yourmanchester

The Magazine for Alumni and Friends June 2009

Sammy Gitau’sMathare mission

The future of electronic music

In good Elf - Toby Jones on set with Harry Potter

Problem pregnancies - is stress to blame?

Remembering Oxford Road

Welcome to this latest edition of ‘YourManchester’, the magazine for alumni ofThe University of Manchester.

It is now almost five years since theinauguration of the new University, and weare continuing to make encouragingprogress towards the Goals set out in theManchester 2015 Agenda, our strategicblueprint for positioning the University asone of the world’s leading universitiesmidway through the next decade.

The most reassuring measure of ourprogress was the University’s performancein the independent Research AssessmentExercise (RAE) conducted by the HigherEducation Funding Councils andannounced in December 2008. As you willsee from the article on page 12, theUniversity’s performance was outstanding.Two-thirds of our research was judged tobe ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationallyexcellent’. This outcome truly establishesthe University alongside Oxford,Cambridge and London as one of the UK’spremier research universities. Many of ushad thought that the 2008 RAE may havecome a little too early to demonstrate theimpact of the dramatic changes that have

taken place here since the merger, but wewere wrong – and the evidence is nowthere for all to see in terms of researchquality and research power.

Another reassuring external measure ofour progress has been our position in theannual Shanghai Jiao Tong ‘AcademicRanking of World Universities’. The JiaoTong rankings, while imperfect, representthe most accurate available analysis of therelative strength of the world’s top 500research intensive universities. It istherefore satisfying to report that theUniversity has improved its position everyyear since 2004 (when one of ourpredecessor institutions, the VictoriaUniversity of Manchester, was ranked78th), from 53rd in 2005, 50th in 2006,48th in 2007 to 40th in 2008. Thecontinuous improvement since 2005,amounting to a gain of 13 places,represents the most significantimprovement in ranking of any university inthe world’s top 100.

Manchester’s position as a world-leadingresearch centre in the field of NuclearScience was confirmed earlier this yearwhen a consortium of Serco, Battelle and

the University took over running the UKNational Nuclear Laboratory (NNL). TheLab will play a central role in cleaning upthe UK’s nuclear waste legacy anddeveloping a 21st Century capacity forcivil nuclear power generation that islikely to prove vital in the transition to asustainable low-carbon economy. In thefield of health care, the University’sresearch strength was recognised by theGovernment earlier this year when theManchester Academic Health ScienceCentre (MAHSC) – a new partnershipbetween The University of Manchesterand six local NHS trusts – was awardedofficial national status. We are one of justfive national centres, and the only oneoutside London and Cambridge. MAHSCwill play a key role in ensuring thatadvances in medical science are morerapidly translated into improvements inpatient care and wellbeing.

While profoundly committed to fundamentalresearch and curiosity-driven discovery, theUniversity has also, since its inception,sought to place an equal weight on appliedresearch, knowledge and technologytransfer and wealth creation. In this context,the most important recent development was

24

16

features...

welcome to yourmPresident and Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Gilbert

2 YOUR MANCHESTER

the launch last year of a unique £32 millionlate-seed venture fund designed to boostinvestment in intellectual property generatedby research at the University.

A major teaching and learning reformagenda has been a top priority over thepast year, following the completion of a‘root and branch’ review ofundergraduate education. We are nowproceeding to make radical changes inorder to offer students more purposefulcurricula, to re-personalise the studentlearning experience and to provide allstudents with the kind of genuinelyinteractive learning that has beenbecoming increasingly notable by itsabsence in higher education over recentdecades. We are also updating our ITsystems and facilities to enable ourstudents to benefit from the best highlyinteractive online learning environments.In short, we are putting in place newarrangements designed to makeManchester a superb undergraduatelearning university as well as a leadinginternational research institution.

With this impressive list of achievementsunder our belt, I believe that the University

is well-placed to confront the currentdifficult economic circumstances. Inevitably,there will be a premium on heightenedlevels of efficiency, effectiveness anddisciplined prioritisation in the years ahead.But the commitment, creativity and hardwork which the University community hasdemonstrated over the past four or fiveyears will stand us in good stead in suchstraitened times.

We are also grateful for the valuable andpractical support that we are receivingfrom our graduates around the globe andthis magazine contains many examples ofthe support that alumni have offered tospecific projects and initiatives.

I thank you for your continuing support ofthe University.

manchester

20

18 28

University news 4

Manchester’s outstandingresearch profile 12

Replicating the human brain 14

Stress and premature babies 16

Electronic music in Manchester 18

Memories of Oxford Road 20

Sammy Gitau returns to Mathare 24

Toby Jones on the set of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 28

The rising cost of university life 30

Manchester’s student politicos 32

What were you reading? 34

Manners on campus 36

Alumni in the spotlight 38

Alumni Association news 40

Development news 43

Your Manchester is published by theCommunications, Media and Public RelationsDivision in conjunction with the Division ofDevelopment and Alumni Relations, The University of Manchester.

For further information concerning any of thearticles in this issue please contact:Donna Prince-Hu, Co-ordinating Editor/AlumniOfficer, Division of Development and AlumniRelations, The University of Manchester, G9 Christie Building, Oxford Road, Manchester,M13 9PL. tel +44 (0)161 306 3066 fax +44 (0)161 306 8066 email donna.prince-hu@manchester.ac.uk

The articles printed here, to the best of ourknowledge, were correct at the time of going to press. We cannot guarantee that all articlessubmitted will be printed and we reserve the right to edit material where necessary.Furthermore, the views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of The University of Manchester, The University ofManchester Alumni Association, or the Editor.

contents

YOUR MANCHESTER 3

Professor Alan GilbertPresident and Vice-Chancellor

4 YOUR MANCHESTER

Breaking news and discoveries at your University

News

The University has beenawarded £20 million as partof a national drive to traina new wave of scientistsand engineers.

The funding, from theEngineering and PhysicalSciences Research Council(EPSRC), is part of a £250million initiative, which willestablish 44 centres fordoctoral training across the UKover the next five years.

Its aims are to develop cleanrenewable energy; fight high-tech crime; assist in reducingcarbon emissions; anddiscover new healthcaresolutions for an ageingpopulation. The centres arealso set to provide a radicalalternative to the traditional‘lone scholar’ PhD route,

creating communities of researchers workingtogether on current andfuture challenges.

The University will lead three ofthe training centres – includingone devoted to nanoscience,an industrial training centre forNuclear Engineering and atraining centre for nuclearfission research – which will allbe run in partnership withother universities. A trainingcentre for advanced metallicsystems led by the University ofSheffield will also be linked toThe University of Manchester.

Professor Nigel Vincent,Associate Vice-President forGraduate Education at theUniversity, said: “The linkingof world-class research andworld-class doctoral education

is key to The University ofManchester’s vision.

“Our success in the doctoraltraining centres competitionboth recognises and advancesthat ambition.

“It will allow us to buildstronger and better links atgraduate level both with otherleading national andinternational institutions andwith industry.”

Manchester awarded major boost for science training

The University of Manchester is to be at the forefront of efforts totransform the National Health Serviceby linking advances in medical scienceto patient treatment.

The Manchester Academic HealthScience Centre (MAHSC) is a partnershipbetween six Greater Manchester NHStrusts and the University. HealthSecretary, Alan Johnson, announced thisspring that just five centres would beestablished around the country - withManchester being the only one outsideof London and Cambridge.

The Centres will speed up the time it takes the NHS to make use of researchbreakthroughs because of the uniquepartnership between scientists and NHSstaff – bringing huge benefits to patients.

Manchester is already leading - bothnationally and internationally - in areassuch as cancer, cardiovascular medicineand respiratory medicine, and the newpartnership will also include the full range of health research undertaken inhospitals, mental health services and inthe community.

Professor Alan North, Director of theManchester Centre and Dean of the Facultyof Medical and Human Sciences at theUniversity said: “We are delighted to have

received formal designation from theSecretary of State for Health. This followedscrutiny of our application by an eminentinternational panel of experts. It isrecognition that our member trusts and theUniversity have the expertise, the motivationand the vision to lead the delivery ofinnovation into health care.”

Most importantly, he added, it was goodnews for patients and the public in GreaterManchester and the North West, who couldexpect advances in medical science to bemore rapidly introduced into patient care.

The Manchester Academic Health ScienceCentre aims to establish a number ofinternationally competitive health researchprogrammes by 2013, together with aworld class research infrastructure. By 2020,it aims to ensure that Greater Manchesterwill have become one of the world’s leadinghealth research centres.

Alan Johnson added: "In times of economicuncertainty, it is even more important thatwe continue to support this country'sknowledge industries to ensure that webenefit from the competitive edge whichthey provide."

The five centres are delivering on thecommitment set out in Lord Darzi's strategyfor the future of the NHS: ‘High QualityCare for All’.

Manchester’s medics receive national recognition

YOUR MANCHESTER 5

Researchers at Manchester predictthat they may soon to able totransform the treatment of lowerback pain by using stem cells.

Back pain is Britain's most commondisability. More than a million peopleare struck down every year and thecomplaint costs the NHS more than £1 billion. The pain is usually causedwhen discs between the bones in thespine - which act as shock absorbers -become worn down. Currently theproblem is often solved by removingthe discs but this can cause the bonesto fuse together, restricting movement.

A team from the University's TissueInjury and Repair Group has beenawarded funding of £164,406 overthree years by the Arthritis ResearchCampaign to find new ways ofregenerating worn discs byimplanting conditioned stem cells to repair the damage.

If the research goes to plan, it is hopedthe treatment could be carried out onpatients with lower back pain withinfive to ten years.

Lead researcher, Professor JudithHoyland said: "It is possible to takestem cells from bone marrow anddevelop them into the kind of cellsthat are produced in intervertebraldiscs, and we are now looking at thefactors that are necessary for this tohappen - such as growth factors, alow oxygen environment andmechanical load - all factors that cellswould be exposed to inside anintervertebral disc in the body."

Stemcellbreakthroughfor back painsufferers

6 YOUR MANCHESTER

News

A new collaboration between theUniversity and property companyBruntwood is aiming to deliver aclimate change adaptation strategy forManchester over the next 18 months.

Project leader Professor Simon Guy fromthe School of Environment andDevelopment argues that cities have acrucial role to play in a future whereclimate change will become part ofeveryday life.

More than half the world's populationnow lives in an urban area, and thebenefits of city life are well known. But thedownsides are becoming more obvioustoo. As centres of population andcommerce, cities are responsible for hugevolumes of greenhouse gas emissions.

The collaborative venture, known as EcoCities, aims to finalise a new strategy bythe end of 2010 with help fromManchester Architecture Research Centre,the Centre for Urban Regional Ecology,the Global Urban Research Centre andBrooks World Poverty Institute - all basedat the University.

“We must also look at how we canrespond to projected climate change toensure that we will still be able to live inour towns and cities,” Professor Guy said."At Eco Cities, we shall try to find answersto questions such as how do we develop

new low-carbon buildings and adaptexisting properties to be more resilient tofuture temperature increases and moreextreme weather.

“As the world warms, how do we keepthe temperatures in our homes,workplaces and public spaces comfortable,without accelerating climate change viaenergy-hungry technology? And as the riskof flooding intensifies, how can cities andtheir residents be made less vulnerable tothis threat?"

According to the experts, the differencesbetween those cities which choose toadapt and those which do not will bestark. Research at the University's Centrefor Urban Regional Ecology (CURE) hasalready found that an increase of 10 percent in urban green cover would beenough to keep temperatures close tocurrent levels, even accounting for theincreases predicted by climate modellers.

Another associated project will examineways to reduce carbon emissions frombuildings, exploring both technical andsocial dimensions of energy use.

Further associated work includes acontribution to an ambitious collaborationbetween eight European Union memberstates, which aims to help cities adapt tothe effects of climate change.

