various stalls and grab a coffee before crossing over the river and walking the short distance to the venue at The Barrel House. We went back to Base Camp after the event and had a bite to eat in the Food Court before setting off back home.

So, what about the event? We didn’t know quite what to expect.

First up was Amy-Jane Beer is a biologist, nature writer and campaigner, based in North Yorkshire, whose book , The Flow, was published earlier this year.

a book about water, and, like water, it meanders, cascades and percolates through many lives, landscapes and stories. From West Country torrents to Levels and Fens, rocky Welsh canyons, the salmon highways of Scotland and the chalk rivers of the Yorkshire Wolds, Amy-Jane follows springs, streams and rivers to explore tributary themes of wildness and wonder, loss and healing, mythology and history, cyclicity and transformation.

She read passages from her book about swimming in a chalk stream in the Dales and the Severn Bore, accompanied by Jack McNeill a local clarinettist, composer and maker who created a soundscape of computer enhanced sound effects and clarinet tunes

Zaffar Kunial is a poet who was born in Birmingham. He has a connection with the Lake District having spent 2014 in Grasmere as the Wordsworth Trust Poet-in-Residence. Again accompanied by Jack McNeill, he rad selections from his latest collection, England’s Green has been shortlisted for the 2022 T.S Eliot Prize. One of the poems, Ings, was inspired by Zaffir receiving points on his licence having been caught twice exceeding the speed limit near the said village. Anyone who has driven to Windermere from the M6 via Kendal will be aware (or needs to be!) of the speed camera on the A591 where it passes through the small village and where the speed limit suddenly drops from 60 to 40 mph.

Ings. The name came to mean: Now. Slow. Down. And little
else. A splash of houses cut by a dual carriageway, a petrol
station, a lane with an easily missable church.

It’s a long poem which takes in a subsequent visit to the village where he goes into the church and graveyard and reflects on what he sees and feels.

Zaffar Kunial

The final act paired the writer and Patron of the festival, Robert Macfarlane, with the musician Hayden Thorpe, former lead singer with Wild Beasts who grew up in Kendal

They performed together, Robert reading extracts from his slim volume of poems, Ness, accompanied by Hayden on guitar, the latter singing a chorus in between the verses.

Finally Hayden performed a solo set of songs to complete the concert.

Sizergh Castle. A walk, a meal and a concert.

A few weeks ago we had tickets for a concert in Kendal by This is the Kit. Rather than just drive up in the late afternoon for the evening performance we decided to make a day of it. We had thought of visiting Blackwell as we hadn’t been there for a while, but found that they were installing a new exhibition that would open a couple of days later so it wasn’t the best time to go. We’ll get up there soon though, Something in Common tells the story of England’s countryside and the peoples’ fight for Common Land, a theme right up my street, so to speak. So, instead we decided on visiting Sizergh Castle, a National Trust property, as we hadn’t been there for quite some time.

The National Trust website describes the property as a “beautiful medieval house with rich gardens and estate“, and I think that pretty much sums it up. The house isn’t owned by the Trust though – this is one of those sites where the owners couldn’t afford to pay for the upkeep of the house and estate so made a deal with the Trust. The castle with its garden and estate is in the care of the National Trust but the house is still owned by Hornyold-Strickland family – a type of arrangement I’m not comfortable with. Most of the house is open to the public, but there’s a private residential wing and I expect the family use the hall for entertaining outside he NT’s opening hours. I’m not sure whether they live there full time, mind.

We parked up and after a coffee went for our self-guided tour of the hall and gardens.

The oldest part of the house, the defensive tower, was built in the mid 14th century. It used to be thought that it was a pele tower, built as a defence from marauding Scots, but these days is considered to be a “solar tower” as it contained private living space for the owners, for their “sole” use – hence the name. A true pele tower was a defensive structure that could be used by the local population when being harassed by the reivers.

The most impressive features of the house for me were the oak panelling and fireplace surrounds.

Some of the panelling had been sold to the V&A in the 1890’s. However it was returned in 1999 on a long-term loan.

As usual with these “stately homes” there was a large collection of paintings, particularly portraits, and we spotted a couple by the local lad George Romney. The Strickland family were Catholics and strong supporters of the Stuart monarchy and one room is full of portraits of the monarchs from that dynasty.

The gardens are particularly impressive. Our previous visit had been during the autumn so the colours were much fresher and greener in early summer. However, I reckon they would look good whatever the season.

The limestone rock garden, which was created in the 1920s, is the largest of it’s type under the National Trust’s stewardship.

I always like a good vegetable garden!

