Bleak House starts with a one-word sentence: “London”. Charles Dickens probably considered starting “Hard Times” with a similar one-word sentence: “Manchester”, except that he hedged his bets by calling his mythical Northern city “Coketown”.
Nevertheless the great novelist spent much time in Manchester, appearing at The Athenaeum and Free Trade Hall, and hanging loose with Harrison Ainsworth. To mark his 200th birthday we remember the best of times, the worst of times.
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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