Viv Pencz

“Oh, you’ll have fun, Mancunians just want to drink and fuck.” My friend’s remark flickers in my memory as I lay trashed on the 200-year-old library floor in a velvet romper at 6 AM, The Fall blaring in the background.

Haunted libraries, gay discos, Gothic churches, post-punk pubs, underground lavatories, abandoned warehouses, Victorian swimming pools, old miners’ clubs—there’s nowhere Mancunians won’t drink and, possibly, fuck. Even the dragon-green canals snaking through the city bring lushes and lovers (and muggers) into their litter-laden arms.

This perpetually reflecting and reinventing city is home now. With it comes red-brick grit, foggy gloom, and rough-edged, gold-hearted characters. It turns out Mancunians do a lot more than drink and fuck. They make space and music, spit poetry and politics, and conjure art and comedy out of the most unlikely places. They flex their power to transform trash into treasure at every turn.

In December, I went for a pint with my friend Nicole at The Angel Pub. Opposite our table sat a group of lads in homemade Nativity Scene costumes: the Virgin Mary, Joseph, a donkey, the Star of Bethlehem, and a large Baby Jesus. After the brass last-orders bell rang, a familiar sound in England, the group crowded around the old piano. They slurred through Christmas carols until The Angel closed her pearly gates. Outside, Nicole and I met the Nativity Scene on the sidewalk. Baby Jesus had fallen over. He was wasted. “Oh, Jesus,” the donkey brayed. “Come on, mate. Get up!”

The weird, whimsical night embraced my cold bones. Traversing the hivelike Northern Quarter towards home, I thought of how often this past year has delighted and surprised me. On every trash can along my walk glowed the symbol of Manchester: a honey bee, golden, wings outstretched.

Published in the TRASH issue of SAD Magazine.