Lakeside Community at the Café, Boggart Hole Clough

Here we are in January. It’s been a very trying year; many have faced huge difficulties and have struggled as we all faced an uncertain situation together.

One year ago, as the newly formed Lakeside Community Interest Group, we were devastated when our plans for a gardening club, reading circle, Easter egg hunt, lakeside lap challenge and a super VE Day party had to be put on hold for the foreseeable.So, we gave our heads a wobble, looked at what we could do and here’s what we managed to achieve:

We received funding from WeLoveMcr to tackle period poverty within the M9 area, dropping bags at doorsteps, care homes, schools, doctor’s surgeries and nursing homes. We also gave out hand cream, lip balms and hand sanitiser.We were given 100 Easter Eggs from Mantra Learning and Sheridan Lifts, which we distributed to households in M9. Plus arts and craft packs to keep the children occupied during the long months while the schools were shut. As well as bird boxes, bug jars, fairy doors and nature hunt sheets.

When the national lockdown ended we received funding from the Eric Hobin Fund, Northwards Housing. We used this to fund binoculars and bird books to encourage people to come out of the house and admire the natural beauty we have on our doorstep.

White Moss Youth Club gave us over 100 pedometers that we have been giving to people so they can monitor their steps while keeping active.

Working with MCC Parks Team we got involved with the Big Boggart Clean Up. Over 50 people joined in on the litter pick, making the park even more beautiful. We followed it with a cake sale for Macmillan raising £436.

As the weather got colder we created winter packs to give out from Lakeside Café; many of the items were given to us by @HealthyMcr.Over 20 shoeboxes were dropped off in Sharston for the Manchester Shoebox Appeal in November. A box was taken to the Lalley Centre for their reverse advent calendar campaign.

Winning Hearts and Minds have gave us 20 Christmas gift bags to distribute which accompanied the 100 boxes of mince pies supplied by Iceland. White Moss Youth Club enjoyed some at their luncheon club.

Partnering with Manchester Libraries we passed on 20 Winter Library Activity Packs, crammed with essential info and activities.In December we ran an amazing Christmas Raffle. The brilliant prizes included hampers from North Manchester Fitness, Winning Hearts and Minds and a fishing membership from King William IV Anglers.

None of this would have been possible without the support, help and generosity of the local community. We’ve been overwhelmed with the positive feedback and beautiful compliments received this year.

In no particular order our huge thanks go to: North Manchester Fitness, White Moss Youth Club, Walk2Run, MCC Parks Team, We Love Mcr Charity, Eric Hobin Fund, Northwards Housing, MCC Neighbourhood Investment Fund, HealthyMcr, Winning Hearts and Minds, King William IV Angling Society, Sheridan Lifts, Mantra Learning, Iceland, Manchester Libraries. Thank you all so much from the Team at Lakeside Café. We raise you a glass to say goodbye to 2020 and look forward to a fabulous 2021.

Keep up-to-date with opening times and events at the Lakeside Café on their Facebook page, just click here. And for Lakeside CIC click here.

Boggart Hole Clough is a large park with gardens, lakes and woodland walks situated on Charlestown Road, Blackley, Manchester. There’s a visitor carpark to the right of the main entrance.

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NWTAC, Anthony Horricks and Friends Ultimate Cover Show and more…

Elvis, Lady Gaga, McFly, Take That, Ed Sheeran, Snow Patrol, Bruno Mars. The list goes on and the songs keep coming. Anthony Horricks and Friends ‘Ultimate Cover Show’ was streamed live by North West Theatre Arts Company on 29th December. What a treat!James, Tempany, Anthony, Jade and Maria

NWTAC have a performing arts stage school with their own theatre and usually put on about 10 productions a year. The Covid situation didn’t so much hamper their plans for 2020 but squashed and stamped on them. When getting together wasn’t possible they turned to Zoom instead. Songs, lines, dance routines, staging etc., were learned while planned shows were rescheduled.

A hopeful September saw the show ‘Factory Fest’ performed to a small audience. The auditorium was adapted for a unique experience with waiter service to comply with social distancing rules. It was an ambitious achievement.

In October, Beth Singh, professional vocalist and NWTAC’s music director, took to the stage with a special concert accompanied by a live band and performers from the school. Both shows were brilliant.Then, following the second lockdown, the new harsher Tier 3 restrictions meant the theatre had to close to the public completely. It was devastating but, once more, they adapted.

Beth had successfully streamed her ‘lockdown live’ concerts from her own home during the summer so they got on and recorded an abridged version of ‘ A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and broadcast it on YouTube. Then, and with a full cast, streamed live from the theatre a fabulous ‘West End Up North’ concert.Anthony Horricks had appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and ‘West End Up North’. For the ‘Ultimate Cover Show’ he was joined on stage by James Burke, Tempany Windsor, Jade Hamer and Maria Collins.

Anthony grabbed the audience’s attention straight away with his opening cover of an Elvis classic. He went on to sing tracks by the Beatles, The Calling, Take That and, I kid you not, Lady Gaga along with many others.

