I ♥ Manchester

I've been fortunate enough to live at every point of the United Kingdom's compass.

At one time or another, I've lain my head and my heart in Newcastle, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, London, Manchester and Sheffield.

Each place challenged and enriched me; gave me friends, experiences and stories; and added something to my life.

Manchester felt like home from the moment that I stepped off the train.

I loved Manchester.

I loved the fact that it was equal parts history and self-mythology.

I loved the people; the sense of humour; the brashness; the warmth; the streets and the buildings.

I loved the palpable sense it gave you that you were somewhere that counted. This, Manchester said, is a place where things get done. I'm sure there are others, but it's the only place in the country that I've lived that genuinely felt local and global simultaenously.

The swagger, the attitude, the energy; the can-do spirit, the brio and the ballsiness; the hustle and the bustle - the sense that anything was possible, but just before we do that, does anyone fancy a night out?

I loved all of it.

I spent ten years living and working in Manchester.

I made connections there that endure to this day, built from shared experiences and shared memories with people who became friends and family.

I made plans that covered the whole spectrum from the weekly food shop to world domination and every stage in between.

Manchester saw late nights and early mornings, friends coming and going but the ones that counted staying. It saw false starts and rich seams. There were adventures and workadays; good times and bad; triumph and disaster; laughter and tears; achievements and disappointments; days that slipped by without leaving a trace and moments that I will never, ever forget.

All of the things that make a life a life, in fact.

So when I heard the news on 22cnd May 2017 I felt physically sick - even though I'd left previously to live in Sheffield.

The next morning we were travelling to Newcastle - a trip I'd organised with my children to get away.

By the time we reached Newcastle, I'd managed to make sure that all of my friends and former colleagues were safe. The news of what had happened was coming in, though, and it wasn't good.

22 dead.

A tally of injured that kept rising until it eventually stopped at over 1000.

At Newcastle's Central Station, we were greeted by rings of grim-faced police carrying semi-automatic carbines.

Seeing the looks of terror on the faces of my children, one burly Geordie officer took the time to crouch down and put them at ease:

'Alright girls? What are you up to today? Going to see Grandma, eh? That sounds fantastic - can I come? Will there be cake? I love a bit of cake, me. Is that your Daddy? He's a big lad, isn't he?'

He took that shock - men with guns in their train station - and made it a positive. My subsequent experiences with professional safeguarders are not good ones. As a consequence, what I was told as a child - if you are ever lost, scared, or frightened find a policeman - has taken something of a knock. I will, however, always be grateful that this particular officer took the shock and sting out of what was a heightened situation for everyone, but for them especially.

We spent the day in Hexham, safe in the sun.

The North East felt a world away from what had happened in the North West.

That night while my girls slept, safe in the warm green of the Derwent Valley, I wrote and wrote and recorded the above. One guitar, one mic, one take.

Manchester gave me everything.

It gave me friends and work and a life and music and Agecroft and the fast lad and Denis and running to work along the Ship Canal as the sun rose and dodging the raindrops in the winter. It gave me professional success and personal development. It opened doors to new worlds and said ‘Come on in.’

It’s the only place I’ve ever been that I never wanted to leave.

The music and the words poured out.

I felt like I wasn't writing it, it was writing me.

Until I moved to Sheffield, I processed the world through music.

I wrote songs with the same frequency and in much the same way that some write diary entries. Just me singing into one mic when my children slept safe upstairs, I ♥ Manchester was never meant to be anything other than a personal reaction to a public tragedy.

Besides entertain, one of the many things music does and has a duty to do is commentate on events and capture moments.

Today, the brother of the bomber went to jail for 55 years.

Three years after the bomb went off, the news cycle has moved on.

What happened, though, is still happening for the families and friends of those who lost loved ones.

I can't pretend that a few words and a melody offers anything that can possibly make up for what and who you lost that day.

But despite what it might feel like, you aren't forgotten and you aren't alone.

©℗ A. I. Jackson.