Birmingham - A brush with greatness!

How good it is?

Tony Iommi with choristers of the Birmingham Cathedral Choir
(Photo courtesy of Edwin Ellis Creative Media)

And it came to pass that....

I was attending conference at the Aston Business School in Birmingham (as one does) and I had spent a day or two gazing out of windows seeking images of this grand city:

Where vestiges of the old have been allowed to remain in the midst of the new:

Then, on Thursday evening, January 5th, I had a few minutes to spare.  It was either a cup of tea and a rest before dinner, or, as my friend Janet suggested, an opportunity to get a few pictures of New Street Station and what was left of the Christmas Night Lights.....

It was chilly, and the black evening seemed to seep down the walls, and smudge the street lights, but I made my way through the traffic on the James Watt Queensway and up Corporation Street, snapping as I went.....

I have never spent a lot of time in Birmingham - apart, that is, from hours of idleness on the motorways trying to get past it - and things have changed since I was last here, but there are some fine buildings, new and old, and this whistle stop tour was not going to allow me to get more than a flavour.... The Law Courts are empty,

The arcades too are quiet, with the traces of Christmas about to come down....

And people are hurrying home, or getting ready for a night out....

In one way or another....

I recognise the old National Provincial Bank on Bennett's Hill (the entrance with coffered ceiling and sculptured panels by S F Lynn, 1869, and, on the skyline, a shield of arms with flanking figures. Banking hall has a richly coffered ceiling and pairs of fluted Corinthian columns down the centre of the hall. Important corner site....) which, when I last visited, was a book shop, with a troop of Clog Dancers performing outside. Now it's a bar....

So, overcome with memories, I duck into the Wellington, (where in keeping with their love of tradition, they sell a huge range of snuff) and for a moment I pose as a lonely drinker staring into the empty fireplace..... 

But then, in search of the glowing stained glasses of Edward Burne-Jones, I venture into Cathedral Square. Lights on within St Philip's entice me....

And this is where the story changes. Something is happening here, though I know not what it is. There are wines on the table under the west tower, and photographers are packing up. As I suspected the stained glass windows look better when the sun is up, so I compose a shot of the holy family and their wise visitors then turn to go.

 

At this point I catch the bespectacled eye of a dark haired, bearded man, wearing dark clothes. 

We smile. 

He is in conversation with the golden haired Dean and so I don't want to interrupt, but, for a moment, I brush with the greatness of Tony Iommi, founder member of local band Black Sabbath, and one of the finest rock guitarists ever.....

Tony Iommi and the Dean of Birmingham, the Very Reverend Catherine Ogle

(Photo courtesy of Edwin Ellis Creative Media)

Tony Iommi was brought up in Birmingham. He met Ozzy Osbourne at school and together they formed Black Sabbath. In 2012 Tony became friends with Dean Ogle when he was struggling with cancer, and the friendship led to his wish to give something back to his native city. And so, with words based on Psalm 133, he has composed How Good It Is.

Tony takes enormous pride in his Birmingham roots and the recognition he receives in the city. So much has changed, he has said. The city is hard to recognise these days. There’s so much building work going on, it’s really great that the city is expanding and offering people more to do here. It’s different from my day.....

How Good It Is 

Inspired by Psalm 133 

How good, oh how good… 

How good it is 

Where friendship dwells 

How good it is 

When kindred live 

In peace and love 

How good it is 

When strangers meet 

And find a home 

How good it is, so good…. 

This is home, this is home... 

Our city, God’s city, our home…. 

So good, so good, together, so good… 

Catherine Ogle, April 2016

The track can be heard via the following link:

http://birminghamcathedral.contentfiles.net/media/assets/file/How_Good_It_Is_Tony_Iommi.mp3

[If, by any chance, this link fails, then go to the Birmingham Cathedral website]

Alas! I have just missed a public play through of the new work.  Curses! But I have to hurry.  My mission was New Street Station, and then there's my conference dinner....

Once New Street was just a railway station... confusing, grey, dull. You came out to hear the bulls in the ring, in the rain. 

Now, it's huge. Dazzling.  Such a shame that HS2 won't stop here.....

So, I must hurry back, under the Bull Ring,

Past Selfridges (Selfridges Birmingham is one of the city’s most distinctive landmarks and the in-store experience is equally as show-stopping, with the latest luxury brands, designer arrivals and a global restaurant offering),

Past Marco Pierre White's English Chop House,

Past the old elegance of Moor Street Station,

And into the glass and steel glitter of Aston University,

Dinner awaits.  My scant hour is up. It was a fleeting glimpse of a city's heart, but worth it.  The following afternoon it is back to New Street for the pendolino to Euston (do we really need HS2?) and as we pull away I get a last glimpse of the sprawling city, once the home of everything that was made in Britain, now a confusion of service industries and traffic.  I haven't seen anything really - not the Jewellery Quarter, nor the Symphony Hall, the Museum and Art Gallery, the canals, Cadbury World, not even the statue of Tony Hancock (though I probably walked right past it in the dark).....

