Manchester’s only 5-Star hotel was its greatest ever building, the Free Trade Hall, parts of which survive, as we discover on this tour. Here the Halle Orchestra played for 150 years, great statesmen like Disraeli and Churchill discoursed, Bob Dylan was booed and Tony Wilson fell in love with the Sex Pistols. Now it’s where the great and good stay in luscious luxury – Bill Clinton, Gordon Brown, Kylie Minogue and Sven – but not on the same night.
The atom bomb is hot news right now, thanks to this summer’s big blockbuster film, Oppenheimer, named after J. Robert Oppenheimer, organiser of the Manhattan Project which dropped the bombs on Japan in 1945.
Ed Glinert of New Manchester Walks, who has hosted countless local tours that include stopping at the atomic bunker on Chinatown’s George Street, and gives talks on the story of the atom bomb on cruise ships, relates the full atomic story to coincide with the release of the film and as the 78th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs in August 1945 to end the Second World War approaches.
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