The year is coming to an end, meaning that the 60th anniversary of the official start of The Mancunion is too. A newspaper which, while in its own little corner of the world reporting to students in Manchester, has documented student life over here alongside the passing of world events and history. However, for a particular moment, Manchester briefly became the “centre of the universe” – that is, according to Alan Brown, and Rahiel Nasir (Naz), the Editor-in-Chief and Arts editor respectively of The Mancunion in 1986-7. We had the pleasure to speak to both of them about their experiences in Manchester at this time, both as students, budding journalists, and all-round Haçienda fanatics.
From a young age Naz knew he wanted to be a journalist, telling us that he wrote to the Guardian before attending university. He wrote to the editor of the newspaper at the time, Peter Preston, who told him to get involved with his university newspaper.
“My whole purpose for going to Manchester University was for the newspaper, because I knew since I was the age of 11, I wanted to be a journalist[..] The very first day that I think I was able to, when I got to Manchester, I went to the collective and the meeting, and I thought, “this is what I want to do”.
Life in the paper
Alan Brown was elected Sabbatical Editor in Chief for 1986-87. He, Naz, and a core group of people (including their photographer Craig Smith) spent most of their time in their office working at the newspaper. Alan, being the sabbatical officer, was paid to hold the role of Editor-in-Chief.
“We spent more time in the office rather than going to lectures, because, and just to give you some context, you know, I think people talk about people, talk about mothers and generations. Talk about London and the swinging 60s, and I think about Manchester during that time, our time as the centre of the universe, right?”.
They held weekly meetings (called the collective) which were held on Thursday nights to discuss the next week’s copy. The room would often be full with everyone standing up in the middle around tables laid round the side.
“We would invite people and say is there anything that is of interest to you that you want to cover?”.
They would then also work on finalising, laying out, and editing for print submission on Friday nights, often burning the midnight oil, fuelled by takeaways and a pure passion for doing the paper.
Naz also explained the process of taking it off to the printers:
‘‘For the print deadline and we’d just package everything up after approving it and subbing it and and we would then send it to the train station. It gets a red star to the printer. So Alan and I, because we were slightly older, were able to drive union vehicles, and we would just take the van and take the package to the train station, where it would be then sent to the printer. And then the next thing you know, you know, the newspaper comes in”.
One of the many highlights was the 1987 ‘Best College Newspaper’ award, granted to The Mancunion at the Guardian Student Media Awards.
When talking to Alan and Naz, their passion for the newspaper and love for their time working for it was clear. They were passionate about becoming journalists and having fun in the student media setting. Naz joked that they were “playing at being journalists”. It seemed funny to us that they thought they were playing, because, in many ways, they already were journalists tapping into the heart of student life in the city of Manchester.
Naz went onto to explain that perhaps he said they were “playing” because there were some things they perhaps didn’t consider that, having now worked in journalism, they would:
“You know, we still had to be cognisant of the fact that you needed to keep on the right side of the law. So there were certain journalistic practices that you needed to follow. But, you know, I mentioned we were Labour supporters. We are pretty left wing, so that’s why that crept into all of our journalism”.
“And really, I think that’s why they were acting, because in the real world you want to be balanced, right? You want to be objective. You want to be able to present both sides”.
Certainly, that is what all journalists claim to aim for; we’re just not so sure if it proves to be true. It seemed that in many ways they were writing on behalf of a student population that was very politically engaged at the time.
Political coverage
It’s no surprise that life, perhaps like any time but certainly in the 80s, was politically tumultuous; many of our print issues in that period focussed on that. One major example of this would be the amount of election coverage. Naz recalled in particular the night Margret Thatcher won her second term:
“We were reporting on local elections, we were up all night long, and I just remembered stepping out of the Union bleary eyed at about six o’clock in the morning with the disappointment that she’d got a second term. We were all so depressed and devastated during that time”.
Political life during the 1980s was marked by Margaret Thatcher’s time in office, resulting in the miner strikes, and pushback against Clause 28. On covering the contentious stories of the day, Alan stated that “We felt like we were pushing on the edge”.
The work they did still feels incredibly relevant as they were writing in the era of the Barclay bank boycotts (over the Apartheid in South Africa) and the continuing demonstrations against student loans.
Manchester in particular was rocked by the student protest against the Conservative government. The most memorable story of Alan’s time was the demonstration outside the SU in 1985 as a result of Leon Brittan coming to speak on campus.
The resulting protest saw police arrive by the van-full and attempt to enter the Students’ Union building. Many were injured on the steps of the building as the doors were locked and people were crushed. One of those injured was the daughter of a Vicar, who sustained a serious neck injury.
