In Hulme at the Brook Building reflecting on Didsbury

Now there will be some who mourned the end of Didsbury’s association with teacher training which began in the 1940s and its even longer link with theology students which went back another full century.

I have to say I was one of them partly because I like tradition and because I was there for a year in the early 1970s.

But I have to concede that most of the buildings had run their course.

So the move to Hulme five years ago was bold and exciting and not that long ago I was given my own tour of the new building by my old friend Pierre.

It is truly a building for the 21st century with technology to keep it warm in winter, cool in summer and even withstand a once in a century storm.

More than that it offers both students and staff an amazing place to work and learn.

And of course it does seem to be giving a lift to the local economy, after all with so many students living in the surrounding properties there is a demand for everything bread and milk to fast food and places to liner over slow food.

I am well aware that some in Didsbury had long been uncomfortable at the presence of so many students amongst their midst in term time, and I also wonder if their wholesale passing has been missed.

But then Didsbury’s loss is Hulme’s gain.

Location; Hulme

Picture; looking out of the Brook Building and the Spanish Steps, 2017 from the collection of Andrew Simpson