After looking round the garden we returned to the cafe for a light meal before setting out for a walk around the grounds. A misunderstanding on my part meant we ended up following the longer set route which was more than J intended. I blame my poor colour vision for misreading the map!

After walking through some fields and meadows the route took us into the woods of Brigsteer Park

and then on to Park End where a short diversion down a boardwalk took us to a hide overlooking a recreated wet land.

Park End Moss, which is on the edge of the Lyth Valley, was once an area of degraded farmland that’s been “rewilded” by the National Trust into a wetland haven for wildlife. It’s probably how much of the valley would have looked before it was drained to create agricultural land.

Looking back as we climbed the hill up towards the nearby farm we had a good view over the wetland with Whitbarrow dominating the far side of the valley (I must get up there one of these days).

We then had a steep climb for a while to take us to the top of a ridge overlooking the valley (I was getting in trouble now for misinterpreting the map).

A short diversion along the ridge as far as St John’s church

allowed a view over the valley right across to the Lake District Fells. Worth the climb (at least I thought so).

We then followed the route back down through woods and field to Sizergh (down hill more or less all the way), passing some typical Cumbrian farmhouses (I think they’re rented out now as holiday cottages by the Trust).

The cafe was closing up as we reached the hall complex so there wasn’t time for a final brew, so we returned to the car and drove over to Kendal which only took about 15 minutes . We had a mooch around the town centre, including the obligatory visit to Waterstones where, as frequently happens, books were purchased. We then picked up some supplies from Booths supermarket followed by a tour around the one way system so that we could park up before we made our way to the Brewery Arts Centre. There were no spaces left in their car park so another trip around the one way system was needed to find a space on an alternative convenient car park – free after 6 pm – near Abbot Hall (which has been closed for the past few years as it’s being renovated. Hopefully it will be reopening soon – fingers crossed)

We’d decided to eat in the Arts Centre restaurant. Having never been there before I was surprised just how large it was and there seemed to be plenty of customers, many taking advantage of an early evening pizza deal. We were too late to take advantage of that but, in any case, I was very pleased with my choice of a rather tasty pie with sweet potato fries, followed by

a pudding to mark the state of our nation i.e. an Eton Mess.

I rather liked this tapestry representing different aspects of Kendal, that wa son the wall of the restaurant.

We finished in good time for a pre concert drink and then on to the gig.

I’ve known of This is the Kit for a number of years – they’re played regularly on Radio 6 Music – and enjoy their work, and I wasn’t disappointed with the concert. I was impressed with the venue. It was larger than expected but with the main seating area quite steeply banked there was a good view of the stage from most seats. I think it’s likely we’ll be returning in the future as we can combine a concert with a day out in the southern Lakes and a nice meal in the restaurant! I’ll be keeping an eye on their “What’s on” page on their website.

After the concert we headed back to the car passing the Leyland Motors Clock that once stood on Shap summit but in 1973 was relocated to stand outside the Brewery Arts Centre.

So, all in all, a good day out.

The Wexford Carol

A beautiful rendition of a traditional Irish Christmas carol by Manchester based Aizle & Ríoghnach Connolly of the Breath

Merry Christmas to one and all ! 🎄🎅

Still winter, still waiting

A song for winter – in front of a roaring fire 🙂

By Birmingham based contemporary folk singer Katherine Priddy.

Building Ships

One song that struck a chord* with me during one of the concerts that took place during the Celtic Connections festival was Building Ships, performed by Glasgow based singer Findlay Napier. While mourning the passing of a once great industry. It pays tribute to the workers who built the mighty ships for which Glasgow was renowned.

On his Bandcamp site, the singer tells us that

From a conversation about reopening Scotland’s shipyards with my Dad. He was a marine engineer and occasional builder of ships. It became clear to me that without a long plan, agreed on by all political parties, we’ll never see industry like that in Glasgow again.

Glasgow Shipyard- Shipbuilding in Wartime, 1944 Imperial War Museum (IWM Non Commercial Licence) via Wikipedia

Given my line of work, these lines particularly resonate with me

There’s ten guys in the hospital, four men in the ground
And everyone worked there breathed that dust into their lungs
And everyone worked there breathed that dust into their lungs

“That dust” would have been asbestos, which was used for insulation and fire protection throughout ships built before July 2002. Consequently many shipbuilders contracted serious, usually fatal, lung diseases – asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma (a particularly nasty cancer of the outer lining of the lung).

Asbestos insulation photographed during a visit to HMS Belfast in London

There were other health hazards too – noise, damaging hand-arm vibration and exposure to welding fume (another lung carcinogen)

Asbestos hasn’t been used in ships since the end of 2010 – but there’s plenty of vessels out there on the sea that contain lots of it. And there’s a particular risk of high exposure at the end of their life when they’re broken up.