I will have to come back.  

Thank you Janet Pickering for sending me out.  And thank you Tony Iommi for bringing me in.

How good it is 

When kindred live 

In peace and love 

How good it is 

When strangers meet 

And find a home 

The Windhover

Walking with the birds....

The Windhover

To Christ Our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding 

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air,

and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

      As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

      Rebuffed the big wind. 

My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing. 

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle!

AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! 

      No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

      Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Written May 1877

Published 1918

And then the Stonechat says:

What about me?  I'm beautiful too!

And the Yellowhammer in the thicket trills:

I would like a little bit of bread and no cheese.....

And the Robin on the barbed wire asks:

Who did kill Cock Robin?

And the Mute Swan, with her cygnets, says....

Nothing.....

Even in the quiet woods and fields around our home there are sights to amaze, and the fleeting world of birds, so quick, so fluid, so dynamic, puts our self-consciousness into perspective.

Common Kestrel - Falco tinnunculus

An example of the use of poetry to convey an indecision, and its reverberation in the mind.....

William Empson

Seven Types of Ambiguity

1930

All the birds of the air

fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,

when they heard the bell toll

for poor Cock Robin.

English Nursery Rhyme

c.1744

(Greater) Manchester - 2 - Now....

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out….

Take me out tonight

Where there's music and there's people

And they're young and alive

Driving in your car

I never never want to go home

Because I haven't got one

Anymore

STEVEN MORRISSEY & JOHNNY MARR

The Smiths - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Back in Manchester, forty years (and more) on, some things have changed, though the air still hangs heavy and dark over the city.  Media centres, flats and businesses rise high above the Salford Quays, though much of the inner dockland areas and the canals are weed-strewn and crying out for development.  The older buildings of the city centre jostle now with towering hotels and gleaming office buildings.  

Tiny scraps of history remain amidst the tramways and roadworks of the future, their chimneys out of place in the new green world, but their gutters filled with buddleia and assorted growths. 

Friday night and the city is waking up.  Only two weeks to party before Christmas and the populace is in strutting out.  

The centre is packed with (as the visitManchester website boasts) world-famous markets feature[ing] nearly 350 stalls spanning 10 distinctive market sites [Albert Square, Cathedral Garden, Market Street, Exchange Square, Corn Exchange, Exchange Street, New Cathedral Street, French Christmas Market in King Street, German Christmas Market in St Ann's Square, World Christmas Market in Brazennose Street], transforming the city centre in to a festive wonderland….. Regularly named one of Europe's best Christmas Market attractions, nine million people visited in 2014.]  The list is almost as exhausting as the reality, with endless strings of stuffed Santas, electric reindeer, and tacky stalls selling anything and everything. 

  

The pubs and restaurants are steaming. The Briton's Protection (opened in 1806 as a recruiting office for the war against Napoleon, but also the only place in town to commemorate the 1819 Peterloo Massacre) is rammed.  The Pev (full name, Peveril of the Peak, the title of Walter Scott’s longest novel) has burst and the crowd spilled onto the pavements.

I book a table at Mr Thomas’s Chop House (Est. 1867) and innocently ask for a quiet corner.  A pleasant lady informs me that it’s our busiest night of the year! And sure enough, I have to fight my way in through the crowds to reach the spot they’d secured for me by the back door, utilising the fore-arm smash that I learned all those years ago from Kendo (see http://www.richardpgibbs.org/2016/12/greater-manchester-1-then.html for the story behind that…..)

The morning after is as dark as the night before.  At eight a.m. one of the clubs in the Gay Village is evacuating itself, with clients swaggering and staggering amongst the jaded taxis; silvered ampoules litter the cobbles, a peroxide head leans forward and spouts peroxide fluid….  Further down the road The Midland Hotel (where Rolls met Royce) has rooms for one starting at £254 (without breakfast) but there don’t seem to be many lights on at this hour (you may be interested to know that, as their website says, The Midland provides some of the finest dining experiences in Manchester. The team of chefs work constantly to ensure every dish, be it our traditional afternoon tea to the award winning cuisine in The French by Simon Rogan, is prepared with love and passion and full of amazing flavours and tastes. Where possible, we strive to use locally sourced produce to enhance the offerings on our bespoke menus.)  

Too bad I chose a Lancashire Butter Pie at the Chop House.  I truly missed out on this bespoke menu…. And I wonder what locally sourced really means in St Peter’s Square…..

Across the street the pantheon-like Central Library sticks limpet-like to the Kafka-esque book depository (the Town Hall extension), which in turn is attached by sighing bridges to the fourteen million bricks of the Victorian Town Hall (encased in grimy Spinkwell stone).

