Affleck’s Palace, or simply Affleck’s (as it is known today), has always been a mecca for Manchester cool. Without it, the Northern Quarter would simply not exist as we know it.
In 1982 when it moved across to the area from a basement beneath Kendal’s, it wasn’t exactly the best of times – especially in this dark corner of the city, described as “bandit country” by Sean Berry of Panic Posters fame.
Opening the same year as The Hacienda, the year The Smiths were formed and a new set for Coronation Street was completed, Affleck’s arrived at just the right time – capturing the start of a new wave of underground alternative culture.
And as the years have gone on, it’s maintained the same level of cool and the same values of community, even as the world outside it has changed.
Here, traders see each other as family. As for the visitors, it’s a safe space where they can always be themselves and not worry about what anyone else thinks. As we’re told time and again, there really is nowhere like it.
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For the past four decades, Affleck’s myriad traders have celebrated individuality, eccentricity, and creativity : attracting intrepid teenagers and big-name celebrities alike to hunt for vintage fashion staples, quirky jewellery, records, and other alt miscellanea within its labyrinthine walls.
Over the years, it’s welcomed the likes of Lady Gaga, Agyness Dean, Debbie Harry, Chloe Sevigny, Bernard Summer, Alice Cooper, Anna Friel and more – but the real stories to be told here are not of the celebrities but of the traders, past and present, who’ve had the privilege to call the place home.
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On the top floor, Affleck’s creative in residence Joy France – also known as Manchester’s battle-rapping granny – can be found amidst piles of papers, guitars, chairs, paints and more.
A former teacher and spoken word poet in her sixties, she was originally given the room for just three months but tells us it’s now been seven years. In that time, her little empty space has become so full of things that it’s overflowing to the point it can’t really contain much more.
She tells us: “So it’s actually gonna, I’m gonna close the room and it’s going to go mobile around the building so the same idea but it’ll reach more people and it’s going to go online.”
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“The first five years before lockdown I would just leave it open, and I might be off for a couple weeks doing something, and nothing ever get stolen, just more donations, more poetry, more artwork.
“Sometimes, they might just look like nothing There’s a little scrunchie in here, just someone’s scrunchie, I remember a woman came in, a young woman, and she just said ‘I’ve found the place I need to leave this.’
“‘This was my sister’s, she died a few years ago in Canada and I’ve carried it in my bag ever since but it needs to be here.'”
“There’s tyewriters, there’s books, there’s – I think, we counted up 20 guitars, four ukeleles, just randomly, you know, just, thousands of stories and I’ve never advertised it I’ve just let the world find it and then it’s just word of mouth.”
Asked what she does with it next she tells us, “This is the point I’m at with it now. Anything that doesn’t have a story or isn’t art it just goes outside and anyone can take it away, it just gets a new home. Anything that has got a story or is art, I’m trying to catalogue it and trying to put it online so the stories are all told.”
Elsewhere, we meet Millie Horton, a self-made entrepreneur with her own nail salon.
Millie tells us: “Well i’m quite local originally as well, so I probably started coming to Affleck’s when I was maybe ten or eleven – just to look around, come in with family, friends, I feel like you hit your teenage years and it’s just where you go in Manchester like you have a look around and it’s all different and everyone loves it.
“So that was my relationship, like everyone else with it, before I started working here. And erm, I was twenty-one when I started working here so it was quite early still.”
“Now I do work here, the community is really what makes it like – everyone says it and it’s so cliche but there is really nowhere like it. I really believe there’s nowhere like it – like a lot of cities think they’ve got an Affleck’s, but they don’t – like, they don’t.
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“And it is the people that make it, without a doubt. Looking around it is one thing and you get the atmosphere form it and it is so different, but once you start talking to everyone in the building and everyone is so different to each other, so individual, such characters, that’s when it really like it kicks in, like – ‘oh wow, this is like somewhere really special.'”
“I think it’s quite unusual like that element of it, like it feels, like, the values never change. It’s still got that sort of old-fashioned community feel to it and I feel like that’s really unusual now.”
Each and every person we speak with has the same thing to say: they love the community of Affleck’s and don’t think there’s anywhere else like it in the country – let alone the city.
Colin Thompson, the man behind the ever-busy tattoo studio, a fixture in Affleck’s for the past twenty years, tells us that whilst much has stayed the same over the years, today it’s not unusual to see families in Affleck’s.
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Parents, he explains, are now coming to introduce the next generation to the weird and wonderful bazaar that sells literally everything.
He says: “I started off in the nineties, at some point I had a record shop upstairs called Sabotage Records, did that for about a good ten years then we moved down here and started sharing a shop with the guy who did piercings and tattoos, and then we’ve just taken it from there basically.
“And I’ve been here now for over twenty years, in this shop so yeah, I’ve been here twenty-odd years now in Affleck’s, it’s a great place to work.
“Oh there has been a slow change, not much really to be honest, there has been a gradual change over the years and all that, erm with the styles what have come and gone but you find a lot of styles come back in after a while.
“Also a lot of people bring in like their families now so people who were coming in when they were kids have grown up now and have got their own families, and they’re bringing them in now so it’s quite a little community, to be honest.”
Feature image – Supplied
Art & Culture
Science and Industry Museum reveals ‘gloriously gross’ half term events lineup
Emily Sergeant
One of Manchester’s most-visited museums has unveiled its exciting events lineup ahead of half term in a couple of weeks time.
