Yes, the contradictions of Tony Wilson are now Manchester’s contradictions. Here’s one: the city that beats its chest loudly about its cultural dominance, but who missed the boat on all significant pop music innovations this side of the city’s IRA bombing. As Owen Hatherley wrote of modern Manchester, “regenerated cities produce no more great pop music, great films or great art than they do industrial product. What they do produce is property developers.” This has been brought under closer inspection by recent debates about who does and who doesn’t get to benefit from Manchester’s largest funded arts institutions.

Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Haçienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book. In terms of my generation, I’m a fan of that disruptor, rather than the Happy Mondays associate and the guy who set up the In The City conference. In the 1990s, he had this moment where he went for power, in a more conventional sense. That’s interesting in the overall structure of his life, yes, but I was more interested in him creating himself as a kind of work of art. The guy who had Factory Records but also worked on the telly, and in both of those ways was smuggling ideas, content, and connections to people. Now, we had the Garretts, the Linders, the Savilles. It was an interesting period in Manchester’s history because there wasn’t much of that before or indeed after, leading to Oasis. I wanted to put into the book my idea of being a part of that history of experimental figures, those experimenting with their lives and deranging their senses, provoking incidents, creating spectacles. That’s what, at his best, Wilson was doing. For me, that plays into how I want to write anyway. I always think that everyone and every piece of music you listen to is filled with all sorts of options and contradictions. Every person has a different view of it. For me, I can play with that idea of how difficult it is to pin anyone down anyway – let alone with a Wilson. And Wilson is such a visible, public, self-confessed example of that level of how much a person can be contradictory. This pressure to conform, to be one thing, one image, something that people can deal with in a tiny way. As much as people really appear to want to like that, when it comes to art or entertainment, when it comes to a person it can become very difficult. People don’t like it so much, they want people to conform to their own comfortable image of what a person can be. I like the idea that Wilson was constantly exploding, all the time, with his contradictions. And then there’s the part of him that’s lonely and difficult to know.From Manchester With Love is like Wilson in that it assumes the same of its reader: intelligence, bloody-mindedness, a romantic, revolutionary soul. It requires concentration, mixing, as it does, careful interviewing with flights of fancy, revealing detail with time-travelling description. More than a mind map, the book’s peculiarity and expanse and, yes, love, means it becomes an immersive experience. I found it very moving indeed. Not just a “biog” but the story of a city’s history and culture and a unique and disappearing figure.’ Morley’s biography is as illuminating on Wilson’s strange ability to hold others in his orbit, even after his death, as it is on the story of his life.’ Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Hacienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book.

Morley's biography is as illuminating on Wilson's strange ability to hold others in his orbit, even after his death, as it is on the story of his life.' From Manchester With Love, then, is the biography of a man who became eponymous with his city, of the music he championed and the myths he made, of love and hate, of life and death. In the cultural theatre of Manchester, Tony Wilson broke in and took centre-stage. As well as raising money for this fund, the secondary aim of Manchester With Love is to demonstrate, celebrate and share the diversity and unity which continues to permeate from the city’s streets via its music. In our opinion, there’s no better metaphor and Hammo’s unique artwork sums this up perfectly. You toyed with the idea of ‘Self Division’ as a title until an intervention from Richard Madeley – who emerges as one of the heroes of the book – and I like that as a title because there is this huge, almost collapsing weight of contradictions. The Catholic Buddhist, the socialist entrepreneur – what do you do with that as a writer?It took ten years for you to complete this book, but really its genesis is about thirty years prior to that, with you being to some extent groomed by Tony Wilson over the years to write about his life. That’s what was intriguing to me about Wilson when I was becoming a writer in the 1970s, that intellectual ambition and what they call pretension, which is being condescending about the idea of learning and that you would want to tell other people about your learning. That’s never been very fashionable or accepted in this country. But that was a great part of Tony’s nature, especially coming out of Manchester where you are expected to be pinned down to a certain kind of character. When he had an audience he talked about the possibility of pop music, the idea of a new club, a new idea of a new public space in the city that was his home, and he talked about how the city itself could be reinvented. In time his visions somehow became real. The compilation pairs internationally known artists with local heroes and underground wonders. All are from Manchester. Artists will be announced over the next week.

The world has heard how people of the city came together with their heart and spirit overflowing in the days following the unthinkable. The people of the city continue to stand together and rebuild in the face of devastation, and this collection is the Manchester music community’s response to events. If your loved one simply has a passion for good old G&T (we wouldn’t blame them if they did!), why not treat them to a bottle of Manchester Gin. From sweet Raspberry Infusedto citrusy FAC51 Haçienda, herbaceous Wild Spiritto the classic Signature, there’s a flavour for all gin fans. All are available in a beautiful gift set containing tonic and glasses – perfect for G&Ts for two. Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Haçienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Haçienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester’s legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book.

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I had no idea that Wilson had been taught by Raymond Williams at Cambridge, and you make quite a lot of the significance of that.