Down Deansgate lies the John Rylands Library, built by Enriqueta Rylands with no expense spared as a memorial for her husband.  

It houses an exceptional collection of books (including, I note, several tomes entitled The Bible in Vence!  Tut!  Even my cat knows how to spell Venice! sic) and a hushed gothic reading room – What an amazing place! Opines K R Higgins, Brisbane, in her recent tripadvisor review.  This was like being in a Harry Potter movie! 

The Cathedral (the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George), is virtually empty,

and I imagine (though I am not an expert!) it is even more like being in a Harry Potter movie.....   

A priest intones the liturgy, almost to himself, while two Chinese girls admire the Christmas Tree.  

A statue commemorates Humphrey Chetham, whose Hospital School and Library (Charity no. 526702) spent £10M of its £11.3M income in the financial year ending August 2015.  Outside a sign points to the North Pole, and a carousel stands parked and fenced in (to stop the horses leaping away?)  

In front of the titanic prow of the National Football Museum,

a homeless man begs on the cold street.  He could be in the Cathedral.... except that no one would even pass him by in there.

In 1937 George Orwell wrote, in The Road to Wigan Pier, about how Southerners go north… with the vague inferiority-complex of a civilised man venturing among savages….  

He writes about the snobbish, effeminate, and lazy Southerner.  He identifies how, In a Lancashire cotton-town you could probably go for months on end without once hearing an ‘educated’ accent, whereas there can hardly be a town in the South of England where you could throw a brick without hitting the niece of a bishop. 

Things have changed.  No one in Coronation Street wears curlers or hair nets any more.  

The Whitworth Art Gallery [Winner of Visit England's gold prize for Large Visitor Attraction of the Year 2016 and winner of the Art Fund's Museum of the Year 2015] has been reconstructed and currently has Andy Warhol on display, 

as well as 'works' by contemporary artists. 

And on Salford Quays, 

there is Media City, where the BBC and ITV hang out, there's a branch of the Imperial War Museum, lurking like the Bismark, and there is this shiny MI6-lookalike just by the Manchester Ship Canal.

Quay West, just across the Manchester Ship Canal from The Lowry

In The Lowry, (two theatres plus galleries with works by L S Lowry and modern artists ina landmark quayside building) I wander free around L S Lowry – The Art and The Artist (A permanent display of the best of LS Lowry) and am astonished at the range and depth of the man. I realise he was still around all those years ago when I lived here, so feel a tenuous connection even.... though, like many a snobbish and lazy southerner, I previously 'knew' Lowry to be a painter of stick men and factories, where people come and go in a 'normal' way.....

but this really is something else. The building is spectacular outside as well as in.... 

And the range of the Lowry works, from early life drawings to mesmeric scenes of the North Sea, and from a vast portrayal of a Welsh industrial landscape to a slightly eerie portrait of a quiet woman, is breathtaking. One picture in particular catches my attention and I have been kindly granted permission to reproduce it here.....  

LS Lowry The Funeral Party 1953 © The Lowry Collection, Salford

As the official website explains, In 1957 the News Chronicle described The Funeral Party as 'a painting with all the love and compassion drained away.' Lowry himself entertained listeners with his explanation that the man on the right is being treated as an outcast for coming to the funeral in boots and a red tie.' {Read more at http://www.thelowry.com/ls-lowry/microsite/art/people/the-funeral-party/#QguaCFJidAQjAJjl.99}

The extraordinary thing about this funeral party is that it perfectly captures the people in The Union Inn, Levenshulme, when I returned there yesterday (again please see my previous piece for more of this.....)

On my way back to Piccadilly station, on my way back to the snobbish South, riding the brilliant Metrolink, then lunching through the now spacious and quiet Briton's Protection and The Pev, 

the streets are relaxed with people living their bright lives under the damp grey skies, as Lowry loved them. 

Morrissey (currently 57) sang:

There's a place in the sun for anyone

Who has the will

To chase one and I think I've found mine

Yes, I do believe I have found mine

Let Me Kiss You

Manchester is not quite my ideal place in the sun, but there is a light and it never goes out….  

Nowhere, not even paradise, is perfect [remember Peter Cook’s comment to Dudley Moore as they wandered amongst clouds with white hats and scarves?  Pete: Is this it then?  Dud: What?  Pete: Is this Heaven then?  Dud (quizzically): Yeah….  Pete (after a pause, sardonically): Bloody hell!] 

If nothing else, Manchester, Greater Manchester, has been an inspiration, as it clearly was to Chopin..... 

I return to the soft, fat, lazy, effeminate south, topped up with Northern grit and subtleties.... 

And no, I won’t look back in anger….

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters; how well, they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster.....

Musée des Beaux Arts

W. H. Auden

Pip! Pip!