Green city living

A team of Cancer Research UKscientists from the University havediscovered that a partnershipbetween two proteins could bethe key to understanding whycancer spreads through the body.

The partnership, between the proteinsknow as Tiam 1 and Src, causes agroup of other proteins to be attractedto Tiam 1 like metal to a magnet. Theproteins that are attracted thendestroy the ‘magnet’ protein, whichnormally keeps cells together.

The scientists believe that it could bethe destruction of this magnet proteinthat causes cancer cells to break awayfrom a tumour and spread throughthe body. They hope their findings willhelp them develop drugs that stop thedestruction of Tiam1, and potentiallystop cancers spreading, increasing thechances of successful treatment.

Dr Angeliki Malliri, based at theUniversity’s Paterson Institute, wholed the study, said: “We’ve uncovereda critical step in the process thatbreaks the links between cancer cells.

“Importantly, we’ve also shown thatblocking Tiam1’s destruction canprevent cancer cells from moving apart.

“If we could mimic this effect in thecancer cells of patients, we wouldrestore the links between cells andpotentially stop cancer spreading.”

Protein‘magnet’ couldstop cancer inits tracks

Photo courtesy of englandsnorthwest imagebank

YOUR MANCHESTER 7

Property developer andManchester alumnus Tom Bloxham MBE hasbeen installed asChancellor of theUniversity at an awardsceremony in theWhitworth Hall attendedby hundreds of staff,academics and supporters.

Tom is the first Chancellorto have been installed atthe University since its

inauguration in 2004.Previously, the role was jointly held by Co-Chancellors Anna Ford and Sir Terry Leahy, whohad been Chancellors atthe Victoria University ofManchester and UMIST respectively.

Tom, who was recentlyappointed as a Tate Trusteeand who also serves on theboard of the Arts Council

England and chairs theManchester InternationalFestival, spoke at theCeremony about his hopesof representing theUniversity on a local andnational level.

He said he wanted to “let the world know thatBritain has more than twoworld class universities andone of them was not in theSouth East”.

Warm welcome for new Chancellor

Thousands of severe asthmasufferers could benefit from over-the-counter antifungal medication,according to groundbreakingresearch at the University.

Scientists based at the School ofMedicine, led by Professor David Denningand Dr Robert Niven, have found thatpills already used to treat everyday fungalinfections greatly relieve the symptoms of

asthma in patients who have an allergicreaction to one or more fungi.

Dr Niven believes that his team’s findingshave the potential to change the waythat doctors approach the treatment ofsevere asthma.

“Oral antifungal therapy will not suit everyone, and is not always helpful,but when it is, the effect is dramatic,” he said.

During the eight-month study researcherscompared the antifungal drug itraconazolewith a placebo, focusing on 58 patients –all of whom tested positive for fungalallergy – at the University Hospital of South Manchester, Salford Royal, RoyalPreston and North Manchester Generalhospitals. They discovered that nearly 60 per cent of patients taking the drugshowed a significant improvement in their symptoms.

Asthma relief? Just pop a pill, say scientists

The first students to graduate fromBP’s project management course atthe Manchester Business School wereawarded their certificates in thevirtual world, complete with speciallydesigned graduation gowns, lifelikeavatars (graphical alter egos) ofdignitaries, an academic processionand speeches.

Dom Raban, Managing Director ofCorporation Pop, the design companywho constructed and managed theFebruary event, said: “It would be almostimpossible for so many of BP’s seniorexecutives, who are spread across theglobe, to take part in a traditional awardsceremony. By holding it virtually, we havemade it possible for them to be rewardedfor their achievements with minimal

disruption, saving time and money as wellas reducing environmental impact.”

During the Ceremony the student-controlled avatars took to the stage to

receive their certificates, and scriptedhandshakes enabled them to becongratulated by the Dean, as they would have been in real life.

The 2008/09 University Challenge title has been transferred to TheUniversity of Manchester after theBBC and Granada Televisionconcluded that the original winners,Corpus Christi College, Oxford, hadunintentionally broken the rule thatcontestants must be students for theduration of the recording process.

The team member concerned, Sam Kay,introduced himself as a Chemistry student.However, he had actually graduated fromOxford in June 2008 and was working atPriceWaterhouseCoopers in Readingduring the later rounds of the contest.

The University of Manchester teamcaptain, Matthew Yeo, has mixed feelingsabout his team being awarded the title."While we accept the decision of theUniversity Challenge judges, we aresaddened to have been awarded thetrophy under such circumstances," he said.

"As far as Simon, Henry, Reuben and I areconcerned the final was a greatexperience and we believe Corpus ChristiCollege were outstanding opponents."

During the final Yeo's team took an earlylead against Corpus Christi, which theyheld onto until the last five minutes of the

show, when their opponents overtookthem. Corpus Christi went on to win by a slim margin of 275 points to 190.

The University of Manchester last wonUniversity Challenge in 2005/6, and wasthe runner-up in the 2006/7 series.

8 YOUR MANCHESTER

University Challenge title goes to Manchester

Groundbreakingvirtualgraduationceremony

News

Europe's most advanced humanoidrobot has made its first UK appearanceas part of a major robotics symposiumat the University.

The 'open source' iCub is beingdeveloped in Italy as part of a 8.5 millionEuro project to develop a highly dexteroushumanoid robot.

It builds on work being conducted acrossEurope - including research by scientists atthe University's Centre for InterdisciplinaryComputational And Dynamical Analysis(CICADA).

Modelled on a three-and-a-half-year-oldchild, the iCub is already capable of eyeand head motion, leg movement, objectrecognition and a grasping movement thatis incredibly reminiscent of a human - aswell as playing the drums.

But ultimately, the aim is to develop arobot that can crawl on all fours, sit up,handle objects with precision and havehead and eye movements that echo thoseof human beings.

It's also hoped it will be able to see, move,hear and touch in a human-like manner.

Development of the iCub is based at theItalian Institute of Technology. It made itsUK debut at the University's 'Symposiumon Humanoid Robotics: the iCub Project'.

Professor John Gray, Visiting Professor atThe University of Manchester's ControlSystems Centre, was involved in the earlydevelopment of the iCub in Salford.

He said: "It's a tremendous coup to havethe iCub here in Manchester.

"One of the great things about the iCub is it is an open systems platform. Users and developers in all disciplines, frompsychology, through to cognitiveneuroscience, to developmental robotics,can use it and customise it freely.

"It's hoped the iCub will develop itscognitive capabilities in the same way as a child, progressively learning about itsown bodily skills, how to interact with the world, and eventually how tocommunicate with other individuals."

The symposium included a talk byProfessor Darwin Caldwell, ResearchDirector at the Italian Institute ofTechnology (IIT), who also delivered the public lecture.

YOUR MANCHESTER 9

iCub robot makes its UK debut

A talented composer whose music draws heavily on hermathematical background hasscooped a prestigious award.

Emily Howard, 29, who is currentlycompleting a PhD in music, is one ofthree composers and five artists toreceive a Paul Hamlyn FoundationAward of £45,000.

Emily said: “It’s amazing to receivethis award, and it really can bedescribed as a life-changing event.

“It will give me more freedom todecide what I really want to do withmy music. Over the next few years, I’dlike to write longer orchestral pieces –and this award will help me do that.”

Emily, whose PhD is being supervisedby renowned composer ProfessorJohn Casken, has already beenappointed as Liverpool City CouncilComposer in Residence. One of hermost recent pieces, Magnetite,opened the Royal LiverpoolPhilharmonic Orchestra’s Capital ofCulture season in 2008.

During her time at Manchester Emilywas supported by the Victor SayerPostgraduate Award. Established in2004 by Victor Sayer, the Fund existsto provide financial support topostgraduate students of music atthe University.

Top award is music tostudent’s ears

10 YOUR MANCHESTER

A rare female tree frog has beenspotted for the first time in 20 yearsduring a recent expedition to CentralAmerica by scientists from theUniversity and Chester Zoo.

The team came across the 2.5 cm-long,pregnant frog by chance deep in CostaRica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve.

The species Isthmohyla rivularis wasthought to have become extinct in the1980s, but in 2007 Andrew Gray from theUniversity’s Museum was lucky enough tofind and photograph a male.

The team’s discovery suggests that thefrogs are breeding, having managed tosurvive a deadly skin disease – thechytrid fungus – which wiped out manysimilar species.

Mr Gray said the discovery had been thehighlight of his career so far. “It is hard todescribe just how unlikely it was to havediscovered a female of this particularspecies,” he said.

“Now we know that both sexes exist inthe wild, we should intensify our effortsto understand their ecology and furthertheir conservation.”

The University has been awarded a key role in runningthe UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), which will beat the centre of work to underpin the renaissance in thecivil nuclear sector.

Formal agreement has been reached for the NNL to be led by atop consortium on behalf of the Department for Energy andClimate Change (DECC), following a competitive process toappoint a new managing contractor.

The team has been selected from the successful consortiumcomprising Serco, Battelle and The University of Manchester,known as SBM.

This team includes Paul Howarth, Executive Director of theDalton Nuclear Institute, who is acting as Director of Science,Technology and Project Delivery for the NNL.

The NNL was launched formally in July 2008 by John Hutton,then Secretary of State for Business. The facility bringstogether expert nuclear research capabilities of Nexia

Solutions with world-class nuclear facilities, such as the newCentral Laboratory at Sellafield.

It is intended that the NNL will become an international centreof excellence in nuclear research, play a central role in cleaningup the UK’s nuclear waste legacy and contribute to theprogramme of nuclear new build. As such, it will be at the heartof delivering the government’s nuclear energy policy as part ofcreating a low-carbon economy.

The SBM consortium members have the first class nuclear,management and commercial experience necessary to achievethe government’s ambitions for NNL as a successful nucleartechnology laboratory, world renowned for its exceptional staff,cutting edge facilities and excellent value for money.

Professor Alan Gilbert, President and Vice-Chancellor of TheUniversity of Manchester, said: “The NNL already has a highlyskilled workforce. Working with our consortium partners, weare committed to ensuring it becomes a world-renownedcentre of nuclear science and technology."

Manchester to play key role in nuclear renaissance

Rare frog find

News

YOUR MANCHESTER 11

Bedouin women in South Sinai havebeen learning how to create clothesusing felt made from locally-produced wool.

An innovative project run by the Instituteof Development Policy and Managementaims to help the women sell warm clothingto tourists who visit the area of Mount StKatherine, the tallest mountain in Egypt,which is freezing cold in winter.

Research student Hilary Gilbert teamed upwith felt expert Gabi Wortmann, a seniorresearch fellow, who taught her how tomake felt from the wool that is readilyavailable to the Bedouin women. In daysgone by tribes used the wool from theirsheep herds to make tents to live in, but

they now live in houses and the wool ismostly left unused.

The benefit of felt-making is that it uses upcoarse texture wool that may not besuitable for traditional spinning, and it isvery low-tech and can be done in thewomen’s own homes at almost no cost.“This way of using their wool is completelynew to the women, and they are excitedby it,” Hilary says.

Hilary is a third year PhD student in theInstitute of Development Policy andManagement in the School of Environmentand Development. Her research investigatesthe social impact of conservation anddevelopment policy on the Bedouin peopleof South Sinai, and she is soon to return to

the area to see the advances the womenhave made in their felt-making.

Hilary is proud of the fact that thesewomen can now employ previously unusedresources to help support themselves. Sheis also confident that the women canbenefit from the captive market made upof the many tourists coming to the areafrom nearby Sharm El-Sheikh. Thesetourists come to climb Mount Sinai in theevenings without warm clothes, and Hilarybelieves the community may be able to sellwool items to them providing an incomefor themselves.

The project, which is supported by TheFunding Network, can be viewed atwww.southsinaifoundation.org

Do you want to hear more news from your University? If so, sign up to Your Manchester Online (www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester) and click onYour Manchester News. You will also receive our e-newsletter six times per year.See page 42 for details.