While he wasn’t Editor-in-Chief for the event in question, the resulting legal proceedings spanned years. The unfolding events were covered including the sage of Steven Shaw’s legal plight (as well as intimidation by the police) and the Greater Manchester’s police s various internal investigations with minimal results.
February 1987 saw massive demos against the student loans (and cuts to grants) proposed by the Conservative government. A front page from the time shows students descending on central London in protest.
“There were so many demonstrations against the politicians of the day, the Tories of the day. You know, we’re talking about the Thatcher era. There was a lot of disruption and upset on the streets outside the Union at the time”.
Naz refers to a time that Michael Heseltine showed up who “Bizarrely owned Haymarket publishing, which is the publishing company I went on to go and work for, you know. So of course, he doesn’t remember me, and I don’t remember him, and throwing eggs at him”.
The collective was dedicated to upholding their political values, refusing an advert from Barclays at the height of the student boycott.
Alan found a few points to critique, with the hindsight of a professional career in media. He regrets that they “Didn’t do enough on living conditions” and wished they had focused more on student experience issues.
Arts, culture and fashion
It doesn’t take much thinking to conjure up an image of the eighties. Alan reminded us that there were various subcultures, reckoning that they were probably New Romantics. With their “501 ripped jeans”, “Doc Martens” with Grosh beer bottle caps tied into the laces, and black crew necks. During Alan’s student days, the Northern Quarter was entirely different to what it is now. Affleck’s Palace was as far north as you would go. If you wanted to pick up a vinyl, Eastern Bloc Records was the place to go.
There’s no denying that Alan, Naz, and the inner Mancunion crew loved The Haçienda; it may have been easier to get them to talk about that more than anything else. They weren’t wrong to be so obsessed with it – it truly was the epicentre of nightlife at the time. There’s something to be said about the phenomena of successful scenes. For them to really thrive, the people around them, the dancers, the patrons, the students, and whoever else really have to love it.
Although we spoke to Alan and Naz separately they both accidentally quoted each other, that at the time they did truly feel “at the centre of the universe”. They were often able to get free entry, due to being press and having a good working relationship with The Haçienda, often running adverts in the paper.
Of course, The Haçienda wasn’t the only place they went, and post-punk nu-wave music was not the only music they were listening to. At the same time house was taking off over in Chicago, the house scene was beginning to make waves in Manchester. The Mancunion even put on their own club nights.
“We were doing, us within the paper, organising club nights, we weren’t making any money out of them. We had a couple of different venues’ [..] Craig [Smith] did an illegal rave in those warehouses down by Piccadilly”.
Naz remembers an awkward run in at Club Tropicana with an American band:
“There was a band called Troublefunk and there was this new sort of genre called Gogo – Washington Gogo – it was kind of like within the house stuff. They played at the Tropicana, we got really excited and we really wanted to cover them […] and we got tickets to go and do that. And I in my sort of infinite wisdom had these airhorns[…] so I go off to this gig right and I am blowing away this airhorn, and there is this really big bloke next to me and he says [imitating an American accent] “fucking do that again and I’m gonna blow your brains out”. And it was one of the guys from Troublefunk”.
Naz, as he talks of being the Arts editor and the opportunities of being involved in that scene and reporting around that time “From that point of view, it was certainly an interesting time because, people made a beeline for [the newspaper], and we had some great writers [and] great designers, who were able to flex their creative muscles”.
“I had no shortage of people who were willing to cover exhibitions, new films[…] and gigs[…] there was so much more going on that we could have covered that we didn’t”.
“I think the galleries, the cinemas, the club venues and so on, we would get free tickets to go and review stuff, our names would always be on the door”.
Influence and reception
We asked how much influence Alan and Naz thought they had over the student population, and what kind of reception they had – particularly with such a proud, leftist tone to the newspaper.
Naz responded “I knew it had an influence, certainly[…] students would be invited to come and review gigs and exhibitions, etc, because we had the pulse of the young community[…] I knew that if we gave something a bad review, then it would do badly”.
When it came to politics Naz reckoned that there wasn’t too much of an issue:
“There wasn’t any friction caused as such. The right wing element in the Students’ Union did accuse Alan of being biased, and Alan would sort of basically say, yeah, what’s your point?”.
“They would feel they weren’t getting a look in and they weren’t getting a fair representation, and it wasn’t until union politics kind of swung to the right, with the whole cohort of people who were supporting fairly right-wing or right-leaning candidates to be heads. All of those guys thought the paper is not for us, it is far too left”.
Our conversations with Alan and Naz were certainly enlightening as to The Mancunion‘s past, but also speak to our future and how we can preserve the legacy of journalistic standards that was set. It goes to show that the way that student newspapers live alongside history, documenting unique perspectives upon specific times and places.
