Redemption Song

I have struggled to write this blog since I left my job and flat in Manchester - a definite period of transition. Adjustments to be made. On Thursday 10th April I went to a meeting at the Imperial War Museum North, finishing off my involvement with a World War One project started in the archives of Greater Manchester. Take a look at the GM1914 Wordpress blog and Centenary Connections from IWM, with an app in development to help you explore stories when you are out and about. I met one of my much missed colleagues from Archives + for lunch in Central Library. After the meeting I headed for the Manchester Art Gallery. One of the exhibitions is of images of Central Library as a refurbishment work in progress and a sacred space in Manchester. I had great fun running around the historic stacks on behalf of the artists in residence, Dan Dubowitz and Alan Ward, in my last few weeks in the archive. My oldest friend, someone I met on my first day of school at the age of 4, was having an exhibition for one night only, though you can see her work in St Anne's church this month. She paints as Ghislaine Howard, and she works with Christian themes and values in their most human and political forms. Then I headed to Gorilla for Martin Hannett, the Redemption, a celebration of Martin organised by Chris Hewitt. The date becomes significant. Martin died on April 10th, 1991. Twenty three years ago, a significant number in Martin's approach to Life according to William Burroughs. This was no shallow celebration. There was deep history, with long memories, old friends and musical connections that went back to the earliest days of involvement in a Manchester music scene. You can read about it if you google Chris Hewitt's event, or news of his documentary DVD and new book about Martin. You will get the roll call of those involved too, and I am aware that I missed some of them out in my recent rushed review for Louder Than War. From the young man performing John Cooper Clarke songs with the Invisible Girls, who I didn't know, to old friends like Steve Hopkins, Chris Lee and Bob Dickinson up onstage, there were some amazing people there paying tribute. Victor Brox, George Borowski, Paul Burgess, names and faces I recognised, musicians from my own young days. It could have been the Arts Lab as Steve Hopkins said. Alan Wise and Tosh Ryan told stories and shared memories. CP Lee made us laugh and sang a Love song, Alone Again Or. One of my 'funeral' songs , a song that has haunted me from the first time I heard it. Dave Formula of Magazine conjured up the man through Martin's synthesiser programme in one of the most moving and poignant performances of the evening. There were ghosts on film. Martin interviewed by Tony Wilson for Granada. Younger incarnations of those there for the evening, interviewed back in the 1990s. There was a shrine to Martin of his sound equipment, possessions, posters, ephemera, all priceless and preserved by Chris Hewitt. I caught up with friends I expected to see, with friends I hoped to see, and with some very unexpected connections. There were strands running through the day. It was through my artist friend that I first met Tony Wilson as a teenager, as her brother was his close friend at school. It was through the Hopkins family and 355 Wilbraham Road that I met Martin. Sadly our friendship didn't survive his involvement in Factory Records and drugs. I didn't go to his funeral because I couldn't face going to a funeral on the first anniversary of another friend's funeral.I rarely got back to Manchester at the time, as I had young children, and it seemed unbearable that I was only going back for funerals of friends who had died too young. April 18th 1990 was the funeral of a friend who had survived the drugs but died in a climbing accident, leaving a young family. Martin's death had the same mix of life cut short and a family left bereft. The most unexpected reconnection on Thursday night was with a couple who had been great friends through my late teens and early twenties, who had been part of my climbing friend's crowd, and who I hadn't seen since that 1990 funeral. It's at times like this that I wish I could express these connections in some other form. Explaining their impact on me in words seems too long winded. A painting, a soundscape, a piece of music or a length of woven cloth would be better. I was very aware of the absence of Martin too. What might he have achieved if he had lived to be our age.