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Hello,
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds have released a new single today - a pretty, jangly number called Council Skies.
“All the dreams I had as a youth were underneath council skies,” reflects Noel in a press release.
The song is accompanied by a music video that premiered at 6pm tonight showing the band performing inside the historic New Century Hall and promising a cameo from another ‘Manc legend’.
Part of the video was also filmed in Collyhurst and Monsall, according to Councillor Pat Karney, who wonders if Noel visited the area for the shoot. You can clearly see a tower block and the derelict shops of Eastford Square as a young couple amble past the inner-city spots.
It’s a nice video featuring some local landmarks and colourful smoke bombs, but I do wonder why it was filmed in East Manchester, which is about five miles up the road from the Burnage estate Noel and Liam grew up on. Did the distinct lack of tower blocks in the south Manchester suburb hinder the video’s aesthetic?
Anyway, the video also features the unique William Mitchell concrete sculpture which faces Hamerton Road and is due to be relocated as the shops are demolished. Coun Karney says it will be moved to the front of the estate and the kids from Savior C of E Primary School will be looking after it.
“Now Noel’s got a love affair with Collyhurst we’d love him to pop down and unveil it for us when he’s back in Manchester in June,” he told this newsletter.
AIyyyyyyyyaaaa!
Speaking of the Gallagher brothers, Liam has - in his inimitable style - aired his views on the ‘new Oasis album’, generated by artificial intelligence.
Credited to AISIS, The Lost Tapes Volume One was popped into YouTube by producer Bobby Geraghty this week.
The Oasis-esque songs were written by him, not by AI, for another band called Breezer. But he added vocals from an AI-generated Liam Gallagher to create The Lost Tapes.
When asked if he has listened to the AISIS album by a fan on Twitter, Liam commented: “Not the album heard a tune it’s better than all the other snizzle out there.”
So there you have it. Better than all the other snizzle out there. We can’t ask more than that can we?
The charming Salford artist championed by LS Lowry
He was one of Britain’s greatest artists but remained a working class Salford lad at heart.
Harold Riley has died at the age of 88 after living for several years with a neurological autoimmune condition. He leaves behind a vast legacy of work ranging from portraits of Prince Philip and Pope John Paul II to images depicting the backstreets and characters of his home city.
Chief reporter Neal Keeling knew Riley well and says he was a generous, kind and funny man. “His work, and education meant any Salford rough edges in his accent were smoothed away, but his love of his city was deep and authentic. He continued to live in the city at Salford Quays in a flat overlooking his beloved Old Trafford,” he writes.
Telling me about the artist this afternoon, Neal said: “It was a privilege to call him a friend as well as to meet him for stories. Beyond his colossal artistic gifts he was charming, funny, and mischievous. He also raised millions of pounds over his 72-year career for many charities - in the UK and abroad.
“But I have two precious memories of him. Him, as a United fan, laughing to the point of tears as we discussed my team Manchester City's wretched form in the early noughties and us both buying fish and chips together from Neil's Friery on Langworthy Road - which he had done a wonderful watercolour of. He turned to me and said: 'The fish Neal, melts in your mouth'.”
Neal has penned this fascinating and moving obituary to Riley - who was known for his skill, talent and generosity. Whether he was capturing the youth and hope of President John. F Kennedy in 1962, or the neon glow from a Salford chip shop on a snow-flecked winter's night, Riley knew how to command his skills to the greatest effect. He even drew portraits of the staff at Salford Royal Hospital who cared for him during bouts of illness during recent years.
Riley was born in Seedley and lived at a terraced house which was bombed during the Blitz. The family moved to Lower Kersal, and then Brookfield Avenue, near the former Hope Hospital.
A Salford Grammar old boy, Riley attended that school with life-long friend Albert Finney. At the tender age of 11, he was awarded first prize at the school art exhibition by L.S. Lowry. The older man even engineered Riley’s first sale thanks to the curator at Salford Museum and Art Gallery and the young artist used the 30 shillings he earned to buy a new plaid shirt. The two artists remained friends for three decades.
In 1951, he won a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art in London and later, a travel scholarship to Italy, followed by a British Council Scholarship to study in Spain, before returning to Salford.
As Neal writes, Riley believed his main work was to document the city in paintings, drawings and photographs and his deep affection for his hometown cemented his friendship with Lowry.