Oh aye, as Findlay sings

Everyone among them should get fair and equal pay

Celtic Connections

I’ve been absent from WordPress for a few weeks – neither writing or keeping up with reading blogs I follow as I’ve been busy with work ever since Christmas. And after being glued to Zoom all day for meetings and delivering training, I’ve been less keen on spending more time in front of a computer screen during my free time. But work pressures are easing off a little so it’s time for a catch up 😉

It’s getting on to close to a year now since life has been disrupted by the pandemic. We’ve been in and out of lockdown and although I’ve been restricted to local walks for substantial periods I was able to get out to the Lakes and Anglesey during the summer. We haven’t been able to get out to concerts, the theatre, galleries and exhibitions since last March, though and I’ve certainly missed all that. I have sustained a semblance of cultural activity though, as some organisations have managed to run events on-line. So I’ve been able “attend” three virtual folk festivals, Kate Ruby’s Christmas concert and watch a few National Theatre productions . I’ve also been able to “visit” the Hay Festival, the Wigtown Book Festival, the Orkney Science Festival and the Kendal Mountain Festival all of which were run online – events I’d always wanted to visit but have never had the opportunity. Watching on screen isn’t the same as being there, of course. It’s too easy to be distracted when you’re in front of the TV and you miss the excitement of being somewhere different and mixing with other people. But, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to attend most, if not all, of these events if they hadn’t been run on-line.

Another annual event I’ve always fancied attending is the Celtic Connections Festival that’s run every January up in Glasgow. The festival focuses on traditional Scottish music international folk, roots and world music artists with concerts, ceilidhs, talks, free events, late night sessions and workshops too. It always seems like a good way of cheering up the rather dark and dismal days that follow on from Christmas.

Last December I got a tip off from Anabel , the Glasgow Gallivanter that the festival was going on-line and that early bird tickets were available for a very reasonable price of £30 that allowed access to all the concerts. So I snapped one up and was able to keep myself entertained during the dark January evenings.

There were plenty of traditional Scottish and Gaelic bands, playing jaunty music with fiddles, pipes and the like. I was able to watch concerts featuring some familiar musicians like Karine Polwart, Rachel Newton and Julie Fowlis.

The Transatlantic sessions is a project that brings traditional musicians together from, as the name suggests, both sides of the Atlantic – from Scotland, Ireland, Canada and the USA in particular. I’ve watched some programmes on the BBC over a number of years, so it was good to see them performing “live” – with a number of performers on stage in Glasgow with video links to musicians over the other side of the water.

The concert of Quebecois music – Quebecfest – featuring Vent du Nord, De Temps Antan and Grosse Ille was another highlight

But there were new discoveries too – from other traditions and musical genres

Xabier Diaz from the Gallicia region of Spain, backed by a group of female singers playing what must be a rectangular Gallician version of the bodhrán 

Fergus McCreadie, a talented young Scottish jazz pianist who plays “an innovative blend of jazz and Scottish traditional music”. Many of his compositions are inspired by the Scottish landscapes, with titles such as Cairn, North, Across Flatlands, Mull and The Stones of Brodgar

Dreamer’s Circus, a Danish / Swedish trio with a contemporary take on traditional Nordic music

I didn’t watch every concert – there were too many, and there workshops too (not included in the festival ticket, though) – but certainly enjoyed the experience. It would have been better to have been there and savour the atmosphere, but that wasn’t possible. But I probably wouldn’t have been able to go up to Glasgow this January anyway so watching on my TV at home allowed me to get a taster. And it’s made me determined to get up there next year when (hopefully!) it will return to being a live event. And an opportunity to meet up with a bloggy friend too, perhaps 😉.

Drive the Cold Winter Away

I heard this song on Sunday’s Radcliffe and Maconie show on BBC 6 Music.

A duo comprising Nicola Kearey & Ian Carter, Stick in the Wheel, are a “Folk” band from East London who

….. bring a contemporary approach to folk music with raw minimalism, setting vocals to simple accompaniments and handclaps

Wikipedia

For this old Christmas song, of Elizabethan origin, they’re singing to a modern arrangement using synths rather than traditional instruments and with the singer’s voice electronically distorted. I rather like it.

The song is about putting aside differences, forgetting old wrongs, and singing, dancing, eating , drinking and playing together. Although this arrangement is much less jolly. More like a lament for activities that aren’t allowed at the moment. Very apt for our times, I think.

Here’s the lyrics if you want to sing along.

Stay safe and try to enjoy our Covid Christmas