Eye On Manchester blog by Aidan O’Rourke Tutor Photographer

Personal & professional diary on photography, languages, Français, Deutsch, local interest, art, music, travel and more

Every year we get a heatwave. And every year the authorities issue the same message: Swimming is dangerous! Children should avoid lakes, ponds, canals and reservoirs and use designated pools. Swimming in outdoor stretches of water is strictly forbidden!

But it’s the authorities who need to get the message: Children are risking getting drowned or poisoned because Manchester lacks proper swimming facilities. There are no outdoor swimming pools anywhere within a 30 mile radius of Manchester. The only outdoor location where children can cool off in cold water is the walk through fountain at Piccadilly Gardens, a wholly inappropriate place, not intended for such use, and with no toilets or changing faciltiies.

In Germany, outdoor swimming is part of the culture, and every town has a lake where people go in the summer. There are also pools and spas generally of a far higher standard than any in Britain.

And to say that the weather in Manchester is miserable all the time doesn’t wash any more, not after the heatwave we’ve had. Instead of closing swimming facilities, e.g. Gorton, Didsbury and the Victoria Baths, the authorities should be providing much needed new ones.

Eye On Manchester has been contacted by BBC Radio Manchester. They are looking for expat Mancunians to join their expat club.

Every night, Monday to Friday, Phil Wood and Gail Sullivan chat on the phone to people from the Greater Manchester area, who now live in all kinds of far flung places.

They want to know what’s happening where you are – and what you miss about Manchester. If you’d like to take part, please email radio.manchester@bbc.co.uk and mark your email ‘expat’ They’ll give you a call for a chat about where you are now.

One of the expats Phil and Gail have interviewed is Nadia Howarth (picture above right), resident in Perth Western Australia and originally from Collyhurst, Manchester. Click here to download the MP3 file and listen to Nadia talking about life in Australia, memories of Manchester, and lots more. (Permission to make the recording available kindly provided by BBC Radio Manchester).

The Hollings Building, more commonly known as ‘The Toast Rack’ is one of Manchester’s most striking buildings.

It was designed by architect L C Howitt, and completed in 1960. It is actually intended to look like a toast rack, a visual pun arising from its use as a college of catering.

Artist and architecture critic Michael Trainor nominated the Hollings Building as one of his personal favourites. See the BBC Manchester website and a useful run-down of the history of the Toast Rack by MEN journalist Susan Press on the Manchester Online site.