Pies, piers, canals, cruises and art, part 2

On Wednesday morning I checked my Metro app and was delighted to find that the trams were back to 'good service'. Had to pay on the bus into Bury (£2.50) as it was ridiculously early and another £7 for the return tram ride to Salford Quays. The tram cruised through Victoria station without stopping and we changed at Cornbrook for the spur into what's now known as MediaCityUK, where both the BBC and ITV have their studios. We crossed a bridge towards the Lowry and round the corner spotted the 10am ferry - Snowdrop - it was 9.30am and already full of pensioners!



We joined the queue to get aboard and grabbed a bit of a bench on the forward left-hand side. I got some teas in before we set off -  bacon baps were already being prepared for the breakfast rush. It was a lovely day and we went under the Lowry footbridge (all the bridges, except the high level ones, raised or swung for us), past the Imperial War Museum North and Coronation Street and into the first set of locks, Mode Wheel locks (named after Maud, according to the woman giving the running commentary). There are five sets of locks in total, and they mostly account for the predicted six-hour journey to the Mersey. Out of Manchester it was much more rural than I expected, with lots of birdlife to spot: herons, cormorants, and baby ducks having to ride out the wash.



We passed countless swing bridges, swing aqueducts and deserted railway bridges, and after Irlam locks, we had our first glimpse of the Mersey, which would join and leave the Ship Canal several times.




Apparently building the canal had cut through several ancient rights of way, so every now and again there'd be a ferryman to take ramblers across the water in rowing boats.



Eventualy the canal widened and we saw a lot more industry - oil refineries and chemical works, one with its own island church.



 But amongst all this industry there were islands where sheep grazed, brought over in the farmer's boat.

As we approached Liverpool the weather had got worse, the sun went in and it was windy and cold. Finally we reached Eastham locks, where we had to wait for an age for a ship to come in - the tide was ebbing and it'd get stuck unless we let it through. It was fascinating however to watch the tugs (all with names beginning with V) inch the Gibraltan tanker into the lock and out into the canal.

 

We were now at sea and heading for the Liverpool skyline in the distance. It had taken around seven hours and we just had time for a couple of pints in the Pump House at Albert Dock before getting a coach back to Salford and home to Bury. A great day out! Book your trip here.



On Thursday I was heading home to Brighton, but set off early to see if I could check out the Ryan Gander exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery (it used to be called Manchester City Art Gallery but must have changed its name after pressure from United fans). I'd never heard of him until a Culture Show on tv. I got the tram to St Peter's Square (£4.10 for a single!) and the guard at the art gallery kindly let me put my case behind his desk. It was the first day of the show and the staff were still putting final touches to installations. It was fascinating however, one of those shows where you have to question everything you see. Is that crumpled piece of paper on the floor art (yes)? Is that guard (or rather Gallery Visitor Services staff member) reading a book (William Morris's News from Nowhere) art (yes!). Are you allowed to take a badge from the ice cream container (no)? Are you allowed to look behind the curtain (maybe)?

 

It was only later reading the guide on the train that I noticed I'd missed one or two pieces. Luckily, the friendly guard at the door had told me of other pieces scattered about the gallery: the Degas ballerina and Yves Klein blue cube (depicting the public perception of modern art) in the entrance hall, the chess set in the Design department, so thankfully I saw most of it! So glad I did. He's a sort of Jeremy Deller or Martin Creed but with a devilish sense of humour. Loved it.

It was time to hit the train. Manchester has free circular buses so I jumped on a Metroshuttle 3 right outside the gallery that took me directly to Piccadilly station, thence to Euston and via the tube (cos the train was delayed), back to Victoria and home.

British blues: part 2 Manchester

[This recollection was first published on my Geocities website in 2006 - but as the future of Geocities is uncertain, I thought I'd re-publish it here with a few tiny amendments.]

By this time I was in the sixth form at school and every Saturday night I was getting on the electric train from Bolton Street station to Manchester Victoria (now part of the Metro tram network) and going to the all-nighters at the Twisted Wheel and Oasis clubs, as well as the Cavern, Heaven and Hell (which had just ultra-violet lights downstairs in hell so all you could see was dandruff and bra straps!),

Expires 31st December 1964

the CubiKlub in Rochdale, the Boneyard in Bolton,

Expires 16 July 1965

and the Manchester Sports Guild for trad jazz.

I don't live there any more! 

Other cool cats (soon to become Mods) included Roy Henshall, Bob Stoney, Suki, Steph Minta, John Dickinson and Pete Entwistle.

