retiredmartin

June 2025. Cheetham Hill. Manchester.

More notes from a sober night in north Manchester. If you can identify the only pub I did go on (for a “comfort break”) from this;

then you probably win a pint of Firebird Heritage in a Sam Smiths pub of your choice.

The sun shone on the 1 righteous the next morning, I admired the architecture in the Green Quarter,

and Ancoats,

while Mrs RM finally did that tour of Chethams Library I’d been nagging her to do for years.

“Good, but not as good as Rylands” says Mrs RM, who’s hard to please. Just ask Mr RM.

Chethams, the oldest public library in the world, has that Samuel Johnson dictionary and Karl Marx and that should be enough.

Mrs RM was more impressed with Manchester’s marvellous cathedral, a church I’d only visited for gigs by Low before, and somehow missed the organ and the stained glass.

More free culture back at Chetham’s School of Music, where the teenage students attempt the toughest assignments in front of family and curious visitors.

A wondrous sound in a modern concert hall.

I would have taken Mrs RM back in time to Sinclairs for more great medieval Manchester,

but I’d hate her to be the one responsible for another closure of the Oyster Bar if she started taking photos.

And finally (it was a flying visit), I hoped to tick another entry in the Manchester Beer Book,

having spent a whole six quid on a can of Cloudwater Stout at Beemoth’s offie and instructed her to “leave it in the fridge”, I would return from Cambridge to days later to find the can in the bin. No drink, no tick.