And on the Sixth Day, God created Manchester…

Or so we say – I am hopelessly biased here. Greater Manchester, it is my privilege to admit, is where I’m from.

Forged in the fire of the Industrial Revolution by the sweat and toil of working people, Manchester is still a relatively young city.

It hasn’t the ancient history of a Rome or a Beijing – but that doesn’t hold us back (and there was actually a Roman fort here in 78AD).

Manchester’s youthful dynamism has helped it punch above its weight in music, sport, science – you name it – on a global stage.

The city’s reputation for Physics goes back at least a century to when Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), the father of nuclear physics, worked at the University of Manchester.

More recently, Manchester has lit up world music with the Smiths, Joy Division, Stone Roses, Oasis. The list goes on and on.

Then, of course, there’s football.

From Kilmarnock to Cairo, the very word ‘Manchester’ evokes the beautiful game.

Old Trafford, George Best, Alex Ferguson – some of football’s most famous names belong to the city of Manchester.

It’s a city which has known great triumphs and bitter tragedies, but high and low alike have gone into making the unbreakable spirit of its people.

In 1819, several Mancunian labourers gave their lives for the right to vote which we now cherish. A moment of immense pain for the city, the Peterloo Massacre has become a founding chapter in the story of Mancs (hat tip to our friends at Radical Tea Towel for that story we've linked to).

Manchester was the capital of the women’s suffrage movement, too. Home to the Pankhurst family, Annie Kenney, and more.

It’s a place where people know their worth, and rouse rabbles for the respect they’re due.

“…this is a place where we stand strong together, with a smile on our face, greater Manchester forever.”

That’s a line from Tony Walsh’s poetic tribute to Manchester and Mancunians, ‘This is the Place’, which he wrote after the Manchester Arena Bombing in 2017.

And it’s true. I remember the day.

Down in Oxford during my last year at Uni when the news broke. The handful of Mancs in college came together to share concern and support, and just to be with one another, to bolster one another.

We’re always at our most Mancunian when we’re with fellow Mancs away from home. Especially at times of suffering for the city we love.

You can’t sum up Manchester. It’s got so many traits, so many stories, so many parts.

It’s not just the city centre, it’s Stockport, Wythenshawe, Hulme, Oldham – Greater Manchester. The greatest there is!

And yet, the tea towels we’ve got make a good go of bringing these strands together.

Manchester Central Library and the Friedrich Engels statue on Tony Wilson Place.

Both in the centre of town, where the Metro lines from all across the city come together. Both in spaces of culture, learning and art – Mancunian specialities! Both evoking histories of protest – against poverty and injustice (the new Emmeline Pankhurst statue is up opposite the Library).

All across the British Isles, every town is special in its own way. Bundles of stories and meanings treasured by the people who live there and those just passing through.

But Manchester is the special one to me. It’s home.

The twists and turns of life have led me away from it but Manchester’s always in my soul. St Peter’s Square, the Bridgewater Canal, Old Trafford, the tram!

That’s the landscape I grew up in, and which grew up around me. Well worth putting on a tea towel!