Forever Mancunians

Forever Mancunians aims to introduce and tell the stories of featured guests whose vision, commitment and dedication in making a difference to the lives of others in our local communities is both interesting and inspiring. Trafford Veterans is a group of armed forces veterans, emergency service personnel and local volunteers. The group was formed in 2015 after the two founding members, Royal Navy...

Forever Mancunians aims to introduce and tell the stories of featured guests whose vision, commitment and dedication in making a difference to the lives of others in our local communities is both interesting and inspiring. In 2012, a group of residents came together and formed a group to save Denton West End Community Library from closure with the full backing of a rather unhappy local community....

Forever Mancunians aims to introduce and tell the stories of featured guests whose vision, commitment and dedication in making a difference to the lives of others in our local communities is both interesting and inspiring. In this episode, we have a candid chat with Forever Manchester's Helen, Lisa & Vikki, the UK's first real life Community Builders. They talk about their Asset Based approach and...

Forever Mancunians aims to introduce and tell the stories of featured guests whose vision, commitment and dedication in making a difference to the lives of others in our local communities is both interesting and inspiring. In this episode, we have a candid chat with Claire Courtney, Managing Director and Co-founder of Manchester based Heart and Parcel. Alongside providing English language developm...

Forever Mancunians aims to introduce and tell the stories of featured guests whose vision, commitment and dedication in making a difference to the lives of others in our local communities is both interesting and inspiring. In this episode, we have a candid chat with Jenni Smith, CEO of Salford Loaves & Fishes and Chair of Buile Hill Mansion Association. Alongside providing support for homeless peo...

Forever Mancunians aims to introduce and tell the stories of featured guests whose vision, commitment and dedication in making a difference to the lives of others in our local communities is both interesting and inspiring. In this episode, we have a candid chat with Greg Davis, maverick founder of the United Estates of Wythenshawe. Greg shares his story of taking over a vandalised local church and...

Forever Mancunians aims to introduce and tell the stories of featured guests whose vision, commitment and dedication in making a difference to the lives of others in our local communities is both exemplary and inspiring. In this episode, we have a candid chat with June Kelly MBE, founder of the multi-award winning Abraham Moss Warriors. Pride of Britain award winner June shares the story of engagi...

This interview was conducted on 27th May 2009 as part of the Forever Manchester Radio Show which was broadcast on Manchester Radio Online at the time. Although Frank Sidebottom didn't undertake actual interviws as such, he was more than happy to chat about his mad creative world, tell us a few home truths about 'Bobbins' & 'Plagarism' and share some of his many experiences including having a sleep...

Aniff Akinola is a renowned vocalist, writer, producer and ex record label owner who was also a founding member of the cult Manchester hip-hop outfit 'Chapter and the Verse' and co-writer of A Guy Called Gerald's classic house anthem "Voodoo Ray". Aniff was also a co-writer of Kirsty MacColl's hit "Walking Down Maddison" and general co-conspiritor of such 90's electronic luminaries as The Orb, Ste...

Aniff Akinola is a renowned vocalist, writer, producer and ex record label owner who was also a founding member of the cult Manchester hip-hop outfit 'Chapter and the Verse' and co-writer of A Guy Called Gerald's classic house anthem "Voodoo Ray". Aniff was also a co-writer of Kirsty MacColl's hit "Walking Down Maddison" and general co-conspiritor of such 90's electronic luminaries as The Orb, Ste...

In this podcast we chat with Sebastian Heeley, co-founder of the Manchester Gin Company who along with his now partner Jen Wiggins, set up Manchester Gin in May 2016.  Sebastian shares the love story behind the formation, growth and development of Manchester Gin, shares a few distilling secrets and shares his delight at such a young company already recieving an array of plaudits, recognitions and...

Part Two of a two-part podcast where we chat to acclaimed Manchester based singer, Rowetta about her life in Happy Mondays, her associations with some of the music world's greats and other interesting stories from one of the most sampled and powerful female singers on the planet! This interview was conducted at the offices of Forever Manchester who today occupy the same building as Manchester's fa...

Part One of a two-part podcast where we chat to legendary Manchester singer, Rowetta about her life, love of music and her memories and experiences from School Hall's to Concert Halls. Life in Happy Mondays, her X-Factor adventure and other interesting facts and stories from one of the most sampled and powerful female singers on the planet. Forever Manchester is Greater Manchester's Community Foun...

Part Two of a two-part podcast where we chat to Manchester based writer, broadcaster and DJ Dave Haslam about his love of music and his memories and experiences of venues such as the Boardwalk and the world famous Haçienda nightclub. We also touch on Dave's love of English, his books and writings, and his series of live and 'Close Up' onstage interviews that have featured many guests including Jar...

This is Part One of a two-part podcast where we chat to Manchester based writer, broadcaster and DJ Dave Haslam about his love of music, his memories and experiences of venues such as the Boardwalk and the world famous Haçienda nightclub. We also touch on Dave's love of English, his books and writings, and his series of live and 'Close Up' onstage interviews that have featured many guests includin...

Seven Months in 79 is an exhibition of interesting music related photographs taken by David Hunter and unseen for almost 40 years! In this podcast we chat to David about his love of music and a passion for photography culminating in the Seven Months in 79 exhibition at Eccles Community Art Gallery and featuring unique photographs of many names including The Specials, The Only Ones, The Human Leagu...

YARN is a crowd-sourced interactive poem curated by local community artist Kirsty Gbasai. The concept is to bring together people across Manchester, to become united in writing a poem that will document the current creativity of local residents and generating a unique peice of written creative art. Yarn is being constructred one sentence at a time, with each contributor generating a sentence inspi...

This is the story of 'This is the Place' The iconic poem originally commissioned by Forever Manchester that became a symbol of resilience in the wake of the devastating atrocity at the Manchester Arena on May 22nd 2017. Mancunian Poet Tony Walsh, aka 'Longfella', was originally commissioned to write 'This is the Place in 2012' as a way of describing the very communities Forever Manchester is proud...

On Thursday 27th July 2017, Forever Manchester presented Tony Walsh "the poet who defined a city, with a poem that inspired the world” in a very special evening of verse at Manchester’s legendary Frog and Bucket. Tony delved into his vast collection to deliver a variety of amusing and topical poems in what was an entertaining master class of performance poetry with all proceeds going to support th...

After the Manchester Arena terror attack on May 22nd 2017, more than 60 Manchester creatives, including Peter Saville and Malcolm Garret, came together to turn Tony Walsh's iconic ‘This is The Place’ poem into a book. The poem, originally commissioned by, and written for Forever Manchester, gave language to our city in a moment when it wasn’t sure what to feel. This is the Place quickly became an...

Artist Amy Coney, raised an amazing amount following the auction of her This is The Place “Bee Love” artwork which was signed a huge variety of stars & celebrities with the proceeds helping to support the work of Forever Manchester and the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund. 'Bee Love' was created across a ten-hour painting session and features words taken from Tony Walsh’s “This is the Place”, poe...