News

Women’s wool project warms up tourists

The big research money in Britishhigher education has for many decadesbeen channelled into the so-called‘golden triangle’ of the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London. But no more! Manchester has nowmuscled in, and is well on the way tobecoming one of the top universities in the world by 2015.

The news is not mere spin, butrevealed in official statistics. Thenational Research Assessment Exercise(RAE) has concluded that Manchesteris one of just a handful of universitieswith an internationally significantresearch profile over a wide range ofsubject areas.

The RAE measures the quality ofresearch in the UK against internationalstandards of excellence.

The results are vitally important interms not only of Government fundingand in encouraging others to invest inManchester’s research excellence; theyare also of enormous reputationalimportance to the University, bothnationally and internationally.

The outstanding results showed thatsome two thirds of the University’sresearch activity was judged to be'world-leading' (4*) or 'internationallyexcellent' (3*). President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Gilbert ofThe University of Manchester said:

"These results vindicate the decision to merge UMIST and the VictoriaUniversity of Manchester in 2004 andjustify our massive investment in newstaff and facilities since then.”

The RAE is carried out every few yearsby the Higher Education FundingCouncils across the British Isles.Professor Gilbert said he had thoughtthe latest RAE may have come a littletoo early to demonstrate the impact ofchange at Manchester: “But we werewrong. The evidence is now there forall to see - in terms of both researchquality and research power, there is nolonger a 'Golden Triangle' in Britishhigher education research".

Manchester was rankedamongst the very best ofBritish universities in a recentnational ResearchAssessment Exercise

Research results:

Outstanding!

12 YOUR MANCHESTER

Ranking Institution

1 University of Oxford

2 University of Cambridge

3 University College London

4 The University of Manchester

5 University of Edinburgh

6 Imperial College London

None of this has happened byaccident. In order to achieve theUniversity’s ambition of joining theworld’s top 25 universities by 2015,around 1,000 new and outstandingresearchers have been recruited since2004, and the University has investedmore than £403 million in new andrefurbished buildings and facilities.

Manchester’s performance confirms theUniversity’s position as one of the UK'stop research institutions and reinforcesthe 2008 Jiao Tong (Shanghai) 'WorldUniversity Rankings' which placedManchester at 40th in the world and6th in Europe earlier this year.

The University submitted research in53 ‘Units of Assessment’, more thanany other university in the UK, and the quality profile across the boardwas astounding.

The amount of data included in theRAE results means there are a numberof different ways of analysing theresults. But in each case, Manchesterranks among the country's topperforming universities.

YOUR MANCHESTER 13

A ranking which looks at the volume ofresearch activity judged to be ‘World-Leading’(4*) and ‘Internationally Excellent’ (3*) showsManchester in third position, behind Cambridgeand Oxford.

Ranking Institution

1 University of Oxford

2 University of Cambridge

3 The University of Manchester

4 University College London

5 University of Edinburgh

6 Imperial College London

A similar table which looks at the volume ofresearch activity judged to be ‘World-Leading’(4*) shows Manchester in fourth position,behind Cambridge and Oxford and UCL.

A table of the major research universitiesaccording to quality alone places Manchesterin sixth place.

Ranking Institution

1 University of Cambridge

2 University of Oxford

3 London School of Economics

4 Imperial College London

5 University College London

6 The University of Manchester

Rob AhearneYour Manchester Fund PhDScholar: World Poverty

“The recent RAE results confirmed myopinion that I am studying at one ofthe very best Higher Educationinstitutions in the UK. Conducting mydoctoral research at one of the toptwo places for Development Studiesresearch in the UK fills me withoptimism about the quality of supportI receive from academic staff - and theexceptional research environment inwhich I am working.

I believe that the RAE results willhave a positive impact on mycontinuing research. On a recentresearch trip to Tanzania, aprominent scholar in the Institute forDevelopment Studies at theUniversity of Dar es Salaam was fullof admiration for IDPM andimpressed by my attendance there.Such views can only be strengthenedby the excellent RAE results.

The recent investment in facilities oncampus has clearly enhanced theresearch reputation of the School ofEnvironment and Development, andthis is reflected in the RAE results. Ifeel that the results will demonstrateto prospective future employers that Ihave studied at one of the foremostinstitutions in the UK. Should Ipursue an academic career, a PhDfrom Manchester will demonstratethe rigorousness of the researchundertaken and the quality ofsupervision and advice I havereceived here in a supportive butchallenging academic environment.”

See page 45 to read more about Rob.

Professor Steve Furber, the ICLProfessor of Computer Engineering inthe School of Computer Science, isalready renowned as one of thepioneers of his generation.

He was part of the team that developedthe BBC Micro, which sold more than1.5 million in the 1980s and madecomputers a household item for thefirst time.

More than 20 years later, most mobilephones, digital cameras and computerscontinue to run on processors that hehas designed.

Now Professor Furber is concentrating onthe development of a new generation ofcomputer that would work by mimickingthe human brain.

Human brains are built from a giantnetwork of small cells called neurons,

which communicate by sending electricalpulses to each other - controlling the waywe move, see, hear, speak and think.

Professor Furber is trying to recreate thismode of communication within acomputer, with microprocessors that aredesigned to interact like the networks ofneurons in the brain.

He has already teamed up withpsychologists from the University todevelop a computer system that issimilar to the brain's speech andlanguage model.

Together they hope that successfullymimicking this part of the brain will leadto a better understanding of what goeswrong after the brain is damaged as aresult of a stroke or trauma.

Ultimately, this research will lead to ageneration of computers that are designed

The Manchester scientistwho was at the heart ofthe home computerrevolution in the 1980sis hoping to transformcomputing once againby replicating thehuman brain

14 YOUR MANCHESTER

Human brain inspires next computer revolution

in the same way as the human brain,offering a wider range of applications andwith the capability to 'learn'.

"Since the late 1990s we have beenincreasingly interested in looking atalternative models of communication incomputers - and particularly biologicallyinspired models," said Professor Furber,who has already been awarded a CBE forhis work.

"It's this that has culminated in thearchitecture of a computer that is basedon biological principles; built to mimicbasic brain neurons. Ultimately, we hopeto use this research to build computerswith capabilities that have so far eludedcomputer designers.”

While computers are remarkably goodat adding numbers together, they arenot very good - for example - atrecognising pictures. “While a baby canrecognise its mother from an early age,programming a computer to do thesame is a major challenge."

In the human brain, each of the neuronsare connected to between 10,000 and100,000 others. They pass on messagesthrough pulses known as 'spikes'.

The electrical wires in a computer may befaster and more efficient than thepathways in the brain. But it is notfeasible for a computer to be designedwith as many connections as there are inthe brain.

Now, Professor Furber believes there is away to replicate the connectivity in thebrain, which is one of the majorinnovations in the project.

Professor Furber is driven in his quest bythe idea of creating a new generation ofcomputers that could 'learn' what wasrequired from its user - taking on therole of personal assistant rather thandesktop machine.

"The computer would ask about you andlearn your preferences. For example ifyou asked it to book plane tickets itwould learn if you preferred one airlineto another or that you didn't like flightsbefore 6 am so that if you needed tobook a flight, it would already knowyour preferences."

Professor Furber admits he is not yetwithin sight of his ultimate aim, but -with past successes already ranking himas one of the pioneers on the moderncomputer - there is no reason to doubtthat he will reach his goal.

Although his interest in computingdidn't emerge until he was readingMaths at Cambridge University, it wasrooted in his childhood interest inaircraft and aviation.

After spending a year in Cambridge'sGliding Club, but clocking up just 56minutes in the air, Professor Furberdecided his best chance ofexperiencing flight was to build hisown flight simulator.

So, instead of re-joining the Gliding Club,he opted for Cambridge UniversityProcessors Group (CUPG), wherestudents built computers for fun.

"It was a hobby," said Professor Furber."I came to realise that I was more likelyto experience flying in a flightsimulator. I had this idea that if I couldmaster computers I could try and buildmy own flight simulator and learn to flythat way."

During his time at Cambridge - where hecompleted a PhD in aerodynamics andthen continued as a research fellow atEmmanuel College - Professor Furbercontinued to be involved with the CUPG,where he came to the attention of thefounders of computer company Acorn.

By the end of the 70s, he had alreadyhand-built his own computer, which hestill keeps in his office at the University.And during his time as a research fellow,(between 1978 and 1981), he becameincreasingly involved with Acorn.

When he was asked by Acorn to developa computer for the BBC that could be

used to support a series of televisionprogrammes, Professor Furber andcolleague Sophie Wilson produced aprototype within a week.

The prototype was based around adesign he had already started to sketchout. The BBC was so impressed with theirachievement in such a short time thatthey gave Acorn the contract.

It was initially estimated that just 12,000BBC Micros would be sold. But thatfigure soared to an incredible 1.5 million- as the success of the BBC Micro turnedcomputers into household items.

Professor Furber continued to work for Acorn - where he developed the ARM chip, which continues to be used in mobile phones, computers and digital cameras.

In 1990 he became the ICL Professor ofComputer Engineering at the University,where he has remained.

Since then he has also been elected as aFellow of the British Computer Society,the Royal Society, the Royal Academy ofEngineering, the IEEE and the Institutionof Engineering and Technology.

Professor Steve Furber

Professor Fuber gave the ‘YourManchester Insights’ lecture entitled ‘TheRelentless March of the Microchip’ toalumni and friends, in Greece in June2008, and in London in October 2008.Please see page 40.www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

YOUR MANCHESTER 15

A study into the effects of stress on theunborn child has found thatexperiencing severe distress - evenbefore becoming pregnant - raises awoman’s chance of having a prematurebaby, which may suffer from a range ofhealth problems as a result. The risk isparticularly marked if there is a deathor serious illness in the family.

The study analysed records from 1.35 million mothers in Denmark over a 20 year period and concluded that the effects of stress hormones in thewomb may explain the findings,although other factors needed to be considered.

Different types of traumas had slightlyvarying effects on pregnant women. Forexample, the highest risk factor seemedto be a serious illness or death in olderchildren in the six months prior toconception. This increased the risk ofbirth before 37 weeks by 23 per cent,

and the risk of birth before 33 weeks by59 per cent.

Death or illness in close relatives, such asparents, siblings or a partner in the lastsix months before becoming pregnantincreased the risk of birth before 37weeks by 16 per cent.

The researchers said they also establishedthat mothers who experienced stress andwere also missing a parent or a partnerduring their pregnancy were significantlymore likely to have a premature birth.

Although the study focused on theeffects of major life trauma, theresearchers said they could not rule outthe possibility that less catastrophicevents, such as work related andfinancial problems, could also be linkedto pregnancy problems.

There are several possible explanationsfor the findings, including increased

levels of stress hormones in the mother’sbody. But lifestyle changes in response tostress - such as increased consumption oftobacco or alcohol - are also possible riskfactors, since both are linked with pre-term labour.

Study leader Professor Philip Baker fromthe Maternal and Fetal Health ResearchGroup at the University said that mostresearch to date had focused on stressduring pregnancy.

"Yet these results suggest that the impactcould be greater in the period precedingconception,” he said. “Althoughrelatively subtle, it is still a real effect."

Tommy's, the baby charity who fundedthe research, said around 50,000 babiesare born prematurely each year in theUK. Some 10 per cent of these will sufferlong-term health problems such aschronic lung disease, learning difficultiesand blindness.

Worrying prematurely

Mothers-to-be who sufferemotional trauma in the sixmonths before conception are more at risk of having a pre-term baby, according tonew research from theUniversity’s Maternal andFetal Health Research Centre

16 YOUR MANCHESTER

"It is vital that we continue toinvestigate the causes of prematurebirth, so we can give every baby the bestchance of being born healthy,” ProfessorBaker added.

