I feel I’m witnessing the beginning of something special. Today Gorton people are coming together to celebrate the start of a motivational programme for young people and their families. I arrive at the indoor market in time to see dozens of young people being issued with clipboards and I LOVE GORTON T-shirts before being briefed

Clipboards at the ready

by Ruth Ibegbuna from Urbis, the programme co-ordinator for the ‘Gorton People Stronger Together’ programme. “Tell people about the money,” she says to volunteers, “and ask them what they’d like us to spend it on. Then invite them along to the Monastery for an afternoon of fun and entertainment.” (Not to mention the free food supplied by the Gorton Market traders).

The volunteers are split into teams, each given an area to canvas in the next couple of hours. “I’ll do the estate,” says one teenager who might expect to be still under the covers at this time on a Saturday morning. “I know it well, so I’ll get some good responses.”

We all love Gorton!

I follow the four-strong team heading for Hyde Road and Tesco and overhear enthusiasm (and occasional apathy) from their respondents towards the news that Gorton has won £450,000 from the central government’s Inspiring Communities programme.

Today is billed as ‘Gorton’s biggest ever community consultation’ and, as the completed questionnaires come rolling back to base at the market, it seems that plenty of people have a view on how the ‘win’ should be spent.

But this project is not starting from scratch. Already the Urbis team have run hugely-successful ‘Reclaim’ mentoring schemes for young people in Moss Side, east Bolton and north Manchester. (See http://www.reclaimproject.org.uk). The ‘Stronger Together’ programme will build on and extend the theme taking a wider approach by supporting young people as well as their families.

Plans already include Saturday classes for 11–14 year-olds (more early mornings!); a project to renovate unsafe open spaces, adding lighting, greenery and public art; and a Reclaim mentoring project for Gorton girls (the last one was just for young men).

Down at Gorton Monastery preparations are well in hand for the afternoon event. As the Bloco Nova samba band and dancers arrive, I set up a small studio near the café where I am to photograph local people soon to appear on posters and banners promoting ‘Gorton People Stronger Together’. Local MP, Gerald Kaufman is one of the first to arrive and, although he’s unlikely to appear on a banner, he is more than happy to pose in his Gorton T-shirt with some of his younger constituents.

The afternoon flies by. The word has got out that the photography sessions are informal and fun and soon there is a queue out the door. Young and old are captured and I even persuade the camera-shy to take a turn. Some of the pictures appear here but more will adorn Gorton in the coming months.

Before I know it, and with nearly 1000 images on my memory card, the event is over and I hear later about Gorton Visual Arts and their print-making workshop; the manifesto-writing and the young people getting up there on the ‘Gorton Plinth’ telling everyone about their achievements and aspirations. I don’t need to be told about the samba band because I heard their mesmeric beat down the corridor!

To get involved in Gorton’s exciting new project email inspiringcommunities@urbis.org.uk or call 0161 605 8218.

The competition winners pose for a picture on one of our 'curriculum links' Photo: Sophie Mascoll

In February we welcomed the winners of the ‘The Balfour Beatty Maths Challenge’ where local primary schoolchildren had calculated how many bricks it had taken to build the new academy. The young mathematicians were given a tour of the building and it was a delight to meet such exemplary pupils who represented their primary schools superbly. A sign of things to come!

All hard hat and yellow vests: checking out the new Academy

A highlight of the tour was the fully glazed footbridges on each of the three floors, connecting studios and ‘homebases’. These ‘curriculum links’ as we’ve called them – because they link the different subject areas – are now complete and will act as a showcase for pupils’ work in the future.

All the interior walls have now been painted and flooring is down in most classrooms. There is even a fully-furnished sample classroom for visitors to experience: something like a showhouse in a new housing development.

Over the half term break the teachers we’ve already appointed met to discuss a ‘thematic curriculum’ that will underpin our built environment specialism. We’re investigating ways in which our specialism can be introduced into a number of different subject areas, at the same time making sure the needs of all students will be met across all subjects. We’re getting there!

Of course the 1st of March has been the long-awaited date when Year 6 children find out which high school they have been allocated. We’ll soon hear from the local authority who our 180 ‘pioneers’ will be and I look forward to welcoming them to our new school. We’ll organise orientation sessions for them all as soon as we can, so when they arrive on their first day in September they will already know their way around the academy and their new surroundings will feel familiar. Pupils and their families will be receiving ‘transition’ arrangements as soon as we have all the details.

www.theeastmanchesteracademy.org.uk

Here’s a slideshow of the fun. Click to get started and don’t forget to turn the volume up on your computer.