James sang the Michael Buble track ‘Home’ beautifully. Tempany had ‘When I was your Man’, a Bruno Mars number with a twist, just perfect. Maria and Jade, both accomplished singers, did solos too and several duets were performed including Sam Smith’s ‘Lay me Down’.

It was an impressive mix with something to suit everyone.Between them they belted out over 20 hits and even popped back at the end for an encore. It was just brilliant and I’m so glad I got to watch it.

A few days later, NWTAC’s New Year’s Eve extravaganza saw 2021 in and they kissed good bye to one of the most challenging year’s they never expected to face.

The run up to Christmas is, of course, panto season. The theatre would have been packed to the rafters and rocking with families and children. But you haven’t missed out. Whilst Puss in Boots was ‘streamed’ on Christmas Eve, the live theatre version has only been postponed. All being well, it will be staged in the spring.

 

Details of future performances and ticket details can be found on NWTAC’s Facebook page by clicking here.

Information on all other aspects of the company, including the North West Stage School, theatre in education, theatre equipment hire and more, can be found on their website here.

To contact Beth Singh or Anthony Horricks, just click their names.

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Street Life: Girl About town

Our own locality was generally the place we shopped, so a trip to ‘town’ was rather special. Some trolley buses still ran on the 88 route, and if I could persuade mum to go upstairs, it made the trip even better.

Although logic tells me it isn’t true, it was always a winter afternoon when we were in town.

03-02-1964_Highways_Market St-Mosley St-Piccadilly Junction_Pictures of Market St Junction/Traffic Island

The bomb site on one side of Piccadilly was a legacy of the Christmas blitz of 1941. However the gardens remained the town centre to us, and the illuminated signs on the opposite side kept our eyes averted from the devastation. Colourful neon lights exhorted us to ‘walk the Barratt way’, and a huge clock announced Guinness was good for us. In those pre-mobile phone days, many people used the flashing Mother’s Pride sign as a designated meeting point. And to keep you occupied while waiting, there was a newsfeed spooling across the building facades on a rolling display.There must have been traffic noise, but I remember the predominant sound as the Murmuration of thousands of starlings roosting on high window sills.

In those days, whatever the size, shops each had some USP (unique selling point) to tempt us inside. Whether you were looking for a kitten or an alto saxophone, Tib Street was the place to go. It was just one of the many narrow back streets teeming with shops supplying items not stocked by the larger stores.However the department stores’ magnificent window displays acted like a magnet. Once inside, the interiors were a symphony of polished wood, brass, and occasionally marble. Even the toilet facilities seemed opulent. With their own banks, cafes, and hairdressing salons, the stores were a sophisticated microcosm of the streets surrounding them.

I liked going into Henry’s because it had a moving staircase (escalator). It’s difficult to imagine, but travelling in a lift was then still something of a novelty. A uniformed man (often a disabled war veteran) operated the switches whilst calling out each floor’s merchandise.

In the fifties, to find a street market and an ancient black and white building standing alongside Georgian warehouses, or a modern office block, was not unusual. It was simply a glimpse into the different phases of Manchester’s commercial history.

If our elderly hens needed replacing, we headed for Shudehill market on Sunday morning. I recall sitting on the steps of an old building, once the Rovers Return Inn, while granddad checked out each bird. Finding a building of such antiquity in the middle of ‘town’ was what kick-started my interest in the past. Another historical landmark I liked was the statuary on one of the cotton offices. Two figures I called ‘the dirty ladies’ reclined across the top of an ornate portico. My name for them didn’t refer to their state of undress, but rather the blackening caused by the smoke from nearby mill chimneys.Henry’s was about as far down Market Street as we usually ventured. We had Woolworths, C&A, Affleck & Brown, M&S and Littlewoods, not to mention as many shoe shops as you could wish for, on Oldham Street and Piccadilly.

The other outer limit for shopping was New Cross, once part of the area known as Little Italy. Many Italian street musicians lived there in the 1800s, so it seems appropriate it was the place I last heard a barrel organ. Masons was one of the largest shops on the Oldham Road side of Victoria Square (aka the Dwellings).

While my parents were busy choosing oilcloth (linoleum), I was spellbound by the organ grinder doing his stuff at the Bengal Street entrance to ‘the Dwellings’. With no access to recorded music, little girls like my nana danced around barrel organs. I like to imagine the elderly flat dwellers sighing as they were transported back to childhood days.By the fifties, Manchester’s motto seemed to be ‘progress at any price’. That apparently meant the sacrifice of the Rovers Return Inn, and the multiplicity of small businesses trading out of buildings up to 200 years old, which effectively drained the life from the area now known as the Northern Quarter.

Bricks and mortar were not the only thing which disappeared when small businesses and workshops were demolished. We lost the irreplaceable skills of rag trade workers, manufacturing jewellers, tailors, picture framers and ticket writers. And suddenly there was nowhere to get shoe, umbrella, watch and electrical repairs done.

Today not even a ride on a trolley bus could get me excited about going to ‘town’.

 

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