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Hello,
'HEY FIT BUS DRIVER CALL ME’ read a handwritten note attached to a bus stop in Whitefield this morning. The intended target is not known, but it was spotted and tweeted by Reach journalist and editor Yakub Qureshi.
“Sometimes the old ways are the best ways,” he says, with sincere admiration for the author of the note. “I genuinely thought the internet had killed this kind of thing - which I dimly remember from the bus shelters, school corridors and personal ads sections of the 1990s,” he says.
Who says romance is dead?
This week marks 75 years of the National Health Service - an institution born in Greater Manchester. And though it's impossible to avoid the serious problems facing the service, there is also much to be proud of. We’ll be looking at some of the impressive feats and achievements by NHS staff across Greater Manchester this week, starting with the incredible robot surgeons carrying out procedures at The Christie.
Also today, we’ll be looking at Manchester’s Little Italy parade, the events happening at MIF and discussing the ‘devoted public servant’ who led the review into the Manchester Arena attack.
'This is the future'
The vision of a surgeon looming over a patient – defined as ‘open surgery’ – still dominates the popular imagination of an operating theatre. But nowadays, if you’re going for a cancer surgery, it could well be done by a robot controlled by an expert surgeon.
Rafael and Donatello are two multi-million pound ‘da Vinci Surgical System’ robots, newly installed at The Christie hospital in south Manchester.
Health reporter Helena Vesty got the chance to watch Rafael - and the man controlling it, Vijay Ramani - during a procedure at the world-leading cancer treatment centre. As Helena explains in this fascinating feature, the robots have allowed surgeons to make huge advancements in urological, colorectal and gynaecological cancers.
In the operating theatre in Withington, Rafael - a spidery, four-armed robot - is wrapped in sterile plastic, nicknamed ‘pyjamas’ by Mr Ramani, to keep it clean through the keyhole procedure.
“There are more popular myths busted by going behind the scenes – this theatre is not bathed in clinical light, it’s dimmed to allow beams of light to focus on the patient,” writes Helena. “Any notion that the robot is completing the procedure on its own is quickly quashed by the large team of medics skating around the theatre to prepare the patient and the equipment, each knowing their place in this precise ballet.”
Mr Ramani admits that some patients are anxious about the technology, but ‘it works smoothly’. Before robotics, he says, laparoscopy surgery relied on ‘fairly rigid instruments which are like chopsticks’. Now magnification is improved, any tremors from a surgeon are eliminated by ‘scaling’ and bleeding can be better controlled.
But the principle is far from new for The Christie. The first robotic operation on a patient there was completed back in 2008. The Christie has now seen ‘several thousand’ robotic procedures and many patients can leave hospital the next day thanks to the small incisions the robot allows for. Before, the patient would have needed to be cut open much more extensively, incurring lengthy stays in hospital.
Mr Ramani prides himself on having become an international mentor based at The Christie. “While The Christie was one of the pioneers in the UK, many hospitals now accept this is the way forward,” he says. “The number of robots in the UK has escalated in hospitals. We like to see it as a mainstream form of cancer service in this country and it is now.”
With the 'next generation of robotic surgeons' being trained here in Manchester, the future looks bright. In the span of his career, Mr Ramani has seen medics make once devastating prognoses brighter. And he hopes the next advancements can keep that light burning.
‘A good, kind and principled man’
Tributes have been paid to Lord Robert Kerslake - the ‘devoted public servant’ who led the review into the Manchester Arena attack. Lord Kerslake, known as Bob, died on Saturday aged 68 following ‘a short battle with cancer’ according to his family.
The former head of the UK Civil service was nominated for a peerage by David Cameron in 2015. He was previously chairman of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in south London but he quit the role in 2017, warning that the health service could not continue ‘staggering along’ under the current funding levels.