Commenting on the success of the day, head teacher, Lorna Rushton said, “We enjoy a multi-ethnic school community here at Ashbury Meadow and so it’s really important to understand each other’s cultures. The children, staff and parents really enjoy this annual celebration and we all get a lot out of it.”

I’ve probably come across dozens of volunteers at events and in local offices but never actually realised it. They are some of the hundreds of unpaid workers trained and placed by Experience Volunteering, a service for local residents run by the community group, 4CT.

Many take up volunteering as a stepping stone to finding work, others to keep active and make a contribution to their community.

Doris Hardcastle: "I'd recommend it to anyone who's stuck in a rut. It gives you a new lease of life."

I met Doris Hardcastle in a church hall in Clayton where she had been supporting a mental health users’ group. “It’s just a cup of tea and a chat,” she tells me, “but it’s somewhere for people to meet together which is very important.”

Doris, I hear, has been volunteering for many years. She met the Experience Volunteering service some time after her mother died and has been helping in the community ever since.

“I’d been nursing my mother in her own home for eight years,” she says. “She suffered from Alzheimer’s and I promised her she wouldn’t die in hospital. When she passed away in 2000 I nearly had a nervous breakdown, I was in a bad way.

“I’ve changed enormously since then. The volunteering team has been tremendously supportive and it’s given me a lifeline, a new lease of life.”

One of Doris’s first roles was at the East Manchester Festival at the Grange Community Centre as part of the Refugee Week celebrations. “I’ve also been a receptionist, helped at the Seeds of the East festival in the summer, and next week I’ll be at the stadium for the JobCity recruitment fair.”

It seems to me that volunteering works on so many levels. For Doris it’s about keeping active and building up confidence. New volunteers to the programme are invited onto short courses and taught communication skills, customer service and teamwork, but it’s that all-important confidence building which is central to the work placement.

Tony Pearson: "I enjoy passing on my skills."

Tony Pearson says he hit ‘rock bottom’ after a trio of personal setbacks. A relationship breakdown, redundancy from a managerial position with a charity and the death of his own mother all contributed to a depression from which is he only now recovering.

“I’ve been able to keep my skills fresh with the volunteering,” he says. “It’s kept my head clear and I’m more focussed now.”

Tony is not new to volunteering. Throughout his varied career he has used his skills to help others. During his 20s he played in a band and later worked as a Community Service Volunteer in hospital radio, trained in radio production, and then trained others. “My heart is still in radio,” he says, “and I enjoy passing on my skills.”

Since he’s been with Experience Volunteering he’s helped out in their office with administration, marketing and even some of the funding bids. He’s also developed his love of photography and staged an exhibition of his work at the Grange in Beswick. “I took up photography after my mum died. It’s been a good distraction. I’d like to be able to make a living from it but realistically it’ll stay as a hobby as I look for a job in IT training.”

Within months Tony will have completed a course which allows him to apply for teaching assistant posts. “I’d like to be a full-time adult tutor in IT and Photoshop,” he says. “Already I’ve been offered a volunteer placement at The Manchester College which is one step closer to getting a full-time job. Since I’ve had the bad times, I haven’t had the breaks. You just need some luck.”

East Manchester residents interested in volunteering should call Sue or John on 0161 230 1436. Email: info.experience@btconnect.com  www.experiencevolunteering.com

It feels like Openshaw has turned a corner. There’s no doubt this east Manchester neighbourhood is very much in transition and there is still lots to do but, walking the streets recently, there’s now a new momentum.

The new town centre rising behind the purple hoardings

The most obvious change is on the high street: demolition contractors and construction contractors are practically falling over each other! No sooner has something been knocked down than there’s a new structure in its place.

The derelict shops on Ashton Old Road have now gone, a swathe of rough ground in their place. Signs above the purple hoardings announce a new town centre is on its way and beyond, the yellow steel framework of Morrisons supermarket has shot from the ground.

The Albion pub and shops on their way down

Further down the road and opposite the New Roundhouse and the state-of-the-art health centre more shop fronts are coming down as part of the Toxteth Street development. There’s now more comings and goings around the new houses and apartments than around the boarded-up terraced streets which, I’ve read, have recently provided the backdrop to an East is East sequel.

