Remembered this anecdote from Tony Wilson's book from 2002: '24 Hour Party People'. Hopefully, it illustrates how and why Mancunians will ultimately overcome such horrific extremism.
But ask again, and again, why Manchester?
A half-hour profile - sorry - small, cheap documentary, of the textile
billionaire David Alliance, big boss of Coates Viyella, answered the ques-
tion, 'why Manchester?' once and for all. Alliance was answering the
question from Wilson the interviewer: 'Why do you, one of Britain's rich-
est industrialists, keep your head office in Manchester and continue to live
in Manchester?'
'I'll tell you why.'
Forty years in England had only mellowed the delightful Middle-Eastern
lilt of his speech. Alliance was a handsome, charismatic man in his mid-
fifties who once tried to warn his friend the Shah of Iran, 'You're feeding
their bellies, you've got to start feeding their minds.'
I'll tell you why. When I had been in this country from my home in Persia
no more than ten days, I was looking for my uncle's house in Clyde Road in
West Didsbury. I was sheltering from the rain under the awnings of the old
Rediffusion cinema in East Didsbury. I spoke maybe ten words of English. I
had the address on a piece of paper. I saw a woman pushing a pram, I
showed her the address and she indicated I should follow her. We walked,
perhaps a mile and a half, through the rain, and finally got to Clyde Road
and got to my uncle's house. I knocked. He opened the door and flung his
arms round me, shouting, "Davoud, Davoud." And I looked back and the
woman waved and walked back the way we had come, pushing the pram.
'I turned to my uncle and said, "She wasn't coming this way, why did
she come all this way if she wasn't coming this way?"
"Davoud, because this is Manchester."'
(Page 205)
