12: Ancoats Dispensary - Linda Carver

Stop. Across the road a Red-brick gothic temple.

A crumbling landmark, supported from ruin by scaffolding.

And the might of a community.

“Sit up straight the matron is coming round”.

When this was a deprived area, full of poverty. This was our hospital.

Iron beds. Victorian brick walls.

Our beacon of hope in those dark days.

Births and deaths

It was there, there for us

Is this the way to treat a listed building?

Thousands of names on paper to save it from being demolished.

Saved. By the community. For the community.

The first industrial injury clinic in the world.

Stitching the boisterous youth in record time.

The place where they found the link between pollen and hay fever.

The beating heart of Ancoats.

Linda Carver: So the history of Ancoats and in particular Ancoats Dispensary, not only belongs to Manchester, but it belongs as a global heritage treasure. It belongs to the world. So the saving of it and the restoration of it not only gives the area a historical context, but adds a depth and richness to the newer communities arriving in the neighbourhood.

If you want to know the reason why a group of people spent the last nine years of their life trying to save this building from demolition then... one of the reasons I became involved is not only had I gone to Ancoats Hospital as a small child, I think I gashed my leg on some barbed wire and I was taken there to have stitches in my leg. No anaesthetic by the way the nurses just gripped you by your arms and legs so you couldn't move and the surgeon did his job. And then of course when I was about 18 my life was saved by the staff of Ancoats Dispensary. It wasn't somewhere that you wanted to be, to be honest, but you knew that when you went there and you had to be treated, you were treated well.

Purely by chance I went to a what was then and Ancoats residents forum meeting and this was an organisation that had been formed by the people who had become, if you like, committee members of the people that had come to live in the apartment blocks, they felt so cut off from each other that they appointed people to attend a regular monthly forum.

And then at one meeting and this is the meeting you could say was profoundly important to me personally at the time because I went to a meeting and Urban Splash, a developer were giving a demonstration on what the future of the area was going to be like. I looked at it and there was nowhere I could see Ancoats Hospital and so I asked a question: what about Ancoats Hospital? And there was a hush in the room and then somebody whispered: I think it's going to be demolished. And on hearing that word Jonnie, I thought to myself, I didn't say it out loud, but I thought to myself...I don't think so, I don't think so, because something happened to me then and I realised that the building was of such importance, you've got to remember that this is a grade two listed building.

And a campaign was started then in 2012 that was to last until late 2017

Head down the road to the side of the building.

Cross the road if you need to.

As you walk by take in the back of the building.

The criss-cross of scaffolding holding the shell of the building from

crumbling.

Stop.

Linda Carver: People turned up who were concerned about the dispensary for many different reasons. Other people turned up because they were absolutely appalled at the fact that this was going to happen in the first place, to a part of there heritage, part of their working class history was about to be wiped away.

So there were a mixture of people from all walks of life really, from all different age groups. We didn't have any money, we didn't have a place to work from, so basically an office was set up in my kitchen and that went on for years. I got a phone call from the MP at the time who had been at the public meeting saying that "I'm sorry Linda, but it's gone further than I thought, it's due to be demolished within three weeks." Well as soon as we heard that we set up an emergency meeting and we called the group then FIGHT TO SAVE THE DISPENSARY.

But that Dispensary, the vigil became the space on the edge of contested territory, visitors from all over the world came to the vigil. It became a powerful symbol really of community action. It started in the summer of 2012 and it lasted until late 2017 and every single day, including the weekends, that vigil was set up, there was rota established and people stood there. We got about 5000 signatures within about a month. We were all volunteers and some people working full time. Everybody, everybody devoted all those years, I can't believe it really, to the saving of this building, that's how much it meant to people. I don't think people realise just how much hard work it was, because we were if you like, we weren't encouraged to save this building, obstacles were put in our way, so it was hard solid graft, not to be undertaken by the faint hearted believe you me.

I think it took us about two years to recover from the enormous emotional and physical input that everyone had worked so hard on over the years. At least that building, as sad as it looks, hasn't been demolished. So I think in some ways although we were devastated by what happened we're kind of not as devastated as we would have been waking up one morning nine years ago to a rubble, just rubble on the land where the dispensary now stands.

Keep Walking.