In the UK alone, £4 billion is spentannually on the neonatal intensive careneeded by premature babies. And theenormous healthcare costs associatedwith long-term illness, loss of educationand parents’ earnings, and theprovision of lifetime institutional carefor children with severe disabilities, arelikely to rise.

The Manchester Maternal and FetalHealth Research Centre (MFHRC) linksresearch findings into clinical practice.This so called 'bench-to-bedside'research is at the core of the current(2006-2011) five-year plan. Some 60clinicians and scientists are attached tothe Centre, which has achievedimpressive success in attracting supportfrom the research councils and otherfunding bodies.

One of the leading clinicians is ProfessorColin Sibley, whose world-renownedresearch has demonstrated that anabnormally functioning placenta is often

the cause of a dangerous pregnancycomplication known as pre-eclampsia.

Professor Sibley told an audience ofManchester alumni and friends,gathered in September for his ‘YourManchester Insights’ lecture, that anestimated 200,000 women around theworld die from pre-eclampsia each year -one every three minutes.

In addition, he said that a relatedcomplication called IUGR (a term usedfor babies who are smaller than averageduring pregnancy) is responsible for onein four stillbirths and one in six suddeninfant deaths in the UK alone.

The vital importance of the placenta innormal and complicated pregnancies,and the effects of nutrition on theplacenta and baby were also highlightedin the lecture.

At present, there is no treatmentavailable to those with pregnancycomplications other than early deliveryof the baby. However, in order toimprove diagnostic tools, St Mary'sHospital in The University of Manchesterhas recently opened the UK’s firstplacenta clinic. It will carry out clinical

trials on women in the 15th to 18thweek of pregnancy to see if placentalmarkers help to predict women who willdevelop pregnancy complications.

"If we are to tackle the serious problemsin pregnancy the answer must lie inunderstanding how the placenta developsand how we can intervene to help itfunction properly” said Professor Sibley.

Professor Sibley is currently Professor ofChild Health and Physiology in theMaternal and Fetal Health ResearchGroup and is Director of Tommy's, thebaby charity. He has published over 100peer reviewed papers and currentlyholds several major grants from theMedical Research Council, TheWellcome Trust and other charities. Healso leads his own group of around 20researchers (as well as the 60 plusscientists and clinician-scientists,technical and clerical staff of theMFHRC) making it the largest pregnancyresearch group in Europe.

YOUR MANCHESTER 17

Professor Colin Sibley

See page 40 for details on the ‘YourManchester Insights’ lectures.

www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

Manchester has always struck aprogressive musical note, and theNovars Research Centre will ensure thatits reputation for electro-acoustic musicwill be carried into the digital future ofthe 21st century.

Electro-acoustic music uses technologyto further explore and transform sound.The sound may be acoustic ‘foundsound’ recorded from nature or theurban environment, or it may beelectronically-manipulated sound.

Imagine a home cinema system, but ona grander scale, with music specificallywritten for Dolby 5.1 and diffusedthrough multiple speakers - sometimesup to 48 - to create 360 degreesoundscapes. It’s the aural equivalentof impressionist art - an immersiveexperience designed to appealemotively rather than directly.

The Novars Studios (the name derivesfrom composer Francis Dhomont’s ArsNova, or New Art) opened recently,

housed in the £2.5 million Martin HarrisCentre. Co-Director Dr David Berezanswipes me through the building’s glassdoors, suitably electronically.

Dr Berezan has been at the departmentsince 2003 and is perfectly placed tolend his eyes, and more importantly hisears, to the project: “I helped with thedesign and specification of thebuilding,” he says as we walk throughthe ground floor teaching cluster; anew apartment smell to the place,

18 YOUR MANCHESTER

Striking a progressive noteThe new Novars Research Centre explores the futureof electronic music, as Simon Morrison discovers

© Becky Lane; Positive Image

rows of gleaming Apple Macs almostbox fresh. “And one of the things Iwas careful about was excellentacoustic performance.”

As well as the £150,000 spent onequipment like computers, top-endGenelec speakers and recording desks,great thought was put into theconstruction of the building itself. Eachof the three studios are of room-within-a-room construction, suspended onrubber discs, with walls that are withinother walls to reduce thecontamination of outside sound. Theinternal acoustics are therefore dry andaccurate for working with soundmaterials – allowing the students tosculpt sound, using a computer almostas a digital potter’s wheel. Such is thepurity of the studio’s acoustic isolationthat one industrious student completelymissed Manchester’s 2008 earthquake!

“It really is an iconic building in termsof the look too,” Dr Berezan continues.“The University was keen ondeveloping a building that had a realpresence on campus. The NovarsCentre is quite small but has a verystriking, modernist design.”

Dr Berezan saves the best for last: themain studio - larger than the other two- with a 32-channel mixing desk and 30speakers arranged around the room sosound can be diffused in the process ofits composition. It’s night-time, butstudents - from amongst the 40 firstyears to the eleven taking PhDs inelectro acoustic composition – still drift

between the studios. Composers don’ttend to keep office hours.

In terms of the application of suchendeavours, electro acoustic musicshares much with the avant-gardetradition, whether sound installations inart galleries or concert hallperformances such as the MANTISseries (Manchester Theatre In Sound)founded by Dr Berezan.

Equally, the results can be heard onsoundtracks, video games, or innightclubs. Manipulating electronicsounds, for instance, will be familiar tothe producers and DJs of dance music,so central to Manchester’s recent culturalhistory with clubs like the Haçienda, andartists like 808 State and The ChemicalBrothers (alumni of the University).

The history of electronic music inManchester stretches much furtherback however. In 2008, the ComputerConservation Society uncovered thefirst ever recording of digital music,right here at The University ofManchester. The sounds were made bythe Ferranti Mark I computer, thesuccessor to the ‘Baby’ computer, thepredecessor of all modern PCs.Recorded for the Children’s Hourprogramme in 1951, the Ferranti usedits ‘Hoot’ instruction to play Baa BaaBlack Sheep, In The Mood and anelectronic rendition of God Save TheKing - very sci-fi for the early 50s!

The Novars Research Centre is also partof the project to digitalise the archive ofelectronic composer Delia Derbyshire,

who was based at the BBC RadiophonicWorkshop between 1962-1973.Principally known for the electronicswoops and swirls of the Doctor Whotheme tune, 267 tapes of her workwere recently donated to the University,providing what has been described asan ‘Aladdin’s cave’ of proto-electronicsoundscapes. “She was sadly a muchoverlooked force in experimentalelectronic music in this country,” saysDr Berezan, a member of the team re-appraising her work.

The Novars Centre is the perfect home forsuch sonic space explorations, ensuringthat electronic creativity continues to fizzand crackle within Manchester. “It’sfantastic to have this wonderfulenvironment dedicated to the subject,”says Dr Berezan, showing me out of thebuilding, my ears newly tuned to thesynchronous sounds of the campus.

My final thought: love or loathecomputers, you will never replicate thaticonic Dr Who theme by simply whoo-we-whoo-ing from behind the couch…

Simon Morrison is a Manchestergraduate who completed his BA in1991 and gained an MA in NovelWriting in 1997. He is a member ofThe University of Manchester AlumniAssociation Advisory Board and theManaging Director of PadCommunications, a Manchester based business providing publicrelations services. www.novars.manchester.ac.uk

YOUR MANCHESTER 19

Delia Derbyshire at the BBC

Oxford Road is the veryhub of life at TheUniversity ofManchester. It’s abustling, vibrantthoroughfare wherestudents meet andgreet on their way tolectures and seminars –or congregate on theirway to the Students’Union or a nearby pubor club

The Whitworth Hall 1944

Oxford Road, Opposite the University 1959

20 YOUR MANCHESTER

YOUR MANCHESTER 21

Oxford Road has changed immeasurablysince the early 1870s, when theUniversity buildings began transformingthe skyline on a four-acre site bounded byOxford Road, Burlington Street andCoupland Street, as several generationsof students now recall...

The architect for the first cluster ofbuildings was Alfred Waterhouse, whoalso famously designed Manchester TownHall. His bold neo-Gothic blueprintmarked an exciting development for theUniversity, which started life some 20years previously in rather humblerpremises on Quay Street in the citycentre, an area then renowned more forits squalid alleyways and high crime ratesthan intellectual prowess.

First of the landmark structures to openits doors was the John Owens building inOctober 1873 and others like the ChristieLibrary and Whitworth Hall followed inthe decades immediately afterwards.

By the turn of the 20th century, the Victoria University of Manchester was a major player on Oxford Road. But for many years, the surrounding area changed remarkably little. Packedwith terraced housing, shops, pubs anddance halls, it was a close-knit, largelyIrish community which for the most part stayed separate from university life. But occasionally the two worldswould coincide.

Dr Lawrence Goldie, a medical student inthe 1940s recalls: “We spent most of our

time in the Students’ Union, the pubswere pretty off-limits. But the annual RagDay was an event which the localcommunity joined in and it gave us accessto local factories where people alwaysgave generously for charity.

“The Holy Name Church also had a parishcentre where keen boxers like me couldjoin in contests with the local lads. Wemet some wonderful people.”

One major difference between then andnow is the appearance of the Universitybuildings. In the days before the CleanAir Act they, (like all city centre buildings)were unremittingly black.

Zoology graduate Barbara Fawkes, also astudent in the 1940s remembers: “WhenI first saw Oxford Road and the University,

Remembering Oxford Road

Oxford Road, 1973

Images courtesy of M

anchester Archives and Local Studies, C

entral Library Manchester

22 YOUR MANCHESTER

I remember thinking how dark and dismal itall looked and I was not very impressed. Butthis was the year of demobilisation in 1947and competition was very tight for places.

“So I was lucky to get a place atManchester and once I got here I loved it,particularly Oxford Road because of thelife and buzz. I remember it as alwaysvery busy with lots of trams and trafficwhich I had to negotiate as I cycled backto my digs.”

By the late 1960s, most of the residentialhousing was being demolished to makeway for new university buildings.

Dental student William Hale was anundergraduate in the 1960s: “I lived indigs in Denton and had to get a bus fromBrunswick Street. There were still lots ofshops and houses but they were beingknocked down one by one.”

Other landmarks to disappear as part ofthe re-development included the Royal

Manchester College of Music on DevasStreet and the College Hotel, a popularhaunt of undergraduates.

A pivotal part of student life, then andnow, was the Union building, which wasopened in 1958 by the then PrimeMinister Harold Macmillan. It replacedStaff House, built in 1937.

But other iconic buildings remain.

One landmark remembered bygenerations is the Holy Name Church.Designed by Joseph Hansom (of hansomcab fame) it was completed in 1871 andwas originally to feature a steeple 240-feet high which was never built.

Law graduate Simone Collins remembersgoing to the chaplaincy next door for cut-price lunches in the early 1980s. “Theydid a good bowl of soup and bread forvery reasonable prices and it was apopular place to go. We’d also often goover the road for the Union debates. Phil

Woolas was the leader of the Union andwe had lots of heated but good-humoured discussions. Another favouritespot was the Scott Bar which we thoughtwas very trendy.”

Today, students have a plethora of placesto eat and drink along the Oxford Roadcorridor. But that’s a pretty recentdevelopment.

Economics student Alan Briefel graduatedin 1981. “Most of the pubs were verytraditional and one of the few places toeat was the On the Eighth Day café,which we thought was fantastic. But theUnion was great. I remember going thereto see a band I’d never heard of calledDire Straits! Oxford Road was always verybusy but for most of my time I didn’thave a 9.30 lecture or seminar. In my finalyear I did and I suddenly realised just howjam-packed it was in the rush hour.”

Twenty years on, Oxford Road is one ofthe busiest public transport routes in

Reno’s music shop 1938

On the eigth day, 1973

The Phoenix Inn 1973

YOUR MANCHESTER 23

Europe and has the highest concentrationof cyclists and pedestrians anywhere inManchester outside the city centre.

