Strangeways, Tasty FREE Tour – 33 Years Since the Day the Riot Broke Out

HOW THIS TOUR WORKS

* Please register for free.

* Meet the guide, say 7 or 8 minutes before the start, at the huge painted wallmap inside Victoria Station.

* It’ll probably be Ed Glinert, Manchester’s leading historian and prolific tour guide, and he’ll be carrying a black tablet and wearing a green baseball cap. IF THEY'VE LET HIM OUT.

* If you enjoy the tour, the tourist board recommends tipping around £10 at the end. If you don't Glinert might tip you.

THE STORY SO FAR

Strangeways: the very name enough to send a frisson of fear down the spine of the most hardened felon.

Strangeways has been home to the most evil elements in existence – Ian Brady and Harold Shipman – and temporary refuge of political prisoners such as Christabel Pankhurst and Austin Stack, the Irish Republican who was one of the few to escape from its clutches.

Even Ian Brown, ex-Stone Roses, was briefly incarcerated within in 1998. No, not for inflicting his tuneless drone and inane lyrics on humanity but for getting into a strop on an aeroplane. 60 days. So what was it like in Strangeways, Ian? “Dirty. The food was like dog food.” He’s out now.

Ian Brady was sent here for stealing from Smithfield Market, where he worked in the late 1950s. John Robson Walby (alias Gwynne Owen Evans), was hanged at Strangeways on August 13, 1964 – the last person in England to suffer this punishment. (No, it wasn’t Ruth Ellis).

On this April's Fool Day1990 three hundred prisoners filed into the chapel to attend the church service. During the sermon a prisoner, later identified as Paul Taylor, stood up and shouted: “I would just like to say, right, that this man has just talked about the blessing of the heart and how a hardened heart can be delivered. No it cannot, not with resentment, anger and bitterness and hatred being instilled in people.”

It all kicked off. Riot!

Host or Publisher New Manchester Walks