Fancy diving into the “gloriously gross” world of our brilliant bodies?
It’s certainly not an invite you get every day, but as schools across Greater Manchester break up for half term at the end of this month, and parents and carers gear up to entertain the little ones, the Science and Industry Museum has, thankfully, just announced a wide range of events and activities especially for the holidays.
Anyone who considers themselves to be “curious about the incredible inner workings of the human body” are invited to join in with the series of anatomy-themed special events, star-studded appearances, and half term transformations.
And the best bit is that a good chunk of the events planned are actually open for you to get involved with for completely free of charge.
As the curtains on Operation Ouch! are due to close for good on Sunday 9 June, the museum has chosen to dedicate the entire month of May to celebrating the record-breaking exhibition and making sure it goes out in “a blaze of glorious grossness” by having it inspire all the upcoming ‘brilliant bodies’ events – and this half term is no different.
The Science and Industry Museum has revealed its ‘gloriously gross’ half term events lineup / Credit: Science Museum Group
As well as exploring the exhibition before it closes, mini Mancs can also bring a bear (or any soft squishy friend) to the museum and take them round the departments of the ‘Teddy Hospital’, as well as learn all about looking after their brains, bones, and bottoms with fun and fascinating activities, and find out how their skeleton works, what their poo is made of, and why we have blood.
The museum‘s team of Explainers will also be back in action this half term.
They’ll be putting on interactive science shows packed with “fun facts and wow moments” that explore how and why our bodies are all the same, but different too.
There’s so much to discover and explore about our ‘brilliant bodies’ at the museum this month / Credit: Science Museum Group
Away from the ‘brilliant bodies’ events, if you haven’t had the chance the make the most of the museum’s smash-hit gaming exhibition, Power UP, then this upcoming half term is the ideal time to do so.
Revolution Manchester, the museum’s interactive Experiment gallery, and the Textiles Gallery are also open for exploring for free all throughout the half term week.
Both free entry tickets to the museum, and charged-for tickets for Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You and Power UP, can be booked now on the Science and Industry Museum website.
You can find more about all the activities taking place at the museum over the half term here.
Featured image – Science Museum Group
Art & Culture
Manc icons to be turned into trail of stunning floral installations lining city centre streets
Emily Sergeant
Caroline Aherne and Emmeline Pankhurst are among the ‘Manchester Icons’ set to turned into floral installations for a new trail that’ll line the city centre streets.
In case you missed it, it was announced back in January that Manchester is all set to become one of the most picturesque places in the UK once again this summer, and that’s because the city will be getting dressed up in celebration of the annual Flower Festival – which is back by popular demand for its seventh year.
The four-day festival – which is organised annually by Manchester BID and CityCo, and is often dubbed the “most Instagramable event of the year” – always sees Manchester bloom to life, with plants and flowers covering landmark buildings, shop windows, doorways, balconies, statues, fountains, and more right across the city centre.
This year’s Festival will take place over the late May bank holiday weekend from Friday 24 – Monday 27 May 2024.
And now, the theme for this year’s floral trail has now been revealed by the Festival’s organisers.
‘Manchester Icons’ is the name and theme of this year’s trail – which is always one of the most popular events at the Festival each year – and visitors are being told they can expect to see 10 glorious displays inspired by Manchester-born figures, music icons, and even legendary buildings.
All the installations in the trail are created by local artists, gardeners, and flower enthusiasts.
The late Manc actress Caroline Aherne, Manchester suffragette icon Emmeline Pankhurst, Girls Aloud and Stockport-raised band member, the late Sarah Harding, and local singing legend Rowetta are among the ‘icons’ who will be turned into floral art pieces, alongside other famous sites such as Gnome Island, the Hacienda, and Boddington’s brewery.
Manchester will be filled with fresh blooms as annual the Flower Festival returns this summer / Credit: Carl Sukonik & Fabio De Paola | The Manc Group
King Street, New Cathedral Street, St Ann’s Square, the Corn Exchange, and Manchester Arndale are just a few of the sites the installations will call home in a couple of weeks time.
The names and locations of the 10 installations are:
‘What first attracted you to the comedian Caroline Aherne?’ – New Cathedral Street
‘The Girls Aloud Tribute Garden’ – St Ann’s Square
‘Emmeline’s Town Hall’ – On the corner of King Street and Cross Street
‘Queen Bee Rowetta’ – The Royal Exchange
‘Gnome Island’ – King Street
‘The Second Summer of Love’ – Manchester Arndale
‘Boddingtons Blooms’ – Corn Exchange
‘The Iconic Hive’ – New Cathedral Street
‘This is Manchester’ – St Ann’s Square
‘The Hacienda Gardens’ – On the corner of King Street and Deansgate
Alongside the headline floral trail, organisers say this year’a Manchester Flower Festival is also set to bring “fun and frivolity” to the city’s streets – with a cocktail trail, al-fresco dining, live music, lots of family entertainment, floral workshops, arts and crafts markets, and so much more.
Manchester Flower Festival 2024 is free for all to attend from Friday 24 – Monday 27 May, and you can find out more about the floral trail and everything else happening across the four days here.
Featured Image – Carl Sudonik (via Manchester BID)