In July of that year he was appointed by Andy Burnham as the chair of an independent review into the Manchester Arena bombing - tasked with examining Greater Manchester's preparedness for, and emergency response to the attack. The results of the investigation, commonly referred to as the Kerslake Report, were published in March 2018. The chair of the public inquiry into the bombing Sir John Saunders thanked him for the review and said it had assisted him with his investigation which he said 'built on his review.'
Lord Kerslake was also involved with a number of other organisations and committees including most recently serving as chair of the Stockport Mayoral Development Corporation.
In a tribute, deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner described him as a ‘devoted public servant’ and a ‘good, kind and principled man, generous with his time and full of wisdom’.
Tempered with anger and grief
When the House of Lords approved a bill setting out Awaab's Law last week, it was a turning point. Now, social landlords face stricter time limits to inspect and repair damp and mould.
But during his short life, Awaab Ishak’s parents struggled to make their problems heard. It was only when their two-year-old son died that things started to change. As reporter Stephen Topping writes, Awaab’s legacy has already changed attitudes and will change lives.
Stephen - who visited the Freehold estate where Awaab lived in the wake of his death - says it seemed like ‘no one knew who he was’ following an initial inquest hearing into his death.
“Door knock after door knock, phone call after phone call, all met with the same response. Eighteen months had passed since Awaab Ishak's death and the tragedy had gone unnoticed,” he writes.
Awaab's family had already left the flat which made the toddler fatally ill and their former neighbours, local community leaders and shopkeepers didn’t know them. Nevertheless, they were all ‘visibly stirred by the horror that had unfolded in their community’. “It broke their hearts and sparked fury. For many, it led to gut-wrenching fears for the safety of their own families. That fear was justified too,” Stephen writes.
As he explains, it was only when the Manchester Evening News exposed the conditions on the estate that Rochdale Boroughwide Housing took action. This led to the call for ‘Awaab's Law’, legislation now passed by the Lords.
Stephen joined Awaab’s father in delivering the petition for Awaab's Law to 10 Downing Street last week. He says watching the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill passed by the Lords in the public gallery was an emotional moment.
“While there was joy at seeing the campaign succeed, it was still tempered with anger and grief at the loss of a young child who should never have had to suffer the housing conditions he did,” he writes.
'A real community'
Manchester’s Little Italy parade - one of the oldest surviving processions in the country - snaked through the city streets on Sunday.
Now in its 133rd year, the procession celebrates the culture and traditions of families who migrated from Italy and their contributions to the city. The ‘Festa Della Madonna Del Rosario' began as a religious festival born out of the creation of the Manchester Italian Catholic Society.
Lorraine Rea, president of parade organisers the Manchester Italian Association, told reporter Damon Wilkinson many Italian immigrants settled in Ancoats and brought their culture, food, music and religion. “Ancoats was the heart of Little Italy - Blossom Street, Jersey Street, all around there, and of course St Michael's Church. Every Sunday St Michael's and other local catholic churches would be filled to the brim with Italian families. It was a wonderful place - everyone took care of each other - a real community. Then those communities started to get broken up as streets were knocked down."
Yesterday’s parade was led by men from the Italian community who carried a statue of the Madonna adorned with white lilies. Women walked in Italian dress and children who have recently taken their First Holy Communion also took part.
World-class artists
Manchester International Festival is in full swing now and we’ve got all the information you need about the arts festival here.
From inflatable artworks to a city-wide treasure hunt, there’s something for everyone and you’ve got until July 16 to catch it. It’s also a chance for people to step inside Manchester's £210m arts centre, Factory International.
Meanwhile, Whalley Range-born artist Benji Reid has launched his most ‘daring’ work to date, the show ‘Find Your Eyes’ which you can read about here.
“I feel that it’s extremely important that local artists like myself get the chance to be on an international stage and allowed to sit alongside huge artists from around the world because it grounds the festival in terms of the ecology of the arts - we get to say ‘look, we have world-class artists here as well’,” he says.
“Manchester is a different city, it’s cosmopolitan now, it has a different swagger about it, a different energy, you could say it’s the second city because culturally it absolutely is.”