'Wade in the water' – the B-side of 'Tammy', by the Graham Bond Organisation

This was before Northern Soul and clubs like the Twisted Wheel played an eclectic mix of music - Tamla and Stax soul (obviously), but also British beat, jazz (Jimmy Smith mainly), folk (Dylan) and blues (Jesse Fuller's 'San Francisco Bay Blues' was very popular). It's easy to forget but these clubs weren't licenced – there was only frothy coffee on sale, and we kept going with purple hearts, black bombers and dexies (all forms of speed I believe) along with the odd ten-bob deal of shit (draw). I was also going to Bury Palais to watch the Beat groups – saw them all, except The Beatles! All of the beat groups covered blues classics – even Blackburn band The Four Pennies had a hit with a Leadbelly tune – 'Black girl'. Then of course there was Manchester's own Victor Brox Blues Train, him with the pocket cornet or whatever it was! Most authentic in my opinion was Manfred Mann. Roy was buying Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley LPs by this time.

I saw the Graham Bond Organisation at the Oasis, and got all their autographs. It was Dick Heckstall-Smith on tenor sax, 'Europe's top drummer' Ginger Baker on drums and Jack Bruce on bass. We were queuing when he was struggling down the steps with his Hammond organ and he quipped that he should have taken up the mouth organ! He was awesome, and a great alto saxophonist too. I bought his single Tammy – for the B-side 'Wade in the water' and one of my favourite albums of all time is the 1964 Decca LP 'R&B' which also showcases Alexis Korner (with a sublime track 'Night time is the right time' featuring Ronnie Jones singing and Bond on sax), Zoot Money, John Mayall, and (the weakest) Dave Berry.

One of the greatest compilations of all time, not available on CD although many of the original tracks are on Decca mod and 'scene' compilations. Graham Bond's 'Hootchie Coochie Man' here is a much better version than on his Sound of 65 album.

1. Hi-heel sneakers - Graham Bond Organisation - R&B
2. Not fade away - Dave Berry - R&B
3. Early In The Morning - Alexis Korner - The Blues Scene
4. Walking The Dog - Zoot Money's Big Roll Band - The Mod Scene
5. Mr James - John Mayall and the Blues breakers - R&B
6. Long Legged Baby - Graham Bond Organisation - The Mod Scene Vol. 2
7. You better move on - Dave Berry - R&B
8. Diddley Daddy - Dave Berry - R&B
9. Hootchie Coochie Man - Graham Bond Organization - R&B
10. Get On The Right Track Baby - Zoot Money - The Blues Scene
11. Little Girl - Graham Bond Organisation - The Mod Scene
12. Crawling Up A Hill - John Mayall - The R&B Scene
13. Strut Around - Graham Bond Organisation - The Blues Scene
14. Night Time Is The Right Time - Alexis Korner (Ronnie Jones, vocal) - The Blues Scene

Another milestone album was Golden Guinea's 'Rhythm and Blues' with a mixture of black US bluesmen – Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and others.

At the Twisted Wheel I saw Sonny Boy Williamson (in his 'jester' suit), John Lee Hooker, Howling Wolf, Spencer Davis Group with Steve Winwood and many many others - one day I'll look up the Manchester Evening News archives to see who else was on in 1964-65! I also went to the Free Trade Hall on 29 September 1966 to see the American Folk Blues Festival '66, with Pete (Pedro) Entwistle, starring Sleepy John Estes and Yank Rachell, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Roosevelt Sykes 'The Honeydipper' and Big Joe Turner.

Other reminiscences:
Prologue
British Blues: part 1 Bury

British Blues: part 3 London
Helix
Glad Day and Guildford Arts Lab

Trying to find John Dickinson

Trying to find John Dickinson (From Bury Times): the Bury Times letter from Vanessa

Bury mods

John Dicky and Vanessa
Originally uploaded by fred pipes

When I was up in Bury last week, I was reading the Bury Times when I spotted a letter from Vanessa Major, wondering about the whereabouts of John Dickie, who she knew in 1967. This prompted me to dig out some old photos from that time - I wish I'd taken more of them. I was at college in Battersea 1965-68 but visited my home town of Bury in the vacs with my brand new Exa IIB 35mm SLR camera. Unfortunately I developed the photos myself, so the quality isn't great! These images (more on Flickr) were scanned from the negatives. This is the gang that hung out around Melody Fair record shop on the corner of Market Street and Kay Gardens, frequented Bury Palais de Dance at every opportunity, and travelled to Manchester on the electric train each Saturday night to groove to the latest R&B and soul sounds at the Twisted Wheel, Oasis, Cavern, Jigsaw, Jungfrau etc, etc all-nighters. Further recollections can be read here.