During his long and illustrious career he painted three popes, royalty and United States Presidents Kennedy and Ford. He was the only artist Nelson Mandela sat for and the resulting painting raised $1m for South African charities.
He was also famed for his sporting pictures, which centred largely around his beloved Manchester United after he played for the academy side under Sir Matt Busby.
Sir Alex Ferguson, who also sat for Riley, praised his famous generosity when the artists was awarded the Freedom of Salford in 2017 “He won’t let you forget United didn’t sign him, but I am sure the richness of your life has made up for that,” he said.
Speaking today, Sir Alex described Riley as a working class man who rose to ‘great heights’ and ‘never lost his roots’. “He had a style of his own and his generosity in supporting countless charities still reverberates round the streets of his home town,” she said.
After being awarded that accolade, Riley chose to exercise the ancient rights to drive sheep through the city, wrangling four pedigree Derbyshire Texels from a farm to meander slowly down the A6.
Generous with both his time and art, Riley sketched his wife Ashraf during a spell in intensive care. The sketch sold for an astonishing £55,000 at an auction held for the NSPCC’s ChildLine service.
He is survived by his wife Ashraf, daughters Kate and Sara and grandchildren Hannelore, Luke and Saffron. Describing the artist as ‘humble, compassionate and loving’ they say he lived by simple principles - ‘to love, to give and to serve every person equally’.
A charitable trust, The Riley Educational Foundation, has been set up to look after his life’s work and the flag at Salford Civic Centre has been lowered to half-mast.
Salford City Mayor Paul Dennett says Riley said had ‘the true Spirit of Salford’ with a deep love for its people and communities. “Harold was a very generous man contributing to numerous good causes across the City over his lifetime. The list is long, but to name just one, Harold donated 100 original works to Salford Royal Hospital along with 100 prints of these works that are now on display around the hospital to support patients and staff. “He will be sorely missed, and Salford is very much the worse for his passing.”
Former Salford City Council chief executive Barbara Spicer says Riley was the ’epitome of a gentleman’ with an address book ‘to rival any A-lister’ - though he treated everyone with the same ‘warmth, affection, and respect’. “The fact that he chose to stay and work in his beloved city says much about him,” she says.
New donations to the art gallery
Manchester Art Gallery received three new works over the weekend - but curators were not aware they would be getting them. The paintings were left in the lobby by artist Belshah, who hopes to highlight how much people rely on the arts for freedom and humanity.
He told Adam Maidment he was keen to use the stunt to raise awareness of the difficulty artists have when accessing institutions and the detrimental impact of capitalism. “There’s a level within institutions at the moment where it is very difficult to get into these spaces,” he says.
He insists the stunt was not targeting the art gallery directly, but he wanted to show ‘these spaces shouldn’t be gatekept’. “To give a piece to the art gallery is a very long process and it’s difficult to get things into these spaces. I hope they don’t mind me leaving it there but it’s about expediting things.”
Belshah says the recent closure of Oldham Coliseum is a prime example of a degradation of the arts. “Our civilisation is falling apart and people look to the arts for expressions of freedom and humanity. We’ve got to fight for these spaces.”
Manchester Art Gallery says it is unable to accept the paintings, which will be returned.
Belshah's latest protest is one of a number he has planned. He intends to hand out 333 burgers in Piccadilly Gardens during the King’s Coronation. “Instead of watching the Coronation, I want to hold a party of protest instead. We can still have fun, but it’s just about not giving our energy to something that, in my opinion, doesn’t have a place in a fair society,” he says.
Salford’s North-South divide
With just a fortnight to go until polling day, the mood in Salford is said to be mixed. Nick Jackson reports that ‘anger, apathy and anxiety’ were the ‘three As’ when he spoke to voters on the city’s streets. And he says the city is a microcosm of the age-old issue of the north-south divide which characterises much of the national political landscape and debate.
To the north of the borough lies Little Hulton, where just 18.1 per cent of people eligible to vote bothered to rock up at their local polling station last time. While in affluent Worsley, Eccles and Monton, in the south, voter turnout was much higher.
One man at Little Hulton District Centre told Nick he doesn’t vote after voting twice for the British National Party. “It did no good,” he said. “They just keep letting people in. When I’ve had enough I’ll just sell my house and go and live in Spain.”
