My name is Mike Leng, and I’m from Manchester I was born and raised in Manchester.
It’s a total example of the divide between the classes that as beautiful as it is, it couldn’t possibly be afforded by the working classes and they couldn’t afford the sweetmeats or anything that went into them. Everything they had was coarse from the clothing to the food they ate.
There was a girl in the Athenaeum one time who said to me that ‘All English should be ashamed of the slave trade.’ And this was in the middle of the Hard Times exhibition, and I just pointed around to the pictures, paintings on the walls and said, ‘Those are my ancestors,’ I said, ‘They were far too busy being oppressed to go out and oppress anybody else.’
The people of Manchester actually did go on strike to support Abraham Lincoln in his fight against the slave trade. They went on strike, but there’s no strike pay, you know you went hungry while you was on strike. The unions basically didn’t exist in those days for that reason. So you know it was a wonderful thing they did, I believe, that they went on strike to support Abraham Lincoln.
Interviewee: Mike Leng, General Manager Visitors Services and Operations
Interviewer: Helena Wetterberg, Community Interpretation Officer
Date: Tuesday 30 January 2007
Place: MAG artstore
Curatorial assistant: Caroline May
Length of recording: 1min 14sec
Tino Tamsho-Thomas' Poem MP3/ACC/Text
Curator's Intepretation MP3/ACC/Text
Mike Leng's Intepretation MP3/ACC/Text
Back to object page
See other objects