I first photographed Openshaw’s high street six years ago when most of the shops and restaurants were either struggling to stay afloat or had already gone out of business.

Awaiting development way back in 2004

There was a hair and beauty shop offering unlimited tanning sessions, ‘Only £10 for 2 weeks’; there were taxi firms asking for owners drivers; and – with their rusting shutters closed for the final time – there was the Tuck In Cafe, A + B Dry Cleaners, a Chinese take-away, the Al-Hambra Restaurant, amongst others.

But it wasn’t always like this. I know from listening to older residents that the high street was the main shopping street for hundreds of local residents and that on Saturdays you’d barely walk between the butcher’s and the greengrocer’s before you met another neighbour and stopped for another chat.

New homes for old in the Toxteth Street area

Shopping, of course, is different now. You’re more likely to meet your neighbour or old friend in the car park of one of the major supermarkets. And so Openshaw is changing, offering    something new for existing residents and becoming an attractive proposition to newcomers looking to move in. I look forward to photographing its revival in the months ahead.

Despite the frozen start to 2010, work on site continued at a rapid pace. Only one day was lost when the site had to be called because of the freezing conditions in the first week back after new year.

Inside the academy all the rooms are beginning to look the part and a sample room has been fitted out – not unlike a show house – so visitors can get a real idea of what the completed school will be like. Some of the teachers we have recently appointed will come and do some training in school over the February half-term and they’ll get the chance then to familiarise themselves with all the facilities.

The Balfour Beatty Maths Challenge produced some outstanding entries from primary pupils and a VIP tour will be hosted by the contractors on Friday 12th February for the 11 pupils who correctly calculated that 241,248 bricks were required to build the academy! Well done to all who entered, the response was fantastic.

As we move into February, I’m excited at the prospect of appointing our next cohort of staff and finding out in March which pupils have been allocated a place by the local authority. I have been very impressed with the sense of anticipation amongst the youngsters I’ve met so far this term. As soon as we know who will be the very first pupils at the East Manchester Academy we’ll organise ‘transition’ activities so the new pupils will be as familiar with their new school in September as we are.

I’ve been looking forward to doing this story, not just because the company I am visiting sounds wonderfully bizarre, but also because they are based in one of my favourite Ancoats buildings, Royal Mills.

Jackie Sweeney: "It's not all glitz and glamour."

For three years between 2003 and 2006, I would impersonate a construction worker with yellow vest, hard hat and ‘rigger’ boots and photograph the renovation of this magnificent mill. Its central atrium, now glazed, is the focal point of the apartment block and is slowly becoming home to an eclectic bunch of independent traders. There’s a fashion wholesaler, an outdoor and snow sports retailer and soon a café. But it’s Wigs Up North I’ve come to see and Jackie Sweeney, one of the three partners, is happy to tell me about the rise and rise of their specialist business.

Wigs Up North in the renovated Royal Mills

She and Liz Armstrong met whilst studying at the London College of Fashion. “I was lucky,” says Jackie, “One of the students ahead of me put me forward for a job at Phantom of the Opera and my tutor recommended me to a specialist wig company… and that was while I was still at college! So my second year was mad: I was setting wigs for Phantom in the mornings, catching a couple of lectures, popping over to the wig company and then, in the evening, going back to do the Phantom show. I was loving it.”

When the Phantom production team needed a replacement make-up artist Jackie was able to suggest Liz. “Her first love has always been theatre,” she says.

Aware that the wig and theatrical make-up business was predominately London-based, the two friends, both from the North West, saw a gap in the market. “I asked Liz one day whether she fancied giving it a go and she said yes, and that was it, we’ve never looked back.”

‘Wigs’ began trading from a start-up unit near Manchester city centre before moving to Royal Mills. Now they work with northern companies like the Royal Northern College of Music and the Buxton Festival, designing wigs or supplying their own stock, as well as being a regional supplier of make-up (their other specialism) for touring companies. “We know how difficult it can be for production companies to get the right supplies when and where they need it, so we work with shows like The Sound of Music, Starlight Express and Chicago.”

Liz and Jackie were joined in 2005 by Vicky Holmes, another wig and make-up expert who’s fitted wigs to hundreds of heads on numerous West End productions.