Janet Hoey - who runs the Cuppa For Carers charity - told Nick she was born and bred in the area but feels ‘a bit despondent’. “I don’t know if I will vote. I don’t feel Salford city council is doing enough for people who need wheelchair access. I also think that looking after people who care for their disabled relatives - care for the carers - is important and being neglected. That’s why I founded my charity,” she said.
Meanwhile, her friend Christine Dean insists she will be voting, even with the introduction of photographic identification at the ballot box proving a stumbling block for many.
“Central government doesn’t bother about the north, but here in Salford there seems to be a similar north-south divide. It’s like we’ve been cut off. I think we’d be a lot better off in Bolton. But I’m going to vote," she said.
You can read all the responses in this feature.
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Weather etc
Friday: Sunny intervals changing to overcast by late morning. 12C.
Road closures: A667 Ringley Road, Whitefield, in both directions closed due to roadworks from Stand Lane to Ashbourne Grove. Until June 30.
Trivia question: L.S. Lowry mainly concentrated on which Salford town in his paintings?
Manchester headlines
- Bonuses: Northern has angered unions by handing its managers £1,800 bonuses while refusing to give drivers a pay rise. The publicly-owned rail operator says it has made the extra payment ‘in recognition of the significant contributions made in managing contingency planning and delivery of our business plan’. But the move - which comes amid an ongoing industrial dispute which has seen local services decimated on strike days - has sparked anger among workers who say they have not had their pay increased since 2019. An internal message by a senior manager - seen by The Northern Agenda politics newsletter - says the payment recognises the ‘superb efforts’ of frontline managers who have been ‘relentless, constantly scrutinised, working with ambiguity and keeping us safe and compliant’. Staff are also angry after learning that managers at Northern have been paid £250 a day extra to help keep trains running on strike days. More here.
Tributes: Manchester City fans and officials paid their respects at the site of the Munich Air Disaster before the Blues Champions League clash in the city. The Blues took on Bayern Munich in the second leg of their quarter-final tie last night and, prior to the match, a delegation of club executives joined a group of supporters in paying a visit to Manchesterplatz, where there is a memorial to the 23 people who perished in the plane crash on February 6, 1958. Eight Manchester United players lost their lives as the plane bringing them home from a European Cup tie in Belgrade crashed. Also among the victims was former Manchester City goalkeeper Frank Swift, then working as a journalist for the News of the World.
Bar: A new late-night bar has appeared beneath the pavements of the Northern Quarter. A fresh project from popular brunch spot Another Heart To Feed, the mysterious Nightcap, has been fashioned out of one of the area’s Victorian basements. Complete with the original brick tiles, the space was unearthed when AHTF owners Mike and Martin Dillon took on the space next door to their brunch restaurant and bar, formerly the hair salon RCNQ, to expand into. They found that underneath, the basement space runs much of the length of the street, and would make the perfect underground bar. More here.
Awareness: A ‘dirty protest’ hit the streets of Manchester today as an army of people dressed as poo and loo roll encouraged people to check their stools. The march aimed to raise awareness of bowel cancer and its symptoms. The cancer has the second highest mortality rate after lung cancer in the UK, claiming around 17,000 lives annually. A team from Pall Mall Medical donned poo emoji costumes and rolls of toilet paper in an attempt to destigmatise the taboo when it comes to poo. More here.
Worth a read
“It was the 50 seconds of 'intense violence' that saw a bloody gang feud between rival factions of 'Triads' explode on the streets of Manchester's Chinatown,” writes Damon Wilkinson.
“When the dust had settled six men were seriously injured, with two left fighting for their lives in intensive care. The ferocious 30-man battle was sparked by a stand-off in the K2 karaoke bar on George Street in the early hours of October 16, 2010. And it helped shine a light on the shadowy underworld of Chinese organised crime and its influence in Manchester.”
Damon has been looking at how this gang war exploded in Manchester more than a decade ago - and the consequences for those involved.
You can read the full piece here.
That's all for todayThanks for joining me. If you have stories you would like us to look into, email beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk. If you have enjoyed this newsletter today, why not tell a friend how to sign up? The answer to today's trivia question is: Pendlebury, where the artist lived and worked. |
