Hot Hot Hot in Levy

This just in from Hugh Peters:

Attention Citizens of Levenshulme M19

Live and Direct Fri Aug 7th at KLONDYKE BOWLING CLUB AND PLEASURE DOME (on Burnage range off Albert Road)

the amazing local reggae act TREVORS ROOTS AND THE GENERAL

and Levenshulme's own Township Jazz Band THE SARGASSO TOWNSHIP BAND

8.30 pm £5 on the door for a full night of sunshine reggae and tropical grooves

The Big Lunch & other community events this weekend

It's about time I gave a mention to all those folks who have the gumption to get together with their neighbours, spread wide the picnic blanket of civic friendship and, sandwich by sandwich, Pringle by Pringle, sudden downpour by sudden downpour, add a few extra flanges and sidebrackets to the great big gazebo that is the People's Republic of Levenshulme.

This coming weekend there's a handful of local community events under The Big Lunch banner.

Imagine a summer's day on which millions of us, throughout the UK, sit down to have lunch together, with our neighbours in the middle of our streets, around our tower blocks and on every patch of common ground. The food, entertainment and decorations we will have either grown, cooked, or created ourselves. This will be a day to break bread with our neighbours, to put a smile on Britain's face. [The Big Lunch website.]

There are Big Lunch events on Tonbridge/Bowler/Watts Street on Saturday (lunchtime, I guess...), and then on Sunday from 1pm at the Green Triangle (behind Levenshulme Baptist Church on Elmsworth Avenue), and also at Fernleigh Avenue and Osborne Road.

Big lovelevenshulme respect to everyone who gets stuck in with organising and clearing up.

And for the record, the Big Lunches follow hard on the heels of a whole spate of Neighbours events back in May and June, so a big hand to everyone involved in everything from sunflower planting to birdbox building in and around (roll call!): Broom Avenue , Belvoir Avenue, Rodney Fields, Lansdowne Community Garden (Broom Avenue/Ventnor Avenue), Tonbridge, Watts and Bowler Street and Delamere Road.

Finally, a heads up for the latest in a series of open days at the Tonbridge Road Community Allotment (I blogged about the Spring Fair a few months back and took a few photos...). They're calling it Sunshine and Vegetables and it's also this Sunday 19 July from 1-4pm. Tons of stuff going on.

Now, confession time: I'm not actually around in Levenshulme for any of the cool community stuff on Sunday, so if anyone takes any photos or fancies doing a write-up, just email them to lovelevenshulme@gmail.com and I'll make sure they're posted up here pronto.

Matt Clements

We are Family

You'll maybe remember the Art in the Park workshops in Highfield Country Park back in April (check out the blog here for photos), and the Fallowfield Loop sculpture project. Well, Rachel Ramchurn's putting her chainsaw and sander away for the evening to host the unveiling of the finished sculptures. Here's her press release:

The Friends of the Fallowfield Loop invite you to the unveiling of ‘The Family’ By Sculptor Rachel Ramchurn on Thursday 2nd July 2009, at 6pm, with refreshments

Meeting on the Fallowfield Loop near the Lattice Bridge (nearest entrance Crayfield Road, continue under Broom Lane) Levenshulme M19 2UP

Rachel was inspired to create a family unit after noticing a young family enjoy a walk along the Loop. The sculptures were completed to a very strict deadline as Rachel needed to carry out the crucial chainsaw carving before her pregnancy got in the way! Now in her final trimester, Rachel is delighted to have completed ‘The Family’ before her own family begins.

The three sculptures are abstract with a hint of the figurative. The Father is angular, sturdy and strong, The Mother is curvaceous, soft, rounded and smooth, the child is an amalgamation of mother and father, a large mouth expressing pleasure at the world.

The Friends of Fallowfield Loop have been funded by the National Lottery through Awards for All for Local Artist Rachel Ramchurn to create this series of public sculptures for the Fallowfield Loop in Levenshulme.















For more information:
Please contact Rachel Ramchurn on 079606 13786 or email rachelclementine@gmail.com. For information about Friends of the Fallowfield Loop please contact Dick Venes on 0161 224 3843 or check out: www.cycle-routes.org/fallowfieldloopline.

The Fallowfield Loop sculpture Project has been devised and led by Local Artist Rachel Ramchurn with generous support from Friends of the Fallowfield Loop and Sustrans. Funded by the National Lottery through Awards for All.

Local author publishes second (Yorkshire) novel in German!?!

Well, they continue to make contact, those authors with Levenshulme connections. This time it's Clare Sudbery. Anyone else out there? Come on, don't hide your literary light under your bushel...

Hello!

I'm a fellow Levenshulmite, and I confess I've seen your postcards in local shops for a while now but only just got round to visiting your site. I've lived in Levenshulme (well all right then, I'm technically in Longsight, but only just over the border - the Levenshulme side of Crowcroft Park - so do all my shopping / doctoring / general-service-using in Levenshulme) for twenty years now and I doubt I'll ever leave. I've had some strange reactions over the years from Cheshire-dwelling urban-phobics, but I think Levenshulme is marvellously diverse, friendly and useful.

After reading your post from Steve Woods, I thought I may as well add myself to the Levenshulme Literati. My first novel, which was published in 2004, was set in Levenshulme - as is my third (but I'm still writing that one). My second was set in Hebden Bridge but weirdly has only been published in Germany (translated into German).

But anyway, my first was called The Dying of Delight, and is about two women whose lives are connected by a mysterious event which happened during the solar eclipse of 1999. There's also a dead body in a Levenshulme cellar, but you need to read the book to find out whose it is. There are more details available at thedyingofdelight.co.uk, where people can also buy copies.

It's a lovely little blog - keep up the good work.

Cheers
Clare Sudbery (www.claresudbery.co.uk)