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Hello,
“I came to this area 40 years ago and never left,” Christine “Welshy” Gavano, 56, says of Ashton-under-Lyne as she’s preparing bags of fresh vegetables and cupboard staples that local families will pick up later in the day.
Mother-of-three and grandmother Christine volunteers at the Smallshaw Hurst Community Action Group, a local service helping people in Broadoak & Smallshaw, Hurst Cross and Hazel Hurst get through the cost of living crisis and the ongoing pandemic.
When she’s not at the action group, she can be found volunteering at the Ashton United In the Community Luncheon Club on Wednesdays for older people and with Cedar Park Chefs on Smallshaw Hurst’s Pantry Store.
The pantry store provides families with a weekly £3 food bag, alongside recipes using ingredients in the bag with an estimation of just how much gas and electricity it will cost to make.
“I volunteer in the community most days,” Christine says. “I never stop, there’s no rest for me.
“Families at the moment are finding it really, really hard. They’re deciding whether they sit in the cold and eat and whether they sit in the warm and don't get to eat anything.
"We’ve not seen poverty like this before, and some families on our estate are very low but we have got a good community - they can knock on anybody's door and we’ll look after them.”
Christine, who is today featured in a 'Cost of Living Champions' spotlight from Save The Children to coincide with International Women's Day, says she often hears from families struggling with not just the cost of food, but also nappies and baby milk.
Through her community work, she says she has been able to convince people to use the action group despite ‘pride’ often being a barrier.
“If someone asks me for help I’ll often suggest the food pantry,” she says. “When it first opened families wouldn't come because of pride. Some thought they'd phone social services and some have mental health issues and won't leave the house. I encouraged them to come and use the pantry and I even go and knock on their doors sometimes saying 'I'm coming today, you be ready, and you come with me'.”
Christine says she hopes the work she and her fellow volunteers do will, like her mother’s efforts did for her, inspire others and show that a strong sense of community is especially important today.
“I think I started doing this work because I’d seen my mum do the same sort of thing,” she explains. “When we were little my mum used to organise all the coach trips for where we lived – she was the one out there in the community.
"Now I’m trying to involve the next generation, my daughters, my friends. They think they can't do it, but they've done amazing so far. They’ve got determination.”
Save The Children are working with some of the UK's biggest charities and organisations to pull together resources to help support people during the cost of living crisis. You can find out more about Together Through This Crisis here.
Challenging boundaries
By day, Dr Amna Khan is educating students as a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University but in her spare time, she’s also a trend-setting powerlifter.
Dr Amna, 41, is the first British Pakistani woman to be named British Champion Powerlifter and holds a British deadlift record in her weight class - lifting three times her own body weight at 158kg.
Speaking to Dianne Bourne, Dr Amna said she only started training in the gym six years ago as a way to shape up after pregnancy. Her powerlifting went from strength to strength after a trainer spotted her potential.
The mum-of-two says she is proud to have broken new ground in powerlifting and now wants to inspire others that, no matter their background, they can excel too.
"I want to motivate young women from any ethnicity to focus on their passions and dreams, like I did,” Dr Amna, who grew up in Cheetham Hill, explains. “Even if you're a mum, even if you're working full time, whatever you're doing, you can follow your passion and be successful.
"It's your beliefs that will drive you to change things. The most important part of my journey is representing that everyone can do well in sport.
"Powerlifting has often been seen as a man's sport, but it's for women as well, we can lift heavy weights too. it's just as important for our mental and physical well-being."
Dr Amna, who now lives in Stretford, entered her first competition in 2021, and by June 2022 had already won her first national championship after competing in the under-52kg category and breaking national records.
"At first my parents didn't quite get it,” she recalls. “It's only when I went to the north west competition that they thought no, she's really serious about this. When I went to the national competition they were like wow that's amazing.”
She adds: “I never went out to create change but I always wanted to keep challenging boundaries."
'Standing idle'
A state-of-the-art doctors centre in Bolton, which cost £5 million to build, is 'standing idle' since building work was completed in December 2021.
The 1,206 sqm Little Lever Health Centre features three GP surgeries and 14 consultation rooms but doctors have yet to move in. Independent councillor Sean Hornby, of the Little Lever & Darcy Lever party, said he was ‘annoyed’ with the situation after he'd ‘fought like mad’ to secure money for the clinic.
Sean claimed wrangling over doctors' contracts had left the clinic empty after a new NHS health partnership took over the running of local health services in the borough.
“The doctors are keen to get in there themselves,” he said, explaining that the primary care trust had changed its name and become a ‘different organisation under a different regime’ since the building was complete.
“It’s a brand new state-of-the-art building, I fought like mad for it,” he said. “It’s the most eco-friendly building, it’s completely solar-powered. We’ve got about 80 solar panels on the roof. It’s a brilliant building.
“But I went there yesterday. It’s simple things - the snagging has not been done from when it was built.”
Bolton Council and NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care said they are working closely alongside each other to 'move health services in as soon as possible'.
You can read the full piece here.
'We won't stand for bullying'
Skateboarders in Manchester city centre who were targeted in a viral video calling them ‘raging bloody lunatics’ have had the last laugh after getting free VIP tickets to Parklife.
The video, which was first posted on Twitter, showed skaters practising tricks on Lincoln Square. During the clip, which has since been clicked on 5.5 million times, a man off camera provides commentary complaining about the skaters, who were filmed without permission, and calling them ‘virgins’.
