St Anthony: An Ode to Anthony H Wilson
Reading Mike Garry’s poem ‘St Anthony: An Ode to Anthony H Wilson’ brings back memories… It was 19 years ago today that we lost Anthony H Wilson, better known as Tony Wilson, TV presenter and journalist for Granada Television, part of the ITV network. At least that’s what he was up to when I first met him in 1978.
Tony was in the process of making a name for himself nationally with his pop and rock television series So It Goes, the first programme to broadcast the Sex Pistols. I was interviewing him for my very first feature for Record Mirror after a year of writing live and album reviews. It was a major step up the ladder of my career and, to my relief, I couldn’t have asked for anyone livelier or more engaging.
Just like mates
We found we had a lot in common and hit it off from the start, like two mates chatting over a pint about everything from up-and-coming bands to the advantages of living in Manchester as opposed to London. Loquacious and opinionated, Tony gave me all the copy I needed and more. One thing that didn’t make it into the article was his recent flirtation with acid while playing the many demo cassettes he received to enhance his listening pleasure. We parted promising to stay in touch – and he actually did.
Within a few years Tony went on to open clubs such as The Factory years before the Hacienda and I was proud to be on the guest list for the opening night. He also started Factory Records, the label which brought us Joy Division, New Order, the Happy Mondays, Durutti Column and many others 10 years before the Madchester scene. I was lucky enough to be the first person to review Unknown Pleasures, the first Joy Division album, and gave it the full five-star treatment. Tony also pioneered the concept of an annual music conference in Manchester with In The City featuring new bands and interviews with industry celebrities, which gave me the opportunity to write an exclusive preview for The Daily Telegraph.
Bards of Salford and Moss Side
Earlier, working as a journalist in Manchester during those years, I found myself reviewing and interviewing all the rising stars of the day including Buzzcocks and the extraordinary “punk poet” John Cooper Clarke, the so-called Bard of Salford, who was a little older than the rest of us yet very much the mad uncle of the local scene. I stayed in touch with John when I moved to London to join Record Mirror. One of my stories about him was included in a box set of his recordings which was released earlier this century.
It was through John that I met another poet, Mike Garry, who has gradually been making a name for himself over the last decade or two. I first met him when he opened for Clarke on tour in 2011and have since seen him performing several times. Like JCC his poems are very funny but with a much harder political edge reflecting an upbringing in Manchester’s notorious Moss Side.
Full circle
I last saw John and Mike a fortnight ago when they both appeared onstage at the historic Cambridge Corn Exchange. Earlier that afternoon I had a long chat with Mike about his three anthologies of poetry plus spoken word vinyl album Handwritten Miracles, recorded with The Cassia String Quartet. My favourite book of Mike’s poems is God is a Manc which contains the remarkable ‘St Anthony’, an ode to Tony Wilson whose name remains immortalised in modern northern culture and, in my case, completes the circle that began almost 50 years ago.
***ends***
