Day 1. Monday 16th Jan 2012. 2ZY.
It's a beautiful morning. Five members of Soup Collective meet friend and writer Chris Thorpe outside the Stage Door of The Lowry at 10am. One member stays at home, ill in bed.
Sign in, then it's straight into The South Room, our studio for the day. No windows but at least there's a big projection screen.
So, we're here for a week of R&D.
Salford Quays, Trafford Park, Metro Vickers and 2ZY - The North's first radio station, transmitting on May 17th 1922, only one day after London station 2LO's first broadcast. Along with a handful of other small stations dotted around the country, this was the start of the formation of the BBC. The in-house 2ZY Orchestra laying the foundations for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.
It's been an ongoing project for a couple of years now. For this week, it's what we're concentrating on.
The morning is spent sat in front of computers, catching up on facts that may have been forgotten since we last spent any real time working on this project, rethinking, posting ideas. The chocolate bars are opened early, before 11am.
It's decided that with it being such a beautiful day we could do worse than to all take a walk to the exact location of 2ZY. It used to be housed in the Research Dept. of the Metropolitan Vickers Works, Trafford Park, at the end of Moss Rd in Stretford.
Terms like 'geotagging' and 'mapping' are frequently used in conversations as we set off from The Lowry, over the Manchester Ship Canal, past the Imperial War Museum North and crossing Trafford Wharf Rd to Elevator Rd. From previous research we know this is the site of the enormous Grain Elevator that was destroyed in the Mcr Blitz.
We carry on, following the old disused railway lines through the heart of the biggest industrial estate in the world. It reminds me of a peculiar version of the film Stand By Me.
After forty or so minutes we arrive at our destination. Initially there's not much to see. Certainly there's nothing saying 'Metropolitan Vickers' anywhere. There's a lot of litter and the Bridgewater Canal has frozen over.
The site is now a large Kellogg's building... none of the lovely, sturdy red brick that the MV buildings would have been made of. Now it's all corrugated metal walls - 30ft high, surrounded by 12ft fencing and CCTV cameras.
The end of Moss Rd has large boulders in the middle of it to stop vehicles from passing. Over the canal, opposite Kellogg's there is an old building that looks interesting. Amongst the weeds and tall plants weaving themselves in and out of the fence we make out rather ornate, distressed gates standing between some sturdy, rusting metal posts. The gates have a deco design running along the top, which is hidden behind some nailed on aluminium spikes.
It turns out the interesting looking building was the MV Training School and we are stood at what used to be The South Gate. The building is the only original still standing and is sadly soon to be demolished to make way for houses.
Some time is spent standing at the Gates. Lots of photos are taken - wides and macros - and the area well and truly geotagged.
Walking back, we split into 2 groups. Jim and Alex wander off to go and get some more photos and to snoop about. They find one plaque with a small MV logo at the bottom. It seems to be the only sign that exists around here of this once enormous and incredibly important company.
Back at The Lowry there's time to have a round up of the days events. Chris has been working on some ideas, and reads them out. It sounds great - a brilliant start.
