It’s been a while.

The Jon M, the curator of the Mancunion Blues sits in bed watching his city. Eventually Sunday morning will come, and with the unforgiving inevitability that Northern Rail can only dream of, Monday morning will arrive.

On Monday afternoon, I will find myself in a science lab splitting my attention between a student teacher trying to explain how quarks make up the atoms that we consist of and a crane in the far distance out of the window.

The crane will be hoisting some prefabricated component into its place in what is called the Student Castle, or what I am terming Nighthoover Tower, what will become the tallest student residence in the country.

It rises from New Wakefield Street, overlooking Oxford Road station, just a stones throw from Font Bar where the first H2G2 meet of the post-BBC era culminated. But what was there before.

I’ve lived in the Rainy City for more than a decade now and I’ve seen skyscrapers, sculptures of steel and glass, claim their place on the skyline of both Manchester and Salford.

But with every new edifice that I pass comes the same question, what on earth was there before? We have a Giant Toothbrush Building that is the tallest building in the land outside of London, we have Nighthoover Tower, we have the vast Spinningfields complex of high-rise flats and offices but where did they come from.

I can’t recall what was there before these or the dozen monuments to man’s desire to reach into the sky.

Here we have a city built of stone and metal, of unyielding materials, that had reinvented itself more times than Madonna.

I was a city that was built around cotton, it became one of the great ports of the world, it produced cars, trains and planes for the world, it led the world in science and invention, it saw hard times, it has stood at the forefront of British Music and it is now claiming its place as the media capital of the British Isles, but what was there before?

Greater Manchester is fortunate to play host to two of the largest universities in the country, we have hundreds of thousands of students and young professionals drifting in and drifting out of the suburbs, enjoying the vibrant community but do they know or care what this city came from.

We take advantage of the infrastructure of the world’s first industrial city but not caring where these great buildings and transport links came from. Those of us who indulged in the Museum of Science and Industry at the meet will have seen just a brief snap shot of the industrial might of Manchester over the past two centuries, but there is so much more.

I went on a walk last week along the Peak Forest Canal in Derbyshire through the Goyt Valley to New Mills, we saw vast inland ports and the terminals of tramways and railways. Through the mist mighty viaducts spanned the countryside/ We had a guide who in the fashion of wikipedia was full of enthusiasm if not exactly accurate on the actual facts, but the walk demonstrated just how much industrial history is there for us to explore.

History is in reality just stories made more valuable over time. They are somebody else’s memories whether tied to a building or written in a book.

I met up with my sister the other day. She has spent the last year in my city having moved up from Conan-Doyle’s great cess-pool of London Village. In a couple of months, she is due to fly to China to start a new job, in charge of educating a small portion of their young. I find it no co-incidence that within hours of her accepting her new role, the British Government were openly criticising China over their allowance of Syrian government violence. If, within a year, we are not at all out nuclear war, I will be surprise that my sister’s aura hasn’t corrupted the world’s most populous nation.

Why do I mention this? Because when I met up with her she named half a different bars that I had never heard of, yet I knew where each one was, as I knew what had been there before, or even the time before that. On Peter Street, the trashiest venues of Manchester’s night scene, Branigans and Square have long since closed. I can’t arrange meetings with my friends anymore because the last time I tried bulldozers beat my companions to the hostelries.

And its here, late at night were the history comes to life. Maybe the bricks and mortar have long since been destroyed, but the memories that us punters have still remain, maybe just in an anecdote or two that springs to mind after the third unrecommended pint.

This is where H2G2 comes into its own, the recording of an oral history, going beyond the facts (or nearest wiki equivalent) and into the heart and soul of the subjects we write about.

Having walked the streets of Manchester and London searching out the hidden corners and untold stories for years, I know that there are so many tales to tell, maybe at last we can do it justice.

Love, Peace and Blues

TJM

the_jon_m

27.02.12 Front Page

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