It was a sunny day in June when the face of Manchester was changed forever by the IRA bomb that tore the city centre apart.
A 90-minute warning about the lorry bomb, made with a phone call from the IRA, led to a massive evacuation effort of some 75,000 people.
Miraculously, no one died – but the attack deliberately targeted Manchester’s economy and, in today’s money, caused £1.3 billion-worth of damage.
Previously unseen footage given to The Manc and shared below shows just how widespread the impact was, with ceiling panels hanging down in the Arndale, road signs knocked askew, and windows shattered.
While the scars left on the city by the atrocity on Saturday 15 June 1996 may have been patched over, the memories are still just as vivid for those who were in the city centre that day.
The aftermath of the IRA Bomb
One such eye-witness is a familiar face around Manchester, and landlord of one of our most legendary pubs.
This is Gerard Ford, better known as Ged, the man behind The Millstone pub in the Northern Quarter where the karaoke blasts from morning til night.
Back in the 1990s, Ged was in charge of The Blob Shop, a long-lost institution on High Street that specialised in ‘cheap wine, cheap beer, and plenty of blobs’ (a mix of Australian white wine, hot water and lemon. Ged sold 6,000 a week).
The old Yates Blob Shop on High Street, Manchester / Credit: deltrems@flickr
When he arrived to work that day, he could never have imagined that he’d be sitting in the rubble drinking beer with police officers just hours later.
He told us: “I’ll never forget that day, because it was a beautiful day – it was all blue skies and everyone was in a great mood and all that, and then you heard all the things going on, sirens and things.
“And the police coming in saying to people ‘You’ve got to move out, you’ve got to move out of the pub’.
“Truthfully, a lot of people said ‘No. I’m staying here for a few pints. If I’m going to go, I’ll go with a pint in my hand’.”
Eventually, Ged’s punters were coaxed out of their local and down the road – to another pub.
His customers were safely drinking in The Merchants on Oldham Road (now The Crafty Pig), but Ged was still standing in The Blob Shop when the IRA’s 1,500kg bomb was detonated.
“The phone happened to ring, and I was in the off-licence which is the window on High Street,” he said.
“I put the phone to my right ear, the bomb went off – the reason I’m saying that is because it blew my ear in, it blew my ear drum in.
“And it blew all the panels off the wall. All the windows came in, everything came in when the bomb went off. It was unbelievable.”
After being evacuated, one of Ged’s employees told him that she’d left her purse at the Blob Shop – including her house keys.
He continued: “I knew how to get down the back streets to the Blob Shop.
“As I was crossing the road I heard the police shout ‘There’s a bloke!’ and they chased after me.”
Ged Ford in The Millstone / Credit: The Manc Group
Ged was quickly emptying the cash from the tills and fetching his friend’s purse when the police rushed through the open doors after him.
He says they were shouting ‘we’ve got him Serge, we’ve got him’.
“I put my hands up and said ‘I’m the manager, I’ve had to go and get this girl’s purse and I’ve just got to take all my cash downstairs and put it in the safe. I’ve got to do all these things.’
“I was [shaking with] adrenaline and so were the policemen, so I said to them ‘Well while we’re here, let’s have a pint!’
“And I promise, and this is the God’s gospel truth, we all had three pints each, just like that.
“They were great policemen.
“So then obviously they got me out of the Blob Shop and they had to walk me down Church Street in the middle of the street with the policemen with me, to make sure I was safe.
“All the glass was still coming out of the windows, it was still falling in from all over the place.
“When I came out with the police it was still a lovely day, obviously it was blue skies.
“All the alarms were going off, I remember all the alarms.
“Alarms for cars, alarms for all the offices. The sound of alarms all the time, it was very very eerie.
“I can’t describe it. Well, after three pints anyway! I just remember thinking ‘What the hell’s happened?'”
Ged’s Blob Shop pub was only closed for a matter of days – it was back open for business by the middle of the week after the attack.
“People are very resilient, they want to go back to normal ways and that’s what they do.
“We opened the Blob Shop again and it thrived and it thrived.”
Featured Image – The Manc Group
Feature
Five Manchester artists we’ve been listening to this month | June 2025
Danny Jones
Hello there. That greeting may be giving Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars vibes, and we can’t lie, we have listened to some cantina music while working this month… but not as much as we’ve been immersing ourselves in more new Manchester artists.
You should know the drill by now, and it is very much a what-it-says-on-the-tin scenario, but every few weeks, we round up some of the music – all crucially hailing from the Greater Manchester area – that we’ve been listening to of late.
We don’t discriminate when it comes to genre either. There’s only one simple rule: if it’s good, then we listen to it and then, hopefully, so do you.
Get your playlists at the ready.
Five Manc music artists we’ve been listening to recently
1. Arkayla
First up for June are relative newcomers Arkayla, whose name is inspired by “a terrible Oasis demo” from 1991 (their words, not ours – thought it is…) of the same name, a.k.a. ‘I Will Show You’, in which describe Liam Gallagher’s now legendary as once sounding “like a dodgy Ian Brown impressionist.”
However, there’s nothing dodgy about these lot and, thankfully, they’re in an era when you don’t have to hand out tapes recorded in the Boardwalk basement on the street to be heard. The Manchester band, which only formed in 2020, may be Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, but they’ve already got a sound.
There’s an unmistakable British indie element to them and hints at everything from The Kooks to The Lathums, but most notably, there are ’60s guitar notes and some real maturity already. Standouts include ‘Ella Malone’, the acoustic version of ‘Lost In a Valentine’, where the lead singer, Cal Blakebrough, really shines, and ‘Rita’ is such an addictive track.
