manchester

Strangeways/Strangedays

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It’s kind of mad to think that Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of the Strangeways prison riots. Anyone aged 30 or over and from the North West of England will probably remember this very clearly – I know I certainly do. For 25 days in April 1990, the authorities lost control of Manchester’s iconic Victorian jail and inmates took to the roof to protest against poor conditions and abusive staff. Chronic overcrowding, a lack of sanitation in the cells, frequent moves from one prison to another and poor visitation rights were among their complaints. When it all kicked off there were 1,600 men sharing 970 single cells. A series of copycat protests followed in a number of other UK jails. At Strangeways, the numbers quickly dwindled of course and by the last day just five protestors were left.

I was 10 years old in 1990 and along with the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, assorted terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland and Margaret Thatcher’s resignation speech in 1991 – when my top junior class was actually summoned to the AV room to witness the glorious moment live on TV – Strangeways is one of my earliest memories of really being conscious of current affairs. The riot left the prison in chaos and cost tens of millions of pounds and several years to repair. But more importantly, the protest and the seminal Woolf inquiry which followed it are credited as being a turning point in penal history. Many of Lord Woolf’s recommendations were too radical for the Tory administration and subsequent New Labour government to stomach and the prison population stands far higher today. But conditions at Strangeways – now HMP Manchester – and other prisons are undeniably better than they were on April Fool’s Day two decades ago.

wet paint

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I spent some time taking photos at the Booth Centre today, a drop-in centre for homeless or vulnerably housed adults in Manchester. It’s a great little place hidden away beneath the city’s cathedral, which puts on loads of activities from singing to cooking, gardening and museum visits. Users get qualifications for completing the various courses and the idea is to move them on from their often chaotic lifestyles to a more stable point in life. The Booth Centre marks its 15th anniversary this year and I have been given the green light to spend as much time as I want there over the coming weeks, documenting what they do and hopefully getting to know some of its characters. This week staff and a small group of users have been redecorating the centre but I’ll be spending some more time there once it opens again after Easter.

Tony’s

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One of the great things about having started this photojournalism MA is that it suddenly gives me a reason to turn some of my ideas into reality…I am too often all talk and little action.

I’ve lived in the Levenshulme area of Manchester for more than five years now and one of the most distinctive buildings here is Tony’s Barber – if nothing else than simply for the fact that it’s half falling down. Part of a terrace on the main road, a developer is trying to bully Tony out of his building for low compensation and the shops on either side have been pulled down and left to rot.

That’s kind of interesting on its own, and in 2007 I ended up writing a story on the situation for the Manchester Evening News.

That was long before I’d started taking photos, but once I got into photography I started thinking that Tony’s would make an interesting photo story – but of course didn’t do anything about it. I thought about using him for the first ‘at work’ assignment but held off because I actually thought that would be a bit of a waste. Anyway, I bit the bullet and spent a couple of hours in his shop this morning for the current ‘human relationships’ brief but I think there’s definitely more mileage – and even an audio slideshow – in there, so I am going to keep returning.

Tony is Italian and the shop has been in his family for more than 50 years -some of the customers I met today have been coming to have their hair cut by him for two or three decades. It’s an old-fashioned barber’s shop on the inside – and its walls are plastered with Manchester City, Manchester United and Italian national football team posters; Viz cartoon posters and model motorbikes.

It’s also, I discovered, a hub for the older men in my neighbourhood – particularly the Italians – who just come to hang out in his back office, drink espressos and smoke. Definitely somewhere to keep going back to…hopefully with time they’ll let me into what they were calling their ‘mafia room.’