Tag Archives: Salford

Big Issue North: Predict & Provide – Food Poverty In The UK

Posted on April 19, 2013 | 1 Comment

THE BIOSPHERIC PROJECT credit Robert MartinFrom horsemeat in burgers to poverty related hunger, food is in the headlines in the worst possible way. Yet as food prices continue to rise and cities grow, the shortage of affordable and healthy food looks set to worsen. So what can an old mill in Salford do to bring sustainable and wholesome fare to our cities? Arwa Aburawa investigates.

With central government examining the surge of emergency foodbanks and charities warning of an increase in poverty-related hunger, it’s clear food insecurity is on the rise. The horsemeat scandal may have raised a lot of questions about our supermarkets but more daunting questions are now being asked about how we protect the poorest from rising food prices. How can we make healthy food more accessible in the wake of the cuts? And can cities really feed themselves? Manchester International Festival and the Biospheric Foundation in Salford are working together to answer these very questions….

Read on below:

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Posted in Big Issue North, climate change, Environment, Food, Green, Manchester

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Big Issue North: Can You Dig It?

Posted on August 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

Here’s a feature I put together for the Big Issue North on radical gardening. Click on the images for a closer look.

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Posted in Big Issue North, climate change, Council, Development, Economy, Environment, Ethical, Food, Green

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Contraceptives, Clinics and Working Class Women: Salford & Manchester Mothers’ Clinic

Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

The UK's first birth control clinic in London

In 1926, the second birth control clinic outside of London opened its doors to women seeking free family planning advice. Located in the impoverished Greengate area of Salford, the clinic provided birth control information to working class women who weren’t able to pay for private advice from a doctor. The controversial clinic faced opposition from the Catholic Church and the medical profession but fought on and continued to offer its services to women until birth control advice was widely and freely available in the 1970s.

Unlike the suffragettes’ attention-grabbing campaigns to secure women’s rights to vote, the local-level and grinding work of women who worked to improve women’s right to birth control in the 1920s and 30s has gone somewhat unnoticed. Whilst they never marched on parliament, they worked day-in, day-out, through blitz, blackouts and at personal risk, to provide women with the knowledge to exercise control over their own bodies. For many of the women, providing birth control was an important factor for the improvements in women’s health and also the emancipation of women who had previously relied on men to limit the size of their family. Continue reading →

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Manchester’s Radical History: Ellen Tooley and the Women of Eccles

Posted on April 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

My latest piece for Manchester’s Radical History is on Ellen Tooley, the first woman MP for Eccles which is my hometown! Apparently, Eccles had always been full of great women : ) Here’s an excerpt:

On the November 1st 1933 Ellen Tooley made history by becoming the first woman councillor in Eccles. Although she wasn’t particularly fond of her new title as the first woman councillor in Eccles, she lived with it all her life and it no doubt it helped inspire many other women to play an active role in local politics.

Women in Eccles had been trying to get elected to the Eccles Town Hall without any success since 1919, yet in 1933 the town voted in two women councillors. Ellen Tooley was first to be announced as the winning candidate for the seat of Winton; literally minutes later, Mary Higgins was elected as the councillor for Barton. Veronica Trick, the granddaughter of Ellen Tooley, describes the night in an article titled The Power to get Things Changed! Ellen Tooley, Eccles’ First Woman Councillor….

Read the full piece here at Manchester’s Radical History.

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Salford Star and Stephen Kingston

Posted on January 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

Uncovering the darker side of regeneration and social housing, the Salford Star has been rocking the boat in Salford since 2006. The only independent, radical and community-orientated news source in Salford, it’s “produced by Salfordians for Salfordians with attitude and love.” It won the 2008 Plain English Campaign and was runner up for the Paul Foot Award for Campaigning Journalism in 2007. Taking its name from the popular radical newspaper the Northern Star, Salford Star has not only been writing stories but jumping in with two feet to help residents fight their battles. Manchester Radical History spoke to founder and editor Stephen Kingston.

Tell us a little about yourself and how the Salford Star started…
SK: Well, I’m not a trained journalist and I didn’t become a journalist till I was 28. For fifteen years I wrote for style and music magazines, in the Evening News, but you don’t get into journalism to interview Coronation Street stars and celebrities. That’s not why I got into it anyway. In the end, although I was getting very well paid to write for the national papers, I couldn’t get the real stories across which is housing, regeneration – things that mattered to people.

So I took a back step and started teaching journalism in the community and I did that for a few years, then I got offered the chance to help on a magazine called ‘Old Trafford News’ which is a community magazine which we revamped. So I did that and it was very successful. People saw the magazine that we were doing in Old Trafford and the community invited us to do one in Salford. But I said to them ‘hold on second, Salford is a city whereas Old Trafford is one square mile’. As Salford is a big city, we’ll need a big magazine to go with it! So Salford Star was born.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Council, Crime, Development, Economy, History, Identity, Manchester

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