Slattery’s Patisserie

Slattery’s in Whitefield, Manchester was once a small cake shop, but has now expanded into a patisserie that employs 66 staff including 14 cake makers.

We had to book a month in advance for two tables in the 140 seat Masons Dining Room upstairs on the first floor. The Dining Room specialises in daytime treats including jacket potatoes, salads, sandwiches, afternoon teas and more importantly the sweeter things in life – delicious desserts, particularly chocolate treats!

Slattery’s has a tempting array of cakes and pastries, including a jaw-dropping selection of hand-made birthday and wedding cakes. They almost make you want to get married just so you can have a cake!

Chocoholics should look away now as you can also buy a huge selection of chocolate that is also made on site. Slattery’s uses 40 tonnes of chocolate per year.

The clientele comprises of yummy mummys and ladies who lunch, but we were welcomed and treated to some fantastic food. Let’s just hope my waistline doesn’t mirror Slattery’s expansion.

Photos can be seen here.

Proud Exhibition

Heard Storytelling are delighted to announce Proud Exhibition, an audio trail celebrating Manchester’s LGBTQIA+ community which will be launching on Saturday, 20 August. It continues until 4 September.

You’ll be able to follow a trail across Manchester’s shopping streets and hear 20 incredible true stories on the theme of PROUD. Twenty brave and bold storytellers share their stories to send a message of hope and solidarity.

The exhibition is free to access and beautiful large-scale portraits of the storytellers, forming a trail of ‘Living Portraits’ through the city centre, will accompany all of the spoken stories.

A full map of where you can find the stories will be live from Saturday, 20 August on VisitManchester.com/Proud.

A huge thank you to Cityco Event Space for commissioning this exhibition to proudly support Manchester Pride in a creative, empathetic and authentic way.

LGBT Archives Community Event

Date & Time of Event: 25 August, 2022 – 11.00am to 1.00pm at Manchester Central Library, St Peter’s Square, Manchester, M2 5PD

Drop in to Manchester Central Library this Pride week, to discover some of the rich history of Manchester’s LGBT+ Community, with items specially selected from the LGBT Foundation Archive at Archives+.

Pride is a Protest and there are many parts that make that Protest happen. If you’re inspired by the items in the archive and wish to get involved in community organising yourself, there will be a chance to chat to Community Organising Coordinator Nico and hear about ways you can get involved and how to take part. The event will be joined by the Archive+ Team with a creative corner for you to have a go at crafting a message to take away with you.

Pope Francis meets with transgender people at Vatican

The Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reported that during the weekly papal audience in St Peter’s Basilica on 10 August, Pope Francis met with a group of transgender people who are staying in a church on the outskirts of Rome.

The Blessed Immaculate Virgin Church in Rome’s suburbs opened its doors to trans people during the coronavirus pandemic.

L’Osservatore Romano noted that the pope previously met with some of the trans residents. “No one should encounter injustice or be thrown away, everyone has dignity of being a child of God,” the paper quoted Sister Genevieve Jeanningros as saying.

Francis has earned praise from some members of the LGBTQ and intersex community for his outreach.

When asked in 2013 about a purportedly gay priest, he replied, “Who am I to judge?” He has met individually and in groups with trans people over the course of his pontificate. But he has not changed church teaching that holds that same-sex sexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” In 2021, he allowed publication of a Vatican document asserting that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions since “God cannot bless sin.”