Jackie: "We're happy to provide training for those on their way up."

I ask Jackie what is it about wigs that she and her partners find so compelling. “It’s the whole transformation thing,” she says. “With actors you’ll notice how their demeanour changes as they are being made up. You’re helping them transform into their character and that’s very rewarding.” The ‘wig women’ made six wigs for Peter Kay including the one for his Geraldine persona. “Once he put that red one on with the blond streaks, he was immediately in character. But it’s not all glitz and glamour. An elderly lady came in this morning and bought a ready-made wig and that, for me, means just as much.”

Jackie, Vicky and Liz with the EnterPrize trophy. Photograph: Karen Wright Photography.

Having moved to Ancoats, ‘Wigs’ were in New East Manchester’s patch and eligible, then, to have a stab at the EnterPrize award. Jackie says they didn’t think they stood much of a chance – the competition was so tough – and went to the awards ceremony in December content to have a good night out at the fabulous Gorton Monastery. But they’d clearly impressed the judges with their business plans and came away with the £10,000 top prize. “We were astounded,” recalls Jackie, “it was such a great night and then to come out on top…”.

Jackie tells me they are using their winnings to beef up their e-commerce operation using something called the EPOS system. I just nod.

Since my visit to Royal Mills, ‘Wigs’ have been to yet another ceremony and can now add runners-up in the North West Women in Business Awards to their trophy cabinet. Congratulations!

Wigs Up North

EnterPrize award

Ahmed invites listeners to take another spin in his African Taxi

Ahmed Koroma is quiet and unassuming – more John Peel than Chris Evans – as we sit in the corner of the production office. How, I wondered, did he first get involved with the community radio station?

It was two years ago that I answered an advert in The Advertiser inviting applications for a radio production course at MANCAT [now The Manchester College]. I applied and, well, I got accepted. The course included technical skills like mixing the decks and compiling your programme but it was really about how to communicate effectively. Generally, in everyday life, it improves your communication. Before I would never have been able to talk in front of a crowd, but now I can.

After the course Ahmed was part of the outside broadcast team covering the New Islington Festival in 2008. (I was there too, and remember photographing him doing his vox pop interviews with the party-goers). Shortly afterwards he developed his own show – African Taxi – and has been broadcasting every week since.

Ahmed: "Sometimes you like more like a counsellor than a taxi driver."

I am actually a taxi driver here in Manchester and I am from Sierra Leone in Africa, so it made sense to put it all together. The show is just like a real taxi ride: it’s open to everyone and as we are going round I play you some music and chat to make you feel welcome. I bring Africa to Manchester and I take Manchester to Africa.

In fact, Ahmed’s show goes further than Africa. The internet allows ALL FM’s output to be heard worldwide and this taxi driver has a regular followers in Australia and the US.

I do more than two hours research for each show and, on air, I interview many musicians and managers from Sierra Leone. Although I play music from different African countries, most is from my country and that, I know, makes the people back home very happy. Until recently Sierra Leone had suffered civil war for many years and still the people there are very traumatised, so hearing their celebrities on the radio is a positive experience.

Ahmed left his home country 16 years ago but now, since the civil was has ended, returns each year and has plans for the future.

There is an african proverb that says, ‘a toad likes water but not when the water is boiling’. Well, the water was really boiling when I was in Sierra Leone so I had to jump to a safe place and I found myself here. But now, with my business partners, I have set up a recording studio back home and one day I hope to start a radio station there too. Maybe I’ll call it ALL FM in honour of the station that has given me a great start.

As well as radio presenter and real life taxi driver, Ahmed is a the social secretary for the Sierra Leone community in Manchester and has set up a football team – open to all nationalities – which is about to reach the top of their league.

African taxi can be heard on ALL FM 96.9 every Wednesday at 12 noon.

Listen again on the ALL FM website.

Despite Christmas festivities we found time last month to launch the ‘Career Sixth Form’ at Cube in Manchester city centre. I’m delighted that – although we obviously haven’t got any of our own Year 11s yet – 30 or so young people came to see us at the gallery.

The 'Career Sith Form' is launched at Cube in December. Photos: Karen Wright Photography

The Universities of Salford and Manchester were represented as were our sponsors, Bovis Lend Lease and Laing O’Rourke. Aim Higher and Places Matter were there as well as some local architects. It was very encouraging to see so many local young people considering the new East Manchester Academy.