The latest landmark building is thedistinctive rotunda ‘University Place’,which opened last summer as part of theUniversity’s £650 million CapitalDevelopment Project and houses teachingrooms, student support services and avariety of cafés, restaurants, shops andthe University Visitors’ Centre.

Oxford Road’s changing face is set forfurther exciting developments viaCorridor Manchester – the University’sdevelopment partnership withManchester City Council, ManchesterMetropolitan University and CentralManchester University Hospitals NHSFoundation Trust. CEO Jackie Potter isheading up the project. She says: “Ouraim is to maximise the economicpotential of the area by harnessing themillions of pounds in investment currently

being made by our universities, HealthTrust and the private sector to bring realeconomic benefits for local residents aswell as for the city as a whole.”

Plans include more trees and better publictransport and more space for businessesand hi-tech industry as well as a majorredevelopment of the Whitworth Parkand Art Gallery.

English and American Literature studentSimon Morrison, who graduated in 1992and is currently a member of TheUniversity of Manchester AlumniAssociation Advisory Board, remembersthe Precinct as a ‘forbidding’ place whichhe rarely frequented.

“There was a bookshop there which I usedto go to but most of my memories of OxfordRoad revolve around food and drink.

“The first place that leaps to mind isAbdul’s kebab shop near Whitworth Park.There was a big drinking culture and

Oxford Road was a key part of it. Wewould start off in the Union bar then goon to the Old Steam Brewery where theAquatics Centre is now. I remember beingrugby tackled to the floor on OxfordRoad while I was on my way to a partywearing a toga! The Phoenix was a verystudenty pub, but we would venturefurther down Oxford Road to theCornerhouse arts complex and I used togo to alternative comedy nights at theUnion where I saw Steve Coogan, andCaroline Aherne.

“The colour and the vibrancy of peoplewalking up and down had lots of energyand lots of life and that’s what I willalways remember Oxford Road for.”

University Place 2009

Comment on and share with us yourfond, student memories of Oxford Roadvia Your Manchester Online. See page 42for details.www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

24 YOUR MANCHESTER

In 2004, former Kenyan ‘street boy’Sammy Gitau rescued a University ofManchester prospectus from a pile ofgarbage in one of Nairobi's mostlawless neighbourhoods.

Sammy read in the document about anMSc in Management andImplementation of Development Projectsat the University's renowned Institute forDevelopment Policy and Management.

After a struggle of epic proportions -and with the help of EU official AlexWalford - he achieved his dream andgraduated, to the acclaim of theworld's media, in December 2007.

By Western standards his story isremarkable: aged 13, Sammy becamehis family's breadwinner when hisfather, who brewed illegal alcohol, waskilled in a hammer attack.

Soon after he was beaten by angrymobs for stealing and became a drugdealer in 1997, hitting rock bottomwhen he overdosed on a cocktail ofdrugs, ending up as a 'street boy' innearby Eastleigh.

Mathare is one of the most notoriousslums in Africa where brutality,unemployment, violence and diseaseare everyday realities. Some of itsinhabitants are forced onto nearbystreets where they try against all oddsto survive as ‘street children’. Hundredsof homes and businesses were burnedin the violence of 2007 following thedisputed Kenyan presidential elections.

When Sammy returned there in March2008 he found a community tearingitself apart as factions dominated bythe Luo and Kikuyu tribes violentlyfought each other in the aftermath ofthe elections.

According to Sammy, a hundred or so market stalls and homes were destroyed, thousands wereinjured and at least 12 people werekilled in ferocious machete andhammer attacks.

"I honestly feel that it was the righttime for me to return to Mathare -despite the violence," he said."Because I had been away - and sowas seen as impartial - and because

YOUR MANCHESTER 25

When Sammy Gitau miraculously achieved hisdream of gaining a masters from this University, youcould be forgiven for doubting he would ever returnto the notorious slum where he lived in Nairobi, but15 months later he’s back in Mathare...

Sammy’sMatharemission

26 YOUR MANCHESTER

my Manchester degree gave meauthority, many people turned to me."

One night during the worst of theviolence, word was sent to Sammy thata massacre was being planned byyouths, in revenge for previous attacks.

He said: "I went as quickly as I could tofind these young people armed withmachetes and hammers. They hadfolded one leg of their trousers andintended to kill anyone they found inthe Luo neighbourhood who had notdone that. It could have been hundredsof people. Thank goodness I convinced

them to abandon the attack. I think it'sfair to say that the authority mymasters degree gave me saved lives."

Sammy says he never had any doubtthat he and his wife and three childrenwould continue to live in Mathare afterhis studies.

"I simply couldn't cut loose and runaway: I needed to go back and workwith my community," he said.

Sammy has put his studies to good useat his community resource centre,which operates out of four painted

containers on the edge of the slum.Each container offers somethingdifferent: a library of books rescuedfrom a waste paper tip, a rudimentaryrecording studio and a sewing machineused to train young people.

The fourth container is used for filmmaking with a laptop and video camerathat Sammy brought back fromManchester. This is also where he andhis family live.

Under Sammy's energetic and creativeleadership, the community centreorganises a range of activities including

YOUR MANCHESTER 27

judo, football, fashion shows forteenage girls, and traditional dancing.

His work is clearly paying off: musiciansand actors, who might otherwise becaught up in the brutality that occursevery day in Mathare, are fastbecoming celebrities of the slum.

"The young people I work with want to shoot but with cameras, not guns"he said.

"One of the boys I worked with -Amanaka - was a talented goalkeeper.To make ends meet he mugged people

with a replica gun. Last year the policedealt him their own form of justice:unable to pay a bribe to save himself,he was shot through the head.

"What he did was wrong but if he hada decent chance in life he would haveescaped such brutality. I could havebeen Amanaka."

And also thanks to the skills learned atManchester, Sammy is now able tohelp groups in the slum by writingconstitutions and proposals andlobbying the Kenyan authorities.

But it's his latest project - thought upduring the course of his studies -which he hopes will make thegreatest impact: Mathare CommunityRadio, which should be up andrunning soon.

Sammy says he will never forgetManchester and what it helped himachieve: "Manchester is like thewaters in a well. You get to drink thewater because you're thirsty but mythirst grows daily. I would like one dayto return.”

To millions of fans Toby Jones, aka Dobbythe house elf, is a little creature with bat-like ears and bulging green eyes the size oftennis balls. After much speculation aboutwhether Dobby would come back, Jones iscurrently busy filming the last two Pottermovies. Without wishing to spoil theending, Dobby - a computer-generatedimage character voiced by Jones - iseventually killed saving Harry’s life in whatpromises to be a dramatic climax.

In between playing the magical creaturecreated by JK Rowling, Jones is alsocurrently starring at the National Theatre

in Tom Stoppard’s Every Good BoyDeserves Favour - whilst simultaneouslyrehearsing ‘Parlour Song’ at the AlmeidaTheatre. Oh, and he’s also giving a lecturea London University this week too. Justhow does he keep on top of it all?

“I don’t really,” he says. “I’m trying tosustain all the different strands and it’s a challenge trying to stay engaged withthem all. It’s very good to be so busythough, and my training at Manchestertaught me to have a very broad outlookand a diverse approach to acting.” Justas well.

As an undergraduate, Jones says that heand his fellow drama students wereencouraged to write and perform theirown work in the Stephen Joseph Studio.“I loved the way we were taught becauseit made us explore different versions ofourselves,” he recalls. But did he everimagine that his career would be quite asdiverse as it turned out to be? “I thoughtI would write and direct. Acting wasnever really the plan, but it’s just the wayit turned out.”

It has turned out very well, by anybody’sstandards. Jones was awarded the 2002

Actor, Toby Jones (BA Hons Drama 1989), spoke to us fromthe set of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“Acting was neverreally the plan…”

28 YOUR MANCHESTER

‘W’ Toby Jones, second from right, as Karl Rove

‘Parlour Song’ Toby Jones (Ned) with Amanda Drew (Joy)

Toby Jones’ return to the University

© Donald Cooper / Rex Features

© Lions Gate/Everett / Rex Features

Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actor in aSupporting Role for his performance in The Play WhatI Wrote at the Wyndham Theatre, London. He has alsofound critical acclaim in Hollywood, winning theLondon Film Critics Circle ‘Best British Actor’ for hisportrayal of Truman Capote in Infamous in 2006.Continuing the theme of US politics he went on to actin Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon and in ‘W’, the chronicleof President’s George W Bush’s life and presidency byOliver Stone. There have been numerous other film,TV and stage appearances for Jones, including a partin Creation about the life of Charles Darwin and histortured relationship with his religious wife, scheduledfor release later this year.

Jones recently found time to return to the Universityto conduct a public lecture about his life and work forstaff and students in the School of Arts, Histories andCultures. According to James Thompson, a professorin the school – and long standing friend of Jones – hisperformance was ‘truly engaging’.

“Toby is one of those actors who can turn his handto so many different things and can reflect verycleverly about the craft and discipline of acting,” hesaid. “In fact he is one of our very best ambassadorsbecause he can link the practical with the scholarlyside of theatre which is exactly what we try to dohere in Manchester.”

Dobby might be being finished off, but one gets the feeling that Toby Jones has a lot more magic stillto come.

‘Infamous’ Toby Jones as Truman Capote

‘Infamous’ Toby Jones with Sigourney Weaver

‘Frost/Nixon’ Toby Jones as Swifty Lazar

Dobby from the Harry Potter Filmsvoiced by Toby Jones

Image courtesy of Jonathan McDowell

© Warner Ind/Everett / Rex Features

© Warner Ind/Everett / Rex Features

© Universal/Everett / Rex Features

YOUR MANCHESTER 29

Although the words ‘student’ and‘poverty’ have been linked for manyyears, the halcyon days of the 1960s and70s - when poorer students could claim afull grant, as well as additional fundingto cover transport to and from university,and unemployment benefit during theholidays - are unthinkable today.

So what exactly does it cost to be astudent in 2009? Estimates by both theNational Union of Students and TheUniversity of Manchester, state that itcosts approximately £7,000 to study full-time at Manchester during the year2008-09.

£7,000 would pay for accommodation(the average cost for self-catering hallsat Manchester is £3,250 for 39 weeks),meals, books and stationary, clothes,local transport and other general living expenses, such as photocopyingand printing, laundry, phone calls,entertainment, sports and cooking equipment.

The term ‘entertainment’, a pseudo-necessity, will no doubt be met by manya wry smile by those who recogniseexactly what those expensively hedonisticnights on the town often entail. Suchfond memories will probably be

countered by the sobering knowledgethat the average student living outsideLondon has just £13.87 per week to liveon after paying their housing and utilitiescosts out of their student loans.

With the average graduate debt totalling£12,363 in 2007, such a conundrumleaves hard-up students with threeoptions: apply for one of severalscholarships offered by the University(see page 44), apply for a Hardship Loanof between £100 and £500, or go out towork and become a (partially) self-financing adult. While modern-daystudent loans are designed to pay a

30 YOUR MANCHESTER

All Work and Low Pay

With the grim realityof an economic crisisall around us, moreand more studentsare experiencingday-to-day financialdifficulties...

proportion of the tuition fees, as well asliving costs, the Hardship Loan is onlyobtainable by those who have appliedfor the maximum amount of studentloan. As a result, many students havelittle choice but to seek employment.

Whereas in the past top universities suchas Oxbridge prohibited their studentsfrom working part-time, the class of2009 really does have to work to pay itsway. More than half of students workduring term-time to fund their studies,while 86 per cent have worked duringthe summer vacation period.