Holman Hunt

If there were a heaven it'd be a bit like standing in the Manchester [City] Art Gallery surrounded by almost everything Holman Hunt ever painted! I've waited years to see an exhibition devoted to my favourite painter - I've been to all the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood round-ups over the years and shows featuring Millais, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Alma-Tadema, Lord Leighton, all the Victorians and Edwardians. I travelled up to Manchester especially for this and I wasn't disappointed. Holman Hunt was the most consistent of the Pre-Raphs - he didn't go downhill in later life like Millais and was infinitely more commited than Rossetti, even tho I love them both. He was probably the least scandallous too, tho he did marry his sister-in-law! His paintings may not be as pretty as Rossetti's and their moral and religious themes may put you off, but in my opinion he represents the highest ever achievement in painting - nobody even comes close, before or after (well OK, maybe Vermeer, Ingres, Dali and Glenn Brown). Holman Hunt wasn't a photo-realist - if you look up close at one of his big works, you can see his hand in the brushstrokes and even pencil under the thin layers of paint, but what is astonishing is the bright saturated colours he used. A square inch of painted textile or wood shaving is a psychedelic whirl of intense luscious pigment. He makes the Impressionists look drab. He does however suffer from the same thing that made prog rock unfashionable in pop music - too much going on! And I'm not sure I like his use of soft-focus sometimes, as in 'The awakening conscience' and the horrible 'Triumph of the Innocents' with its babies in bubbles. Gerhard Richter, the American Pop artists and Hyper-realists do it better. To see his true genius, look at the landscape backgrounds of the big 'uns or smaller informal works, like 'Fairlight Downs - Sunlight on the sea' 1852-8 (in the collection of Lord Lloyd Webber) a shimmering sea traversed by a steamship (putting it in HH's present), with the remarkable device of a stick thrown to a dog shown in mid-air! This was painted near Hastings about the same time as 'Our English Coasts' - the one one with sheep on the Downs straying onto the cliffs with the stunning back-lighting. His cropping of the sheep in this one anticipating the snapshot-inspired compositions of Degas. It was great to see all three versions of 'The Light of the World' - we even had the actual lantern HH had made, different piercings representing different faiths. Many of the other big 'uns I'd seen before. Like the prog rockers, many of HH's paintings had been on world tours, and he made a fortune from prints. A rather unimpressive monochrome photogravure (tho HH is said to have touched up 300 of them in black chalk by hand!) by Goupil and Co of 'The triumph of the innocents' was on show in an impressive frame, made by C R Ashbee and the Guild of Handicrafts for C R Horsfall's Ancoats gallery. According to the caption, commentator Alan Crawford (who?) said: 'It is hard to imagine an object more strongly associated with the vanished ideal of social reform through art than this, with its reproduction from Holman Hunt, its quotation from Ruskin [beautifully calligraphed on vellum from The art of England, Chapter 1], made in London's East End by reformed craftsmen, to bring the light of culture to the poor of Manchester.' Hmmm, ever so slightly patronising? The exhibition was free and also includes two spoofs by Steve Bell! My only gripe is the 25 quid publication described as a catalogue. It was produced by the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, where this show first appeared. Despite being full of interesting articles and colour pictures (which could have been a tad bigger!) it doesn't list the exhibits, and it includes pictures not in the exhibition, as I found out when I examined mine in the cafe. I didn't realise for example that there are (at least) two versions of 'The shadow of the cross'. The Manchester one was on show, but there is also a smaller one in nearby Leeds! (And a third I've since learnt is owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber.) There are also (at least) two Ladies of Shalott. What I need from a catalogue is a trainspotter's guide to where all his works can be seen. It was great however to see the self-portrait from the Uffizi and John Ballantyne's portrait of HH in his studio looking like a Victorian Vivian Stanshall in his oriental robe, hat and big ginger beard! Moving Manchester's Holman Hunts next door freed up some wallspace in the main gallery. I'm not good as spot the difference but it looks like most of the gaps have been filled with Millais's dull later landscapes. Manchester Art Gallery (they seem to have dropped City from the name) is a treasure at any time. The Valettes alone are worth a trip to the land of L S Lowry, Joy Division and The Smiths - the foggy streets of this grim Northern city (like on the day I visited) were always waiting for his style of urban Impressionism. And there's an accompanying exhibition of works on paper by the PRB, Burne-Jones and the underrated Ford Madox Brown, he of 'Work' in the main building. The exhibition closes on 11 January. The nearest Holman Hunt to Brighton BTW is the dishy 'Bianca' at Worthing Art Gallery, currently on loan to the above exhibition.