Skater Luke Bradley, who was among those filmed, told the M.E.N’s Ben Arnold: “I just thought it was some guy having a moan. Then I watched the video and thought it was quite funny, like 'why is this guy just abusing us for no reason?'”
Luke, 20, who is on a full-time electrical engineering apprenticeship, added: “There’s a public perception, skaters are deemed to be anti-social, jobless, causing damage to property, being rude to people, so we are used to having negative opinions, but we’re not used to videos with running commentary when we’re just trying to have a good time.”
Thankfully, the video did not go down well with others and received a universally negative response online. It also caught the eye of Sacha Lord, co-founder of Parklife and the Warehouse Project, who reached out to the skaters.
Lord told the M.E.N: “The person behind the camera was commenting about them being virgins, breaking their legs… calling them d**kheads and I thought 'hang on, they are just out having fun'.
“We forget that these kids were literally locked up for 18 months, not being able to see their friends. The more I watched the video, it felt like online bullying to me. We need to stand up to bullying, especially when it’s bullying kids.”
As a result, he offered each of the skaters free VIP tickets to Parklife, which is set to feature one of Luke’s favourite bands: Wu-Tang Clan.
Lord added: “I hope that when he’s in a field, with 80,000 kids having fun, the person behind the camera realises that as a city, we won’t stand for bullying. We come together and stand up to it.”
You can read the full story here.
Where is the North?
A map suggesting that Manchester should be in the Midlands instead of the North of England has gone viral online.
Twitter user @MichelleBayly shared the map, which drew the northern line at Leeds - meaning Hull and Sheffield were placed in the Midlands with us - whilst stating: "It’s really annoying seeing The North such and such company or something artsy North and for it to be in Birmingham etc”.
As expected, it did not go down well. One user hilariously responded: "you deserve jail time for this”. Another wrote: "As a normal human being, how is Manchester and Liverpool in the Midlands?"
But the original poster may have had a change of heart following the backlash. Michelle says she is now opting for a better deciding factor on whether you are Northern or not and it involves gravy on chips. That sounds more accurate to me.
From derelict to a must-visit
A huge 250,000 square foot ‘neighbourhood’ featuring a bar, kitchen, brewery, garden and beer hall will be opening in the city centre just in time for the summer.
Located on the site of the now-derelict Presbar Diecast works, between Ducie Street and Store Street, the new Diecast venue is from the team behind already-established venues Ramona and The Firehouse.
It’s hoped the vast factory floor will not only become a place to meet, eat, drink, and dance but will also be used as office space, for hosting award ceremonies, and even featured as a movie location.
The place will be able to fit 5,000 people indoors and across its huge garden space, and is also expected to create upwards of 500 jobs for the city. It will serve the likes of 'NeoPan' pizza (its own take on Neapolitan style) and feature a ‘House of Daiquiri’ bar specialising in heritage and new world rums, alongside an open-air barbeque kitchen, a bakery and its own brewery making beer and kombucha.
“Something of this scale, it becomes a destination,” says co-founder Dan Mullen. “Something that draws people in, regionally and nationally, and maybe internationally.”
You can read more about the plans here.
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Weather etc
Thursday: Yellow weather warning for snow. 3C.
Road closures: M67 Eastbound entry slip road closed due to long-term roadworks at J2 St Annes Road (Denton). Until 1st December 2025.
A575 Walkden Road Northbound closed due to electricity work from Kingsway to Edge Fold Crescent. Until 17th March.
A669 Lees Road (Oldham) closed in both directions due to water main work between Cross Street and and Moorhey Street. Until 15th March.
Trivia question: Which Manchester rapper is making their 'UK festival headliner' debut at Parklife this year?
Manchester headlines
- Inspirational: What's On editor Jenna Campbell has looked at ten women making waves in Manchester and doing incredible work right now. Read here.
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Travel: Some flights in the UK have been suspended as parts of the UK become covered in snow. It comes as snow is expected here in Manchester tomorrow and Friday.
- Prisons: The chairman of the public inquiry into the Manchester Arena attack said preventing prisoners from radicalising others 'cannot be achieved' under the current system and has urged for changes to prison visits. More here.
- Homes: Plans to build 60 homes on fire-ravaged mill site in Saddleworth, which dates back to the 1800s, have divided residents. One local descriebd the proposals as 'monstrous' and said it would 'increase the already stretched and ver subscribed primary schools and doctor's capacity'. Read here.
Worth a read
Jewish people around Greater Manchester donned their best fancy dress to celebrate the festival of Purim on Wednesday.
The holiday is celebrated during the Hebrew month of Adar and is held to celebrate events told in the Book of Esther where Jewish people were saved from annihilation at the hands of Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire, more than 2,000 years ago.
The annual celebration often sees members of the Jewish community gather at synagogues to listen to a recitation of the Megillah while dressed in colourful costumes to represent different characters.
The M.E.N visited Prestwich and Broughton yesterday to see some of the wonderful outfits being worn which, alongside traditional outits, saw the likes of cowboys, pirates, clowns and even Ryanair staff all make an appearance.
You can take a look through the gallery here.
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me. If you have stories you would like us to look into, email beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk.
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The answer to today's trivia question is: Aitch |