Not only has the proportion of studentsin part-time employment been increasingdramatically over the past decade, butwe’ve also seen an alarming increase inthe number of students working full-time. It’s not difficult to understand whyOxbridge and other Russell Groupuniversities have discouraged theirstudents from seeking employment: aquarter of students who work reporthaving missed lectures, seminars ortutorials due to paid responsibilities,while almost one in five have misseddeadlines. Law graduate and Students’Union Welfare Officer Ellie Reyland isconcerned by the findings:

“Around 40 per cent of studentsworking full-time feel that employmenthas impacted on their studies. This is aworrying trend. Low paid jobs meanstudents have to work for longer, whichaffects their studying to a greater extent.Trade union membership is also very low

among full-time students. I wouldencourage all working students to join atrade union.”

Unsurprisingly, most students are forced toundertake work which has little or norelevance to their studies. Like almost aquarter of full-time students, final-yearEnglish and Drama student Jennie Aggworks in the hotel and restaurants sector,spending more hours per week waitressingat a noodle bar in popular student hauntFallowfield than she does in the lecturetheatre. “While I do enjoy my job, Icertainly wouldn’t do it if I could afford notto,” she says. “I want to be a journalistwhen I graduate, but in the meantime I get treated like a skivvy by some of thecustomers who come in. When it comes tomy coursework, extracurricular activitiesand job, it can feel like there aren’t enoughhours in the week!”

Working isn’t the only option thecontemporary student has for curbingstudent debt however. While one canonly predict that fewer students will beable to afford the rents in ensuite cateredhalls of residence, the sight of atracksuit-clad student carrying theubiquitous Lidl bag along Oxford Road,laden with cans of baked beans andother cut-price essentials is far from justa stereotype these days.

One way many students avoidperpetrating this stereotype further is byparticipating in a mass exodus: back toMum and Dad’s. A surprising 22 per centof students now live with their parents,

although this figure almost doublesamong the poorest social classes. Yet,despite hailing from the GreaterManchester town of Urmston, third-yearPharmacy student Ali Yazdi preferred tolive with friends while studying at theUniversity, in spite of financial pressures.

“In my second year I worked part-time inTesco, stacking shelves and working at thecheck-out, to make a bit of extra money,”he recalls. “But in third year I reallyneeded to concentrate on my coursework, so I moved into the ‘box’ room ofthe house I was renting with my friends.The size of the room meant I could payless rent and was able to stop workingpart-time thanks to the money I saved.”

Perhaps students’ problems should belooked at in the light of former PrimeMinister Tony Blair’s plans for 50 per centof young people to attend highereducation by the year 2010. With thatdeadline only months away, it’s probablyjust as well that this goal will not bereached. Widening participation, andfacilitating the education of more giftedpupils, is undoubtedly important in theUK. Nevertheless, have we as a nationseriously considered the real cost of suchan ambitious policy?

YOUR MANCHESTER 31

Manchester graduate, SusannahBirkwood (BA Hons Linguistics andSpanish 2008), is editor of Student Direct- the University’s weekly studentnewspaper.www.student-direct.co.uk

32 YOUR MANCHESTER

Manchester’s Oxford Road is strewn withfruit boxes covered in slogans, there arebanners hung from trees and the hopefuland the headstrong are out on thepavement armed with fistfuls of flyers: itis election time again at the Students’Union.

Whatever the post - President,Communications, Societies, or thepolitical slant, it’s a well-worn path forthose dogged enough to endure theelectoral process, followed by life as anexecutive officer. It’s all consuming. It’s amajor learning experience. It’s somethingyou never forget.

But what comes next?

For many the politics continues, but onthe national stage. Ed Straw – brother ofJack – was President of the UnionCouncil at the then Owens campus in1970 and took up office “in thoseturbulent times of street revolt, freshfrom an anti-Springbok tour, Vietnamwar or student grant increase demo”.

Ed Straw admits to having “no idea”where he would end up. “Careers werenot something which had any space inthe minds of us idealistic and naïvestudent politicians,” he says. “Possiblythe most use of the ‘hurly burly’ of

Union life was in my work for John Smithon the organisation of the Labour Party,which went on to become one of thebuilding blocks of New Labour.”

Now a partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers,he admits his Union experience was“both a baptism of smoke and sometimesfire, and a round of unusual experiences.”Perhaps the most memorable experience,he adds, was handing over £3,400 to theRolling Stones for promoting two concertsat the Free Trade Hall.

The path into politics has been followed bya number of former Union ‘hacks’. DavidClark for example, was President of the

Taking Up OfficeStudent politics in Manchester has been a valuable training ground forpoliticos, media commentators, broadcasters, policy advisors, entrepreneurs andinvestment bankers, as Steve Connor discovers

YOUR MANCHESTER 33

Student Union in 1964, and after a furtherdegree at UMIST, became the Member ofParliament for Colne Valley in 1970 andserved in Tony Blair’s first Cabinet. NowLord Clark of Windermere, he is Chairmanof the Forestry Commission.

Nick Brown, the MP for Newcastle, isanother officer-turned-politico. He wasPublicity Secretary at the Owens Union in1971 and later gave the 1989/90Communications Officer, Derek Draper,his first job in national politics as an aidein his constituency office.

Draper’s colourful Union career wasmatched by a headline-making stint asan ‘architect’ of New Labour, then as aleading lobbyist and latterly as apsychotherapist and political ‘blogger’who hit the headlines earlier this year.

Following hard on the heels of Draperwas Liam Byrne, also a CommunicationsOfficer in the early 90s and today theMember of Parliament for Birmingham,Minister for the Cabinet Office andChancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Running for office appears to be a habitthat is hard to kick, but there are plentyof Union officers who have taken a

different course. John Barnes, forexample, was first elected in 1969 butwent on to work for Proctor and Gamble.He then carved out a hugely successfulcareer as a restaurateur. The old cliché ‘Ifyou can't stand the heat stay out of thekitchen’ has a special resonance for him.He says “In my case I got used to theheat in Student Union politics at Owens -particularly the hustings when standingfor Union President in 1970. And I havespent most of my career enjoying life inthe kitchen".

As well as taking Harry Ramsdens fromone restaurant to 70 in seven countries,Barnes also developed the La Tasca chainand then the latest Ego MediterraneanRestaurants.

Others choose entrepreneurialism overelections. Sabih Behzad was electedPresident at the UMIST union in 1999 andit was during his time on the Exec that hedecided, somewhat to his surprise, tobecome an investment banker.

“Still in the midst of the dot-com boomin the 90s, I was convinced that anentrepreneurial career was my most likelyroute to success and that is what Iwanted to do as soon as I finished my

sabbatical year,” he says from his officeat Nomura. “On reflection, I gained agreat many skills in those formativeyears. Learning to handle bureaucracy,speaking in front of large groups, andtrying to understand how a balancesheet works, were an excellent platformto build my skills.”

Sabih Behza describes his time as UnionPresident as possibly the most enjoyableyear of his life so far.

Dominic Herrington, now a civil servant atthe Department for Children, Schools andFamilies, also found his year on the Execin 1989 a rewarding start to professionallife: “I had no idea I would end up whereI did, although I suppose education is atheme,” he says. “It taught meorganisational skills. It taught me aboutpolitics with a little p in spades. And ittaught me not to take myself tooseriously in future, and that I valued lifeout of 'work' as much as in it.”

Emerging from Union life comes a cadreof politicos, media commentators andbroadcasters, policy advisors,entrepreneurs and investment bankers.Importantly though, for many, theexperience was about keeping studentsentertained as well as entangled inpolitics. The last word goes to Kit Bailey,a Women’s Officer in the late 80s."When I took up office I was excited andterrified in equal measures,” she says. “Itwas a traditionally very radical Students’Union, with an even more radicaltradition of Women's Officers and herewas I, on an Exec with some of the mostoutspoken, dynamic and 'blokey' youngmen I'd ever met!

“I had no idea that I would end upworking in the music business, but thegeneral cut and thrust of Union politicsand dealing with very confident and clevermen, who were not always the mostsympathetic to feminist ideas, definitelyhelped! It's also the friendships that youmake during that time that often last - if ithadn't been for our then EntertainmentsManager, I would never have worked on aSpice Girls' Christmas Tour whilstsimultaneously producing the live musicside of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards!"

Liam Byrne

Nick Brown David Clark Behzad Sabih

Ed Straw

Steve Connor (BA Hons English Languageand Literature 1991) was elected asMancunion Editor in 1989 and now runsthe Manchester-based communicationsagency, Creative Concern.

34 YOUR MANCHESTER

What did you read at university whenyou weren’t grappling with books on theseemingly endless course reading lists?

Hopefully being an undergraduateaffords the luxury of being able toexplore writers outside the confines ofstudy. And occasionally books read offcurriculum can have a profound effect.Jonathan Trigell, award-winning writer ofthe book Boy A and a graduate inEnglish Language and English Literature,says it was one particular author whoprompted him to come to Manchester inthe 1990s in the first place.

“Anthony Burgess was my favouritewriter when I arrived at university,” saysTrigell, who also gained an MA in NovelWriting in 2002. “In fact, his having beento Manchester was one of my reasons for

going there,” he confesses. Burgessstudied English Language and Literatureat the University in the 1940s.

“As a first year I read Burgess’s A DeadMan in Deptford, which was a muchmore interesting take on ChristopherMarlowe than all the academic stuff,” he continues. “I had a favourite spot inthe University library basement, not sure I could take you there now because itwas tucked away down circuitouscorridors and stairs, but it was reallypeaceful and you could drink beer andeat crisps while reading. It used to benear the graphic novels, which I enjoyedtoo: they were kind of hidden away likethe secret black library that studentsweren’t supposed to enter. But there wasa complete bound set of Dave Sim’sgroundbreaking Cerebus series, which is

an amazing read: the Melmoth book, forexample, is an exploration of the finaldays and death of Oscar Wilde.”

Jonathan hasn’t been the only graduatewhose life has been transformed by awriter. Wilfred Hopkins, who under thename Billy Hopkins, is a million-sellingauthor of such titles as Our Kid and HighHopes, admits that he too foundinspiration in the words of one particularscribe whilst at university.

Wilfred, who graduated with a BA inSocial Sciences in 1955 and went on tocomplete a MEd Education in 1968,recalls the books around at the time.

“As for leisure reading - that’s a laugh!What leisure? - we had Lloyd CDouglas's The Robe and a book I read

From Jilly Cooper toAnthony Burgess,Manchester alumnirecall their sometimesguilty literarypleasures

What were you reading?

several times (I needed to!) The Power of Positive Thinking by Vincent Peale.

“But if I were to name the writer whohad the greatest influence on my ownwriting and one who inspired me to trywriting myself, it has to be PaddyChayevsky, who wrote many TV andscreen plays. His simple, straightforwardstyle I have tried to imitate ever since,but he was undoubtedly the master. Thequotation from Chayevsky which has hadthe greatest influence on me and mademe want to write is the following:

"Our lives are filled withendless moments of stimulusand depression. We relate toeach other in an incrediblycomplicated manner. Everyfibre of relationship is worth adramatic study. There is farmore exciting drama in thereasons why a man getsmarried than in why hemurders someone. The manwho is unhappy in his job, thewife who thinks of a lover, thegirl who wants to get intotelevision, your father, mother,sister, brothers, cousins, friends- all these are better subjectsfor drama than Iago."

Dramatic stuff. And CarolaDunn, a 1967 BA Artsgraduate now living in Oregonand writer of historicalromances and mystery novels,admits no less a passion forreading the fiction which hasinformed her own work.

“My greatest love was sciencefiction - a huge relief betweenall those heavyweight (in all senses)Russian novels,” she recalls.

“I also read every book on the shelves athome, mostly British novels of the 1940sand 1950s and Françoise Sagan as lightrelief from Père Goriot (actually, I neverdid read the whole of Père Goriotthough it was a set book at school aswell as at Manchester).

“And I read Georgette Heyer, who wasdirectly responsible for my later writing32 full length Regencies. I can blameDorothy Sayers and Patricia Wentworth,and of course the inimitable Christie, formy own murder mysteries, nownumbering 17 or so.

