The year will be remembered as the year of Brexit, Donald Trump,terror attacks in European capitals, Olympic success and what seemed a disproportionate amount of celebrity deaths but what happened in Manchester in 2016?
Over the next few days we look back at some of the events of the year.Today we look at some of our people stories.
Back in January we told of how a new documentary film out that month explored how a Newton Heath born lad who went onto edit the Sunday Times exposed the scandal of Thalidomide in the 1960’s.
The film, Attacking The Devil: Harold Evans and the Last Nazi War told the story of Sir Harold’s campaigns, including an investigation into the drug thalidomide, which left 10,000 babies with deformities in the 1950s and ’60s while he was editor of the Sunday Times.
Sir Sir Harold Evans attended Brookdale High School Newton Heath, school with the future Alfred, Lord Morris of Manchester, who nicknamed him “Poshie” because he was the only boy in the school whose father – a railway driver – owned an automobile.
His career began as a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire at 16 years old. After completing his national service in the Royal Air Force, he entered Durham University where he graduated with honours in politics and economics and subsequently earned a Master of Arts degree for a thesis on foreign policy.
He became an assistant editor of the Manchester Evening News and won a Harkness Fellowship in 1956-57 for travel and study in the United States. He began to gain a reputation on his return from the U.S. when he was appointed editor of the regional daily The Northern Echo, where one of his campaigns resulted in a national programme for the detection of cervical cancer.
During his 14-year tenure as editor of the Sunday Times, Evans was responsible for its crusading style of investigative reporting which brought to public attention many stories and scandals which were officially denied or ignored.
We announced that Emile Pankhurst was set to be honoured with a statue in Manchester after the results of a public vote.
Mrs Pankhurst won over fifty per cent of the vote in a shortlist that contain five other notable Manchester women including Ellen Wilkinson, a Labour MP, co-organised the 1935 Jarrow March and campaigned on mental health issues
While it was announced that the cast of BAFTA winning comedy drama Cold Feet – James Nesbitt, Robert Bathurst, Hermione Norris, John Thomson, and Fay Ripley would begin filming a new series for ITV in Manchester and staying with TV, University of Manchester Professor of Public History, Michael Wood returned to our television screens in a new BBC2 series – The Story of China.
In February it was announced that Sir Bobby Charlton was to have a stand named after him at Old Trafford.The South Stand, which contains the only original part of the 1910 stadium infrastructure, was to be named at the home game against Everton on 2 April 2016 in front of 75,000 fans and attended by key figures from Sir Bobby’s life and the world of football.
Mark Dobson was to be the new Director of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre. Mark joined the organisation from his role as Chief Executive of the historic Tyneside Cinema, a unique and highly innovative organisation which, under Dobson’s inspiring and creative leadership, had been reinvented as an energising community hub in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne.
In March, the Salford born composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davis died at the age of 81 from leukemia.He had attended Manchester College of Music (now Royal Northern College of Music) where he was part of the so-called Manchester School with contemporaries Harrison Birtwistle, John Ogdon, Elgar Howarth, Richard Hall and Alexander Goehr.
That same month, The Salford University based poet Jackie Kay was named as the new Scottish Makar.Kay was appointed Chancellor of the University of Salford in 2014 where she has been the University ‘Writer in Residence’ since 2015 and Lady Joy Smith DL, from Atherleigh a former teacher, was to be the next High Sheriff of Greater Manchester for the year 2016 – 2017.
In April we interviewed Manchester born blues legend Victor Brox . He was, we wrote, without doubt, a musical virtuoso. As well as playing keyboards, brass and guitar, he was regarded as one of Britain’s greatest ever blues /rock vocalists, ranking alongside the likes of Joe Cocker and Stevie Marriott. Jimi Hendrix, was a great fan of Victor, and helped endorse his talent, jamming and playing with him and the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, on many occasions in London and New-York.
We reported on how a Manchester eye-surgeon has been named as one of the most influential eye specialists in the world.
Mr Stephen Charles, a Consultant Ophthalmologist and Vitreoretinal surgeon at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, was named in The Ophthalmologist Magazine’s Top 100 Most Powerful List 2016 following a voting process involving 18,000 readers.
We also told the story of Zandra Yeboah, a year 11 pupil at Wright Robinson College, in Gorton, and a former pupil of Bowker Vale Primary School in Blackley. Zandra was a participant within the Diane Modahl Sports Foundation (DMSF), which was founded by the former athlete Dto give young people, mainly from disadvantaged areas, access to world class coaching, coaches and mentoring, with the aim of creating champions of the future.
In May, guest writer Frank Pleszak told us the story of the book he had written about his father’s unbelievable journey from eastern Poland to Manchester during the Second World War.
