Ski Club City Walk — November 2023

Reporter: Roberta Cameron

If you think that Manchester is the wettest city in the UK, think again, as it is only the fifteenth wettest, coming in after Cardiff, Preston, Bradford and Leeds. However, you may find it difficult to convince the 30 stalwart individuals (plus one damp dog), who dodged the puddles and experienced the continual downpour during Ed Glinert’s fascinating tour of The Dark Side of Manchester.

Ignoring the rain, and where possible dipping into drier porches and entrances, Ed reeled off the murderers, abductions, rogues and nasty side of Manchester of long ago and not so long ago.

Our introduction to grisly death was with John Lees, a victim of the Peterloo massacre in 1819. During the massacre he was severely wounded when his arm was severed by a sword. The next day, with his shirt still covered in blood, he went to work, but eventually decided that he had to visit the Manchester Infirmary to get help. The surgeon at the hospital looked at John’s wound and then asked him he had attended the Peterloo demonstration, to which John said ‘yes’. That was enough for the surgeon, who then refused to treat John, who sadly died a slow and painful death a week later.

The Plaza Nightclub, off Oxford Street was demolished in the 1970’s, so we weren’t able to see the infamous building, which during the 1960’s attracted teenage girls and school kids ‘rockin ‘n rollin’ during the day. Who hosted these attractions? DJ Jimmy Savile, who lived in a flat in Salford and drove around the area in his Rolls. Following the Plaza Savile went on to work onTopofthePopsattheBBCon Dickenson Road, Rusholme. After his death in 2011, Jimmy Savile went from national treasure to the most high-profile sex offender in the country.

Moving on from the extremely shocking exploits of JS, we rocked up at the entrance to Manchester Central, the former Manchester Central railway station.

On 6th October 1965, a teenager, Edward Evans was on his way to a football match, wanted a drink in the Central Station buffet which was closed, so he went into the gay village for a drink instead and got chatting to a man called Ian Brady. Ian Brady offered Edward a lift, saying that his sister was in the car. This ‘sister’ was Myra Hindley. Brady & Hindley drove Edward Evans to their house and then killed him with an axe, ugh…how gruesome.

During the Autumn of 2006, the Labour Party was holding its annual conference at Manchester Central, then called the G-Mex. Diagonally opposite Manchester Central is the Radisson Hotel where Tony Blair and the Labour party delegates were staying. Prior to the start of the Conference the security services were alerted to a potential plot to assassinate Tony Blair by a lone sniper on the roof of a nearby building. To minimise any risk to the PM, a bullet-proof walkway was constructed between the hotel and the convention centre before the start of the Conference.

Ed was clearly fascinated by the involvement of MI5 in the bugging and ‘cleaning’ of hotel rooms during party conferences, so leaving Manchester Central we dodged the puddles and wandered down a side street towards a totally unremarkable office building, which Ed assured us was the Manchester office of GCHQ. Do I believe him? There’s no reason not to.

The man sitting at the desk in the office reception must be used to Ed bringing people to stare at this innocuous building. There were no ‘Dark Side’ stories to tell us about the MI5 building so, holding his purple & white umbrella aloft like a true tour guide, he whisked us off into the rain.

Who else was on the grim and gruesome list? Peter Sutcliffe, a name familiar to most people as The Yorkshire Ripper visited Manchester on October 1st 1977. Most people are aware of the horrific murders that he committed, mostly in Yorkshire, however he was also active in Manchester, brutally murdering Jean Jordan in 1977. However, it was to be his final crime, as in his haste he left a piece of incriminating evidence on Jean’s mutilated body, which helped to lead the police to Sutcliffe and his eventual conviction.

Can it get any more horrifying? Perhaps by this time we were all numb to the various horror stories, however perhaps one of the most chilling is of the doctor who is supposed to care for his patients, but instead murder’s them. Harold Shipman was a GP in Hyde, Greater Manchester. It is alleged that he murdered 250 of his patients, although the police could only charge him with 15.

Ed did reveal other tales about wealthy widows, porn, rat poison, unusual inheritances, and the last men to be hanged in the UK. However by that time I was running out of dry notepaper and I needed to get out of the rain.

To round off the tour we had an excellent lunch at Giorgio’s (highly recommended!)

Many thanks to Ed for yet another fascinating tour and also to Barry for organising this event.