“But if there was nothing else to read,the back of a cornflakes packet woulddo. I'm a printed-word junkie.”

By contrast, the Russian heavyweightswere the only light relief from herMBChB Medicine studies in 1937 for Dr Nina Murray.

The 95-year-old has just published anautobiography Ninachka: The Making ofan Englishwoman detailing her life in afamily of white Russians fleeing theoppression of the revolution. “My fatherused to read us the Russian classics whenwe came home. We also read Dickensbut that was about it. We had little timefor extra curricular activities.”

Fast forward to the 1990s, and theexperiences of Nemone Metaxas couldn’tbe more different. The BBC disc jockeyoriginally came to Manchester to studyMaths and Philosophy but switched toPsychology, gaining her degree in 1991.

“I loved our course reading and some ofthe books were those you might just pickup for fun even if they weren't on asyllabus,” she says.

“I loved the Cornerhouse cinema'sbookshop on Oxford Road, and couldlose myself in the myriad of stationeryand film-orientated literature. It's a realtreasure trove. In my time, it was toppedby the glass-cased second floor coffeeshop. I can remember it became afavourite meeting place for a while. I stillhave Robert Rodriguez's Rebel without a

Crew which I picked up from there. Itbecame an inspiration to me. His journeyfrom wannabe film-maker to Hollywooddarling spoke volumes to me at a timewhen I still hadn't fathomed out how toplan my career.”

The ‘guilty pleasure’ of extra curricularreading works its magic in many ways.For Janine Watson, a 1981 BA Hons inEconomics graduate and member of theAlumni Association Advisory Board, itwas the desire to get to grips withuniversity life in the city of Manchesterthat led her to buy the works of

CP Snow and Kingsley Amis’sLucky Jim.

“And what I did do was read thethen very racy novels of JillyCooper, which all had girl’snames like Annabelle and Emilyand which I knew were rubbish,but were a distraction from theworks of Kant and Hegel and allthose other heavyweights I had toread on my course.

“Oh! And I also read an awful lotof cook books. There were sevenof us in one house and theWomen’s Own cook book wasour bible.”

It isn’t just reading that inspiresstudents, but encounteringwriters themselves. JonathanTrigell recalls seeing writers suchas Jake Arnott, Anna Davis andMagnus Mills while inManchester and even furtherback in time Andy Spinoza, agraduate in Combined Studies in1982 and now Chair of theAlumni Association, recalls a

famous Kurt Vonnegut visit.

“I had read Slaughterhouse 5 as part ofmy American Studies course andremember Vonnegut coming to theUniversity,” he says.

“The event was held in a lecture theatreand it was packed with earnest studentsdressed like me in heavy greatcoats. Hemade quite an impression that has lasteddown the years.”

YOUR MANCHESTER 35

Comment on and share with us fondmemories of books you were readingwhist a student at the Victoria Universityof Manchester or UMIST and sign up toYour Manchester Online. See page 42 for details on how to register.www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

36 YOUR MANCHESTER

Good manners aren’t necessarily the firstcharacteristics that come to mind whenyou think of today’s student population.Take the stereotypical issues of stealingother students’ food from the fridge, orbeing late for lectures. Then, of course,there’s the all-night drinking culture youfind in university cities, and the trail ofdestruction that Saturday evening’srevellers leave in their wake.

But have students always behaved in thisway, or are their manners actually in

terminal decline? We got in touch with across-section of Alumni Associationmembers from around the world to getan idea of what manners were likeduring their time at Manchester, and toask them whether they thoughtetiquette had a place in the modernstudent’s world.

Sheila Griffiths (BA Hons History 1957, MAHistory 1985), Honorary Secretary of theAshburne Association, remembers a moreformal era in which “thank you notes were

written after an invitation from a memberof staff in hall or in your department, andinvitation notes were even sent betweenstudents – replies expected!”

The all-night drinking culture wascertainly not experienced by Sheila’sgeneration. She recounts: “We wereexceptionally well mannered at formaldances – your partner was expected toask one of the spinster tutors or thewarden to dance. Very little alcohol wasactually drunk in hall”.

Mind your manners!Does today’s informality oncampus mean students haveforgotten their manners?

As for borrowing your roommate’spossessions and forgetting to returnthem, Sheila tells us: “The odd pieceof clothing might get lost in ourterrible drying rooms, but I can’t recallany stealing.”

Some opportunities for bad behaviourdidn’t even exist in the 1950s, sincethere were no student fridges in halls,according to Sheila.

For Sheila and her contemporaries, goodmanners were a way of showing theirappreciation of the freedoms theyenjoyed. “Because we had survived aworld war, we were extremely grateful tohave been given a university place,” sheexplains. “Even the bohemians amongstus, who cut a dash by sitting in therefectory all day smoking and cuttinglectures, were quite civilised.”

However, she is quick to defend currentstudents against charges of rudeness.“They lead much more pressurised lives,which may explain why they’resometimes tempted to dispense withsocial niceties,” she says sympathetically.

Joyce Kennedy (MBChB 1958) agrees: “Ibelieve that social mores have changedfrom generation to generation, but basicgood manners – the means of living inharmony with other people withoutcausing them offence or embarrassment– haven’t,” she says.

For Dr Anna Ritsatakis (BA SocialAdministration 1963, MA Economic1968, PhD 1984), President of our Greekalumni group, this desire to avoidcausing offence by practicing goodmanners played a vital role in her studies.

“My first degree involved spending a lotof time in other people’s houses, not allof which were very clean and where wemight be offered dubious-looking cupsof tea,” she explains. “However, wewere instructed to always accepthospitality and respect the homes thatwe were visiting.”

Again, pinching food from otherstudents was frowned upon. “We didn’tever steal from the fridge,” she tells us.“I remember one of the girls I lived withwhipping a jar of jam out of her startledboyfriend’s hand and reminding him thatit was my jam as well.”

Elizabeth Pole (BA Hons Economics1990), Regional Coordinator for theAlumni Association of Manchester USAdoesn’t think young people are any rudertoday than they were in the late 80s and

early 90s: “My observation is thatpeople of all ages still hold open doors,give up their seat on the bus and helpwith heavy bags with the samefrequency that they did 20 or 30 yearsago,” she says.

Although Colin Lin (MSc InternationalBusiness 1999), representative for theAlumni Association in China, considersthe principles of good manners to beuniversal, he believes that a diversestudent body such as Manchester’sneeds to be tolerant of culturaldifferences.

“The Chinese definition of whatconstitutes bad manners is different insome respects to the British one,” hesays. “Non-Chinese students probablythought that we made far too muchnoise in the communal kitchens, and wewere occasionally shocked by theirdrunken antics.”

When commenting on the behaviour ofNigerian students at ManchesterOkwudili Emechebe (MSc EnvironmentalTechnology - 2005), representative forThe University of Manchester AlumniAssociation Nigeria, claims: “We werevery well mannered. We kept to ourupbringing – greeting elders first, helpingthe lecturers carry heavy things. Wealways turned up early for lectures and ifwe thought we would be late we wouldask a friend to apologise to the lectureron our behalf.” Okwudili considersmanners to be extremely important intoday’s society, but does concede thatthey have declined slightly over the yearsamongst students who “take their youthfor granted.”

Katherine Leopold (BA Hons German andLinguistics 2001) certainly used toencounter all sorts of behaviour whenshe ran the cloakroom at the OP Bop.“I’d end up standing on a chair at theend of the night, shouting that nobodywould be getting their coats back unlessan orderly queue was formed,” she says.

However, she recalls that the same rowdy partygoers were always veryconscientious about looking after peoplewho had drunk too much and becomeill. This informed her belief that there willalways be a place for good manners inthe modern student’s world.

One person who would definitely agreewith her is William Hanson, the country’syoungest expert on etiquette. Fresh fromhis appearances on E4’s Big Brother’sLittle Brother and the BBC’s The One

Show, the 19-year-old University ofManchester undergraduate is on amission to put social graces back in thespotlight. But where does his passionatebelief in the value of good mannerscome from?

It all started when his grandmother – a‘stickler’ for protocol – gave the twelveyear-old Hanson Debrett’s New Guide toEtiquette and Modern Manners forChristmas. He read it from cover to cover,and was soon laying out formal table-settings for his parents’ dinner parties.

Hanson’s impeccable behaviour didoccasionally get him into troublethough – he failed his first driving testafter repeatedly taking a hand off thewheel to thank people for letting himout at junctions.

Having given talks to Scout groups andworked for an interview-preparationagency, the Bristol-born smooth talkerfelt that embarking on a degree inLanguage, Literacy and Communicationat The University of Manchester was thenext logical step. You might expect himto have come in for some flak duringFreshers’ Week, but his peers have givenhim a warm welcome.

“Students are generally positive aboutwhat I do and why I do it,” Hanson says.“There hasn’t been any animosity here.”Not that you’d ever catch him pulling hisfriends up for breaking the rules – thelast thing that he wants to do is to makepeople feel uncomfortable.

“I’m not constantly telling people howthey should conduct themselves,” hesays. “If someone makes a faux pas theymight look at me to see my reaction, buttechnically it’s rude to tell people thatthey’re being ill-mannered.”

There are undoubtedly those who wouldview Hanson’s crusade to improve Britain’smanners as elitist, but he insists that hisaim is to make etiquette accessible toeveryone, rather than just a privilegedview: “People think that manners arethere to divide the classes. They aren’t.Whatever class you’re from, the principlesare the same: respect people and putthem at ease,” he explains.

YOUR MANCHESTER 37

Do you think students have lost theirmanners? Send in your views andcomments. Sign up to Your ManchesterOnline - see page 42 for details on how toregister.www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

38 YOUR MANCHESTER38 YOUR MANCHESTER

Alumni in the spotlight

Olivia Hallinan,(BA HonsDrama andEnglish 2006),recently starredas LauraTimmins in theBBC’s 2008production ofLark Rise to

Candleford. She also won criticalacclaim for her portrayal of Kim inSugar Rush, the controversial Channel4 adaptation of Julie Burchill’s novel.

As a child Olivia appeared in Casualty,The Bill, Holby City, My Family, JuliaJekyll and Harriet Hyde and the ITVadaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’sGirls in Love. She was also activelyinvolved in student drama during hertime at Manchester. In the final yearof her degree she played Emma in theTorchwood episode Out of Time, hada role in an episode of Trial andRetribution, and starred as the Girl inthe celebrated Radio Four Woman’sHour dramatisation of MargueriteDuras's novel The Lover.

TV star Olivia is onthe rise

Marion Rosenberg,OBE, (BA Hons FrenchStudies 1958) is aleading Hollywoodfigure who mostrecently served asExecutive Producer onthe Award-winningRevolutionary Road,which starred Oscar

winner Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.She is also a Director of the North AmericanFoundation of The University of Manchester.

Marion began her entertainment career inthe Bands and Acts Department of thetheatrical agency MCA. Between 1960 and1976 she worked on such films as I Could GoOn Singing with Judy Garland, Kaleidoscopewith Warren Beatty, The Best Man with HenryFonda, and Where Eagles Dare with RichardBurton and Clint Eastwood.

In 1976 she became head of EMI Films in LosAngeles, and served as Associate Producer onThe Deer Hunter. In 1980 she was appointedVice-President of The Lantz Office, a talentand literary agency representing such namesas Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Milos Formanand Peter Shaffer.

After a successful decade at The Lantz Office,she left to set up The Marion RosenbergOffice, a personal management andproduction company which currentlyrepresents such talents as director PaulVerhoeven, actors Claire Bloom and JeroenKrabbe, and novelist Allan Folsom, whosebook The Exile has a Manchester professor asits hero!

