Waiting for the snow.

Today I should have been lunching with friends in Manchester. However, the weathermen promised us deep snow today and my friends decided it was perhaps wiser to stay at home and keep warm instead of risking being caught in Manchester and having difficulty getting home. I would have waited until this morning but the vote went against me and as it was actually snowing as we discussed it, I went along with their decision. And now, half way through the day, the snow has not yet arrived. There have been occasional flurries of extremely thin white stuff which truly does not merit the name of snow. Maybe the Eskimos have a name for it but really if it weren’t so cold this stuff would just be very fine drizzle. So, I am waiting to see if anything more substantial falls later. 

In the meantime I have been doing a little bit of research prompted by the new venue for our Italian class. Yes, the Italian class has moved home once more. Having been moved out of its rather prestigious headquarters near Piccadilly Station, allegedly because the Italian government would no longer subsidise the CDLCI organisation, we moved to a former cotton warehouse in a more downmarket bit of central Manchester. This was fine but apparently this year the organisation has chosen to let our room out to someone who pays more than we do. And so we moved to a room in the Manchester Science Park, part of the university complex. Just before Christmas we discovered that the rooms were being refurbished and we had to look for a new home. 
 
This is how we finished up in Hulme, an area that grew during the industrial revolution and has seen various periods of regeneration since the end of World War II, in the Z-arts centre. The Hulme Library is decorated with extensive murals, prominent in which is this saying: “From Hulme all blessing flow”. Clearly an optimistic area now. 

I had already worked out that the Z in Z-arts Centre came from Zion but my research was really prompted by some postcards I found on sale in the centre, one of which shows the building in 1966. No doubt, car geeks will be able to tell me the names of the makes of cars parked outside. 

Nowadays it forms part of a much more built-up street. 

The building was the Zion Congregational Chapel, and the Zion Institute, built on the site of a much older chapel of the same name, built in 1842 and demolished in 1910. 

The present building was made possible by a bequest from Enriqueta Rylands, wife of John Rylands of Rylands Library fame (another building in Manchester worth a visit). There is a plaque inside the building commemorating this bequest. 

When it was a Congregational Chapel, it attracted a congregation of a thousand people for its morning and evening services every Sunday. Apparently it also functioned as a community centre offering local residents a variety of activities in its sixty rooms, that included a hall of worship, an assembly hall, a gymnasium, games rooms, reading rooms and a canteen. Among the postcards on sale I found programmes for some of those social events. 

One advertises “pleasant Sunday afternoons for men”, with its motto: “Brief – Bright – Brotherly”. It might have been an all male event but there were solos by a Miss Dawson, all uplifting stuff, I’m sure, accompanied by a Mr C. Standring on the organ. 

The men were not alone in having events organised for them. There was a “Spinsters’ Party” in March 1902 with pianoforte solos, monologues and songs. However, the activities that most impressed me were the competitions: a Hat-Trimming Competition and a Button-Sewing Competition. Quite priceless! 

 There are more photos available at this website.

After World War II Hulme experienced a major slum clearance program that swept away old and war damaged homes. As a result, the Zion Institute's congregation melted away and by the 1960s it had dwindled from 1,000 to 20. The church rented out parts of the building to organisations like the Hallé Orchestra and the Northern Ballet. Eventually the building passed into the hands of Manchester City Council who converted it into the Zion Arts Centre. 

And there we are, in 2013, talking Italian on a Thursday afternoon. 

By the way, the snow still hasn’t arrived.