Year 11 students check out the exhibits

The academy model can offer something extra to these post-16 students. Although our sponsors can’t guarantee every school leaver a career, they are obviously looking for the creative, bright young minds of the future and will offer mentoring and job placements to many of our students. Our sixth formers will automatically get much closer to the job market than their contemporaries from other schools and colleges. They will be ahead of the field.

Round table with Guy Hutchence

We’ll only have a small sixth form to start with but we are especially keen on those young people who have a special interest in science, engineering, the built environment, and art and design. The application deadline is later this month and we’ll interview everyone who applies. By the end of next month we should know who has been successful in becoming one of our first Career Sixth Formers.

In March, we’ll also know which of the current Year 6 will be joining us in September. We know we’ll be full and we’re looking forward to providing those 180 pioneers with a first-class educational experience.

One other things I wanted to mention is that, towards the end of last year, Balfour Beatty – the contractors for the academy – ran a competition amongst local primary schools to calculate how many bricks were used in the construction of the building. I can’t say yet who the winners are but I can reveal we had 11 correct answers. Okay, there were some clues: the entrants were told the school’s dimensions, the size of the windows – which of course had to be excluded – and the dimension of a brick. There must be some excellent mathematicians in east Manchester!

The winners will get prizes and a tour of the building by Balfour Beatty and I’ll announce the winners in next month’s blog!

It’s 12 months now since I started as Principal Designate. The time has flown by and we’ve made fantastic progress. But the clock is still ticking and there is still a lot to do. By the end of March we will have recruited all the staff we need for September, so we’re on target and looking forward to an amazing 2010.

East Manchester Academy website

Last Man Standing: David Hibbert was one of the last Rolls-Royce employees to leave Crossley Works

When David Hibbert first joined Crossley Premier Engines in 1968 he was expecting to working as a fitter or an engineer. His career path changed after he returned from a stint at the local college. “As apprentices, we’d all done 40 weeks next door at Openshaw Technical College [now the Manchester College] before reporting back to the factory to be assigned our jobs. Some of the lads were taken to the shop floor but I was sent to the drawing office and started work as a junior draughtsman. There was no explanation, I was just told to get on with it.”

These were turbulent times for the engine manufacturers who – as Crossley Brothers – had built a new factory at Pottery Lane in 1882 after outgrowing their Manchester city centre premises. At the turn of the century business was booming. Francis and William Crossley at first made gas-fuelled engines, and then diesel and petrol engines. The potential for motor car engines was not lost on the two brothers – indeed Henry Ford visited Openshaw to see how they did it – and a new factory was established in Gorton in 1906 from which another branch of company history unfolded under Crossley Motors.

Industrial engines, for railways and shipping, continued to be designed and manufactured at Pottery Lane. In the early 1960s the company took out the licence to build a French engine called the Pielstick and, although they were selling well, the company went into liquidation and was bought out. Almost as soon as David had picked up his pencil and slide rule, the company became part of the Amalgamated Power Engineering Group and the sign on the side of the factory changed again to APE-Crossley Ltd.

In later years Rolls-Royce at Crossley Works became a spares and serice centre

“The shipbuilding industry was shrinking at that time and although we still supplied some engines to the Ministry of Defence – our engines still power HMS Ocean – we switched to producing engines for industrial power generation mainly in developing countries like Sudan, Fiji and Bermuda.”

Rolls-Royce took over the business in 1988 and continued Pielstick production for another eight years. “Understandably Rolls-Royce were more interested in producing their own world-beating engine rather than someone else’s under licence,” recalls David. “At their Bedford base they designed the Allen 5000 and tested it here for 1,000 hours. All was well until it went into the field and then problems occurred. By the time design changes were made the project had to be scrapped because it had been tarnished with a bad reputation.

“Over the last decade or so, Crossley Works has become a spares and service centre for the Pielstick product,” continues David. “We’ve had numerous redundancies over the last 25 years and it’s been sad to see the business slowly shrinking. We stopped operations all together in February and since then what’s left of the business has been transferred to Rolls-Royce in Scotland.”

At the end of 2009, David and a few colleagues were packing up, ready to leave Crossley Works – the last employees after 127 years – and make way for demolition workers preparing the site for future redevelopment.

Below is slideshow of historical and contemporary images of Crossley Works. It’s automatic: no need to click.