That same month we followed the story of Alan Creedon who set off from his home in Levenshulme to walk the 400 miles to his home town in Dingle, Ireland in memory of his sister, Aoife who passed away 5 years ago from a severe form or cerebral palsy which meant she could not talk, walk or communicate like most people.
Manchester elected its first openly gay Mayor in May, Councillor Carl Austin-Behan had served the Ward of Burnage since 2001. On his appointment Carl said, “As Manchester’s first openly gay Lord Mayor it will be an honour to represent the entire city. The wide range of diverse backgrounds, identities and sexual orientations of people living in our city deserves to be celebrated more and I look forward to engaging and connecting with people from communities across Manchester as well as visitors from all corners of the globe.”
Pele came to Manchester in June at an event hosted by the city’s humanitarian aid charity, Human Appeal. The former footballer gave a Q&A and talked about his recently passed friend Muhammed Ali, England wonderkid Marcus Rashford and the time Manchester United wanted to buy him.
That same month, a new type of ichthyosaur, an extinct marine reptile alive at the same time as the dinosaurs, has been identified by a Manchester palaeontologist from a fossil found in an old quarry in Nottinghamshire.Dean Lomax, a palaeontologist and Honorary Scientist at The University of Manchester, examined the specimen after seeing it on a visit to Leicester’s New Walk Museum, which acquired the fossil in 1951, and spotted some unusual features.
July saw the sad death of Caroline Aherne at her home in Timperly at the age of 52 .The star of Mrs Merton and the Royle Family which she co wrote, has battled with cancer through her life, first diagnosed with Retina cancer at the age of four, she spent the rest of her life with partial sight in one eye.
An eleven year old from Cheadle Hulme was named a regional winner in the National Young Writers’ Award.Eloise Shneck from North Cheshire Jewish Primary School fought off tough competition from children all over the region with her story, ‘Breathless’.
In August we reported Rio Bound Paralympian Hannah Russell who was feeling “confident” ahead of the Paralympic games next month.The twenty- year- old partially- sighted swimmer and student at The University of Salford says that despite Rio being her first overseas games, she is feeling far more prepared than for London 2012, where she won silver.
September saw the red carpet rolled out at Home cinema in Manchester as Michelle Keegan was in town for a special screening of her new BBC One drama Our Girl. Other members of the Our Girl cast including Sean Ward, Angela Lonsdale and Simon Lennon were joined on the red carpet by a host of North West celebs including BBC North West Tonight presenter Beccy Barr and Hannah Midgley who recently starred in the BBC One drama In The Club.
Meanwhile after 25 years on Bury Market as proprietor of Jacko’s Jackets jacket potato stall, Bill Jackson was hanging up his bandana so that he can enjoy his retirement.Bill said: “It has been a pleasure to be part of such a well-known, buzzing market, serving and chatting to my customers for so long. I would like to thank all my loyal customers for their business and also the market’s staff who have always been helpful. I also wish the new owners of the stall all the best for the future.”
Later that month, family, friends and colleagues gathered for a street name unveiling ceremony in Miles Platting to honour fallen Firefighter Stephen Hunt.Stephen was tragically killed in the line of duty in July 2013 at an incident at Paul’s Hair World on Oldham Street, Manchester.
While files released by the National Archives showed that MI5 were taking an interest in the Manchester Historian Rodney Hilton.The files show that in 1952 he discovered his post was being intercepted and went to the Birmingham head postmaster to complain.
According to Cambridge University’s Christopher Andrew, an expert on the Cambridge Spy Ring and official historian of MI5, his girlfriend at the time and later to be his second wife Gwyn Evans, also a Communist historian, who lived in Nottingham, was alarmed to discover that their letters and telephone calls were regularly intercepted. Hilton’s MI5 file, which is combined with that of Gwyn Evans, records a satirical comment by him in the course of an intercepted phone conversation with Gwyn: ‘Rodney … said he wondered if the little friend who opened his letters was listening to this telephone. [Gwyn] said she was a bit shaken by it, when she thought of the stuff she poured out daily. [Rodney] told her that it was no good taking any notice of ‘them’.”
October saw The Duke and Duchess paying a visit to the University of Manchester. They toured the world-leading National Graphene Institute (NGI) where academics and commercial partners work side by side on applications of the future, while staying in the field of science, astronaut Tim Peake paid a visit to the Lowry Outlet Centre at Media City.
The month saw the death of Jean Alexander.Jean played the character of Hilda Ogden on the soap for 23 years between 1964 and 1987 instantly recognisable with her trademark hair curlers and pinny, a costume said to be inspired by the Liverpool munition worker’s dress during the Second World War.
November saw the death of one of the founding members of Madchester band Inspiral Carpets. Drummer Craig Gill joined the Oldham band Gill at the age of just 14 in 1986 and played with them throughout their 90s heyday and remained when the band reformed to tour and record their self-titled, final album in 2014.