They don’t get more unknown, undiscovered, but sure to be up-and-coming than iNNAFIELD, who are a female-fronted psychedelia-forward five-piece with roots in Brighton but building a career in 0161. Having recently shone at The Deaf Institute playing a support slot at Academy 1, they have our interest.
If a glimpse of lead singer Jessie Amy Leask’s curly hair, 70s belts and long, flowing skirts plants Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac in your mind, you’d be right in thinking so; a listen to their other live tracks scattered across their socials confirms there’s plenty of other influences going on too, though.
Now, they’ve only got one proper recording out on Spotify called ‘Tell Me What’s On Your Mind’, but we’ve had it popping up on our algorithms everywhere, and we can see why: there’s soft, twinkly strumming, soft almost sleepy vocals before a nice big breakout at the end. Glorious stuff.
No, not that one, the Princess of Monaco isn’t back from the dead, but ‘r Grace Kelly, who is based right here in Greater Manchester, is playing her part in the ongoing country revival taking place across the music world, offering her soulful voice and faux American-folk vibes to our ears.
She may not be a Mancunian by birth, having moved from New Zealand to our shores back in 2022, and although the weather change might have been a big sea change for her, there’s no culture shock to be found in her style; from the audio to the aesthetic, it still somehow feels pretty authentic.
Uplifting acoustic guitars, drum brush strokes, solos, Southern-twang harmonies – you name it, all the ingredients are there. The thing is, if you spend enough time immersing yourself in a genre, you can still pull off tracks like ‘Carry On’, ‘San Jose’ and the intimate ‘For Us To Change’.
We’re really lane switching when it comes to genre this month; maybe it’s because festival season is in full swing and we’re just being exposed to so much different stuff in a short space of time, all we know is we’re not complaining about it.
And neither should you, especially when you’ve got names like hip-hop, grime, soul and flag-flying Afrobeats rising star, Prido, being platformed. Blending all the above with R’n’B and a sprinkling of not just Northern but easily detectable Manc slant, it makes his music stand out in the ever-thriving space.
‘Free Ur Mind’ was the first track we ever heard, so we’ve struggled to shake that as our favourite, but ‘DND’ is a supremely dancey but chill example of laid-back of the genre that you need in your mixes this summer, and we also have a soft spot for his verse on the sensual ‘Lifeboat’ by Prima.
Last but not least on our list of new Manchester artists for this June, we’ve got local DJ Josh Baker, whose name you might recognise from the headlines surrounding Parklife 2025, as his set was unfortunately cancelled due to problems out of his control.
Festival-goers flocked to The Matinee Stage for a highly anticipated back-to-back bill of Baker followed by Dutch counterpart Chris Stussy, both of whom have thrilled some of the biggest club crowds in the country – sadly, he didn’t get to do so this time. That being said, we thought we’d give him a shout-out.
We’ll confess to only having got around to his discography following this news, but ‘Back It Up’, ‘Something To Me’, and ‘You Don’t Own Me’ with Prospa and RAHH are all bangers. We’re looking forward to listening to more.
And that should just about do you; there are five artists and, at the very least, 15 new tracks for you to give a go – there should be at least of few of them you like.
But, let’s be honest: be it unheard, new, current, old or anything in between, Manchester music very rarely ends up being filed in the skippable category.
Then again, you can always check out last month’s list of Manc artists from last month and see if you get a better hit ratio.
Featured Images — Prido (via Facebook)/Arkayla (via X)/Grace Kelly (via Facebook)
Feature
You can sleep in a luxury train carriage at an old railway station in Greater Manchester
Thomas Melia
There’s an Airbnb listing in Delph where you can stay in a classic converted train carriage, and it’s even situated in an old train station, so someone buy my ticket ASAP.
Get ready to have the best train experience of your life, as the only cancellation you have to worry about is booking the day off work.
The Carriage at The Old Station is a two-person character property in Delph, Saddleworth that offers you the chance to live out your vintage fantasy by stepping back in time on a luxury static train coach.
It may be situated at an old station, but the interior is refreshing and light with mint blue beams, fuchsia cushions and a royal red carpet and curtains.
As well as a majestic interior, this carriage has an equally impressive amount of amenities, including a Bluetooth sound system, board games and its own indoor fireplace.
This Airbnb is fairly new too, with only 44 reviews to its name – the first only dating back to September of last year; don’t say we don’t find you some absolute gems.
Inside the Airbnb that’s an old converted train carriage.The interior of this Airbnb listing is bold and impressive.
One user even stated, “We regularly stay in five-star locations and this surpassed five-star easily! We highly recommend a stay here.”
While another opened her review with three simple adjectives that we also feel perfectly sum up this train carriage property perfectly: “Opulent, indulgent, extravagant”.
It should come as no surprise that this place is beautiful inside and out, as in the description, host of the property Nigel states he’s a retired designer.
The train carriage stay is also close to a proper country pub, The Old Bell Inn, as well as the Diggle canal walk if you fancy a stroll and a pint before tucking into bed in your old train carriage for the night.
Even the bathroom has pops of colour throughout.You could stay in this train carriage at an old train station.
If you’re after boarding The Carriage at The Old Station and having a fabulous overnight stay or mini holiday of your own, you can find the Airbnb listing and everything you need to know HERE.
Daisy Jackson -
21st January 2022 
