Trips & Adventures – 12 July 2018

We took the short ride by bus from Piccadilly to the heart of the university area. On the corner

of Oxford Road and Nelson Street was a great find – The Turing Tap – a pub dedicated to Alan Turing. It was very popular and served great value food.

It was then a short hop to The Pankhurst Centre, a Grade II listed building at 60-62 Nelson Street, Manchester. The Centre is a pair of Victorian villas, of which No 62 was the home of Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Sylvia, Christabel and Adela and the birthplace of the suffragette movement.

The Centre also contains a museum, The Pankhurst Parlour, which has become a memorial to the suffragette movement. Its Edwardian style furnishings evoke the home of Mrs Pankhurst and her daughters. We also watched a short film about the suffragette movement which included an amusing propaganda film by the anti-suffragists.

We then walked to 84 Plymouth Grove, now known as Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. The Grade II listed neoclassical villa was the residence of William and Elizabeth Gaskell from 1850 till their deaths in 1884 and 1865 respectively.

It was there that Elizabeth Gaskell wrote some of most famous works such as Cranford and North and South. Prior to our visit, there had been many other visitors including Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens and Charles Hallé. On one occasion, the meek Brontë even hid behind the curtains in Gaskells’ drawing room as she was too shy to meet the other guests.

Peter, however, was not shy and entertained us by playing a tune or two on the piano.

The guides were very informative and told us a number of amusing anecdotes.

Trips & Adventures – 5 July 2018

We boarded the train at Manchester Victoria, changed at Leeds and arrived at Wakefield in time for lunch. The staff on the train were very helpful and gave us directions to the Barbara Hepworth Gallery, just a few minutes walk away.

We dined in the gallery cafe and were very impressed with the food and coffee, served in a lovely atmosphere by some very talented and passionate people, although we had just missed the Full Yorkshire Breakfast which was only available until 12.00 noon.

The galleries included some sketches by David Hockney based on Grimm’s Fairy Tales, photographs by Lee Miller (“Surrealism in Britain”) work by Dutch artist Viviane Sassen as well as masterpieces by Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

There was so much to see, but we had to leave to catch the bus to the city centre to have a look around the cathedral, which was very impressive.

At the train station In Leeds we somehow got split up, and three people caught a train back to Manchester Victoria and three people caught the train to Manchester Piccadilly.

We met more members of the group for the “Summer Gallery Takeover” by the Age Friendly Collective. There was singing, poetry, crafts. Jim displayed some of his artwork and read a poem: “Was I Ever Young?” A highlight was to have your portrait sketched in 180 seconds or less!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As part of Greater Manchester’s Festival of Ageing, the first of its kind, Out In The City held a special event for older LGBT people on 4 July 2018.

About twenty people attended and were well fed by an excellent veggie / vegan buffet prepared by Sidney Street café and supplemented by chicken and plantain donated by a member of the group. Church House also donated a selection of teas and coffee.

In order to celebrate our LGBT history, and have a bit of fun, we played “Who am I?” – a game based on LGBT icons and we did a Polari quiz.

Polari is a form of British gay slang that gay men used before homosexuality was partially decriminalised in 1967. Although it derives from 19th century theatre folk, sailors, showmen and criminals, 20th century gay men used it as a way to discuss their lives at a time when being gay could get you fired, thrown in jail and chemically castrated.

As feely homies, we would zhoosh our riahs, powder our eeks, climb into our bona new drag, don our batts and troll off to some bona bijou bar. (As young men, we would fix our hair, powder our faces, put on our new clothes and shoes and walk down to a trendy bar.)

Because Polari provides a way to gossip and talk trash there was some hilarity about the backhanded phrases. But we all had a fantabulosa time!

And no flies! It’s was so bona to vada you all! Sharda that we don’t palare more often! (Honestly! It was so good to see you all. What a shame that we don’t talk more often!)

Trips & Adventures – 28 June 2018

Today, 49 years ago, there were a series of violent demonstrations by members of the LGBT community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of 28 June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighbourhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City.

The Stonewall riots of 1969 are widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.

With this in mind we headed from Piccadilly on bus 142 heading for Fletcher Moss Park & Botanical Gardens in Didsbury Village. We met another member of the party under the clock tower (“quite a striking feature”, said Chris). Before rioting we decided to fuel up and ate at the Saint & Scholar. Everything was fine except the venison pie came with chips instead of mash potatoes.

We were all fired up to re-enact the riots … honestly, we were going to paint the park pink, but the weather was too hot … so we had ice creams instead at the park cafe.

 

Trips & Adventures – 21 June 2018

We had a great day out visiting Ordsall Hall – the oldest building in Salford and also a Grade I listed building. It dates back more than 750 years, although the oldest surviving parts of the present hall were built in the 15th century.

Four of us met around noon at the Deansgate/Castlefield tram stop and travelled to Salford Quays where we met four more members of the group.

After a very good meal (reasonably priced and good quality) at The Matchstick Men pub in Salford Quays, part of the Hungry Horse chain, we returned to the tram for one stop and then it was a short walk to the hall.

The house was bought by the old Salford Council in 1959 and opened to the public in 1972, as a period house and local history museum. Stuart donned a cloak and took his place at the head of the table.

There is much to see and experience and the guide was knowledgeable and quite amusing. All in all we had a great time.