Welcoming the world to Rusholme

[By Len Grant in Rusholme, Manchester, UK] A teenage girl in her slippers drags a tiny dog on a red lead across the pedestrian crossing. A barber pops his head out of the salon door: “What’s its name?” he shouts after the girl.

“Tommy,” she shouts above the traffic. He steps back inside the Kurdish Barbers, pulls his phone from his pocket and photographs the side of his customer’s head.

I’m in Rusholme, an area of Manchester where I’ve been sketching the everyday for the last eight months or so. A couple of miles south on the same busy road as our 2016 symposium venue, this part of town is close to home for me.

Known as the Curry Mile, Rusholme was, for many years, dominated by South Asian restaurants. It was the go-to destination in the city for what has now become our national dish. Jewellers, saree shops and specialist grocers have now sprung up alongside the curry houses and sweet shops.

More recently the clientele has shifted and shawarma kebab shops and shisha cafes serve a Middle Eastern diaspora. In its culinary offerings this place perfectly reflects the shift in international migration as our city once again welcomes newcomers from around the world.

So the place is in a state of constant flux. As one takeaway closes, another opens. The skip drivers and signage contractors are in constant employment. Which makes Rusholme a source of never-ending sketching opportunities.

“Are you drawing every shop along the strip?” asks the Asian woman standing next to my stool as I sketch the jewellers, “because you can come and sketch our jewellers further up if you like.” I explain I can’t manage every shop front but that I’m making a book to celebrate Rusholme as it is now, in all its idiosyncratic glory. I give her one of my postcards. “Great,” she says, “I’ll follow you on Instagram.” And she does.

Len Grant is a photographer, writer and sketcher. He is a member of Manchester Urban Sketchers and has taught on the USk 10×10 programme. His last guest post featured the terrorist attack on the Manchester Arena. The blog of his Rusholme project is available here, and the work will become a book in November 2018. Find him on Instagram.