A lone reminder
It’s a sight you’ll no doubt recognise if you frequent Manchester city centre. But one campaign group fear it could be ‘at risk’.
On the edge of the Northern Quarter, Withy Grove Stores has been included in a list of the country's most at risk buildings in 2023 by SAVE Britain's Heritage. They fear it could be in developers' sights to demolish as it sits in a prime location in the city centre, as Neal Keeling reports.
Currently occupied by Withy Grove Office Interiors, the building is ‘a lone reminder of similar industrial buildings in the street that have all since been lost’, according to SAVE.
“As a survivor of Manchester's Victorian industrial heritage, the warehouse deserves to be protected and restored to a more secure condition,” they say.
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Weather etc
Tuesday: Sunny intervals changing to light showers by late morning. 18C.
Road closures: M67 Eastbound entry slip road closed due to long-term roadworks at J2 A57 Hyde Road (Denton). Until December 1, 2025.
Trivia question: Which part of Manchester city centre, now an entertainment centre, was one dubbed 'The Fleet Street of the North'?
Manchester headlines
Tower: Plans have been unveiled for a new apartment block on the site of The George pub in Stockport. The site on the corner of Wellington Road North and Heaton Lanewould be demolished to make for a 15-storey tower containing co-working spaces and 72 apartments, each with a 'winter garden.' A planning application for the scheme is expected to be submitted in the coming weeks. More here.
Closures: Three leisure centres are to close within months in Tameside - with the trust which runs them claiming its finances have been ‘ravaged’. Active Tameside, which operates all the swimming pools and leisure centres in the borough, has announced the closure of Active Ashton, Adventure Longdendale and Active Etherow in early September. The group says the huge increase in energy bills has taken the cost of utilities at its sites up to £2m a year - a situation further exacerbated by price rises for products such as chemicals, insurance and staffing. More here.
Restaurant: New restaurant Stock Market Grill, which took over from celebrity chef Tom Kerridge's Bull and Bear in Manchester, has closed - just four months after opening its doors. The restaurant opened inside Manchester United legend Gary Neville's award-winning Stock Exchange Hotel in the city centre. The hotel issued a statement on Monday morning saying it had taken the decision to ‘close the doors to Stock Market Grill’ with immediate effect. More here.
Attacks: A series of ‘senseless crimes’ in the last year that ‘could have been avoided’ have put train drivers and passengers in danger, train operator Northern says. Almost 70 ‘dangerous’ attacks saw carriages struck with 42 bricks, stones and rocks thrown from bridges or railway embankments, alongside 27 'substantial items’ - such as pushchairs and shopping trolleys - deliberately placed on tracks. One incident saw a driver taken to hospital with injuries after his cab windscreen was hit by a brick whilst travelling at 70mph. The train was travelling towards Clifton at around 10pm on February 22 last year when the incident occurred. More here.
Worth a read
Fans of Iron Maiden and pale ales will already know about Trooper - the beer named after the band’s song of the same name. But you might not know how it came into existence.
Now lead singer Bruce Dickinson has revealed that he had to 'audition' at Stockport’s Robinsons brewery before they agreed to team up, as Chris Slater reports.
Iron Maiden played a sell-out show at the AO Arena on Friday and Bruce headed to Robinsons' historic site in Stockport town centre afterwards to mark the beer's tenth birthday. He says he was made to show brewery bosses he was serious before they agreed to enter into their now hugely successful partnership.
“Robinsons were the only brewery who said 'okay if you're serious about this, let's go and drink some beer'. So they all came down to London with a bag of 10 beers which were labelled one to 10. Some were beers I'd identified as my favourite beers and some of them were Robinson experimental brews. Others were just ringers that they'd put in there," he says.
"Basically, I just did sort of a taste test with them where I wrote my opinion on the beers. And obviously, I did alright because they said 'alright let's have a go at making a beer'.
"The first brew, the signature brew, Trooper, we just got it right straight out of the box.”
You can read all about Bruce’s taste test 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: The Printworks.