In 1987 Marion co-founded BAFTA LA. She chaired the UK Film Council US AdvisoryBoard, has served on the Board of theAssociation of Talent Agents, and is amember of the Board of Women In Film. Sheis also a member of the Academy of MotionPicture Arts and Sciences. In 1996 shereceived the Britannicus Award from theBritish-American Chamber of Commerce, andin 2001 she received an OBE from HerMajesty Queen Elizabeth for services to theBritish film industry.

Marion is passionate about The University ofManchester’s “commitment to access toeducation” agenda, and is a generous donortowards scholarships for inner city studentsfrom the Greater Manchester area.

Marion blazes a trial through Hollywood

© BBC, John Rogers

YOUR MANCHESTER 39

Entrepreneur Piers set tobecome a governmentambassador

Piers Linney, (BA HonsAccounting and Law 1994), is one of the government'sambassadors in a newinitiative which aims toprovide young black menwith positive role models. He was selected to be one oftwenty national role modelsfor the REACH project, which

was launched by Secretary of State for Communitiesand Salford MP, Hazel Blears. The REACH selectionpanel included young black men, winner of TheApprentice, Tim Campbell, and fashion designerOzwald Boateng.

"REACH has the potential to make a bigdifference to the lives of many young Black men.Our aim is to inspire them to maximise theirpotential.” he says.

After qualifying as a lawyer with SJ Berwin andworking in investment banking at Credit Suisse inthe City, Piers is now a director and majorshareholder of Genesis Communications, aleading independent provider of mobile andhosted IT solutions based in Bury, Manchester. Thecompany has annual revenues of £34 million,employs 250 staff and its key partners areVodafone and Microsoft.

A busy time for industryhigh flier

John McAdam, (PhD 1973,BSc Hons Chemical Physics1970), the seniorindependent director of J Sainsbury, has beenleading the search for a newchairman to succeed SirPhilip Hampton. The formerchief executive of ICI juggledthe interviews with his other

commitments as chairman at Rentokil Initial, wherehe is working alongside chief executive AlanBrown on a radical turnaround campaign.

After completing his PhD at The University ofManchester, John joined Unilever as a graduatetrainee, and went on to work for Birds Eye Walls,Unichemica and Quest. Born in Cumbria, he hasmaintained his links with the north-west through hischairmanship of United Utilities, and last year alsobecame a director of Rolls-Royce and Sara Lee Inc.

To read more alumni profiles please visit the alumni news section on the alumni community website Your Manchester Online. See page 42 for details on how to register. There is also a ‘distinguished alumni library’ which lists some of our eminent alumni.www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

YOUR MANCHESTER 39

Jacqueline’s grand designsJacquelineLlewelyn-Bowen,(BA Hons FrenchStudies 1987),(married to thedesigner LaurenceLlewelyn-Bowen)recently visitedWestminster Abbeyfor the Woman's

Own Children of Courage Awards inLondon where ten courageous childrenreceived medals from Prince Harry.

The 44-year-old author revealed a trendynew hairstyle and newly slender figure –having shed an astonishing five stone infive months!

Jackie worked for London party plannersbefore starting her own wedding

planning business. She went on to writethe Debrett's Wedding Guide 1993 andhas two children, Cecile and Hermione.

Since Laurence first appeared ontelevision Jackie has managed his career,acting as chairman and CEO to Llewelyn-Bowen Limited, which is a busy corporatestructure that operates design andlicensing interests around Laurence'stelevision profile. Jackie’s appearances ontelevision with Laurence include To theManor Bowen on Living TV and NorthernExposure for BBC Northern Ireland.

Jackie also owns a shop called Charmedin Port Isaac, Cornwall, selling a quirkyrange of giftware, homeware, andaccessories including exclusivelydesigned t-shirts and even equipment forcreating your own ‘posh picnic’.

Adventurer has world record in his sightsGraham Hughes, (BA Politics and ModernHistory 2000), really is a modern-dayPhileas Fogg! On 1 January 2009 he setoff from Buenos Aires on a world record-breaking attempt to visit every country onearth in the shortest possible timewithout taking a single flight. His aim isto raise £1 million for the charityWaterAid during his eleven-month trip,which will be filmed by Lonely PlanetTelevision for an eight-part TV series.

Averaging 150 miles travel a day,Graham has already visited South

America, the USA, Canada, South Africaand mainland Europe, even finding timeto pop back to England for his 30thbirthday at the end of February.

Next up are the Middle East and CentralAsia, followed by India, the Far East,South East Asia, Australia and the PacificIslands. Graham’s epic journey will endin New Zealand, where he plans to askhis girlfriend to marry him. If he succeedsin his fundraising aim, the money hedonates to WaterAid will help to providesafe water, sanitation and hygiene formore than 60,000 people.

The Your ManchesterInsights Programmetakes place inManchester, Londonand a number ofinternational cities. It provides alumniwith the chance tohear from eminentacademics involved inground breakingresearch – and toengage in discussionand debate.

This year alumni andfriends heard from:

Professor Steve Furber (ICL Professor of Computer Engineering), who inhis lecture examined the role of computer science in modelling thecomponents of a human brain (see page 14); Professor Colin Sibley(Professor of Child Health and Physiology), who explained the vitalimportance of the placenta to a baby’s health (see page 16) and Dr PhilManning (Senior Lecturer in Palaeontology and Research Fellow), whounravelled the secrets from lost worlds. Looking in particular at dinosaurfossils he explored how fast they could run, what they looked like andeven the special conditions under which such fossils form. Dr Manningis currently producing a ten-part series on dinosaurs for NationalGeographic, which he will also present.

The achievements of five formerstudents have been recognisedwith Outstanding Alumni Awards.

Outstanding Alumni Awards are givento former students who have achieveddistinction within their profession, haveprovided exemplary service to theUniversity, or have made anoutstanding contribution of a personalhumanitarian nature.

The following alumni have recentlyreceived an Outstanding Alumni Awardfrom the University:

Professor Helen Whitwell MBChB,FRCPath DMJ (Path), FACBS, FFFLMMBChB Bachelor of Medicine andSurgery 1977Consultant pathologist to the HomeOffice in the Midlands

Jeremy CollerBSc Hons Management Sciences 1982Chief Executive, Coller Capital Limited

Richard HarveyBSc Hons Mathematics in 1971Former Chief Executive of Aviva plc –currently performing hands-on charitablework in Africa for Concern Universal

Dr Lazaros S SavvidesPhD Chemical Engineering 1972Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior,Cyprus

John P Cheffins FREng CBEBSc Hons Mechanical Engineering 1971Former Chief Operating Officer, Rolls-Royce plc

40 YOUR MANCHESTER

OutstandingAlumni Awards

Events to explore global issues and solutions

Insights

Your Manchester Online registrants can read more about past andforthcoming events including the Cockcroft Rutherford lectures and theannual alumni London dinner by visiting Your Manchester Online (see page 42). www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

Dr Phil Manning

From left to right: Professor Anthony Freemont, Head of Research School Clinical and LaboratorySciences; Professor Helen Whitwell and Professor Alan North, Vice-President and Dean

Meet our Outstanding Alumni Awardrecipients by visiting Your ManchesterOnline (see page 42).www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

YOUR MANCHESTER 41

InternationalNetworkMembers of the Alumni Associationenjoyed three events across mainlandChina (in Shanghai and Beijing) and HongKong, each hosted by Professor AlistairUlph, Vice-President and Dean.

Read about alumni activities within yourown particular country by YourManchester Online (see page 42).www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

Medical NetworkThe class of 1958 medical graduatesreunited for their 50th anniversary sincegraduation at a reunion held here at the University.

Read about all our medical reunions pastand present by visiting Your ManchesterOnline (see page 42).www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

2008

1958

Many of the articles within themagazine have directed you to thealumni online community – YourManchester Online - designed tokeep you updated with the latestnews and activities. Here is a quickreminder of how to register:

1. Log on to

www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

2. Click on the Registration button

3. Enter your alumni ID number. This number appears on your alumnimembership card.

4. Create a User ID (a name you selectwhen registering on the site) and a

password (which you will need toremember, or keep in a safe place forfuture use).

5. You will gain immediate access to someparts of the website and then as soon asyour information has been validated youwill have complete access to the securefeatures, such as the Alumni Directory andthe Events Registration pages.

Already registered?While some parts of the website areaccessible without needing to login, most

of the features are secure and cannot beseen until you have logged in fully. Toenjoy the full YMO experience please loginfirst using your User ID (the name youselected when you registered on the site,not your alumni ID, see point 4 above) andyour password (see point 4 above).

The Alumni Association’s graduatebody is encouraged to participate inthe proceedings of the Associationincluding elections - such as AlumniAssociation representation on theUniversity’s Board of Governors andGeneral Assembly, and the elections ofa Chancellor for the University.

If you wish to be kept informed of theproceedings of the Association and toexercise your voting rights please ensurethat you are registered with the alumni

online community – Your ManchesterOnline (YMO) – and that your emailaddress is kept up-to-date.

If you do not have access to the Internetand have not told us that you wish to bekept informed of the proceedings of theAssociation, please contact the Divisionof Development and Alumni Relations(using the contact details shown on page 3) and request this information viathe postal system.

The Alumni Register

42 YOUR MANCHESTER

ForthcomingCareer FairsThe Graduate Recruitment FairWednesday 17 - Thursday 18 June 2009

The Engineering, Science andTechnology FairWednesday, 21 October 2009

The Finance, Business andManagement FairThursday 22 October 2009

The Postgraduate Study FairWednesday, 28 October 2009

The Law FairThursday, 29 October 2009

www.manchester.ac.uk/careers/fairs

The gateway to lifelong connections

Online

Having problems registering or loggingin? Lost your alumni membership card orneed to be reminded of your User ID orpassword? If so, contactalumni@manchester.ac.uk

What is the Government Matched Funding Scheme?

• The UK Government has launched aprogramme to encourage gifts fromalumni and others to supportEnglish Higher Educationinstitutions, known as the MatchedFunding Scheme.

• As a former student, wherever youare in the world, we can add atleast a third to the value of yourgift, at no extra cost to you.

• For UK donors, this 33% bonus willbe applied both to the gift itself andto the value of Gift Aid. This meansthe value of your gift could beincreased by 70%.

Which gifts qualify?

• Donations from all donors, givensince 1 August 2008

• Gift Aided donations

• Gifts from UK and internationalindividuals, companies andcharitable trusts

• All gifts to Your Manchester Fund(see pages 44-45). Certain limitsapply to major gifts above £150,000

• Shares, valued at the time receivedby the Division of Development andAlumni Relations

Which gifts do not qualify?

• Any gifts made after 1 August2011, or after the University'sallocation from the Government hasrun out (whichever occurs first)

• Gifts in kind

• Legacies

To find out if any other forms of giving are eligible for Matched Funding,please contact Chris Cox, Director of Development – tel (44) (0)161 275 2620,email Chris.Cox@manchester.ac.uk – for further information

Participation is the key......only you can help usunlock the funds

YOUR MANCHESTER 43

Together we’re shapingthe world of tomorrow

Fund

Your Gift Your Gift with Gift Aid

Your Gift withGift Aid andMatched Funding

Effect on your gift

£29.37 £37.59 £50 +70%

£117.48 £150.37 £200 +70%

£588.68 £735.85 £1,000 +70%

Donald KamugishaMSc Electrical PowerSystems Engineering

Donald was attracted toManchester by theprestige of the Universityand the fact that researchteams here are amongstthe best in the field ofElectrical and ElectronicEngineering.

After completing hismasters degree, Donaldhopes to return to Uganda to use his acquired skills: “My country isstruggling with lack of forward movement in the energy sector andneeds bright and innovative people to come in; that is why thisdegree will be very important because I will be able to contribute tothis cause.”

Donald is incredibly grateful to Manchester’s alumni for providing him,and other scholarship recipients, with the opportunity to study here;“Every student that they support has an impact that reverberates to alltowns and villages in the developing world”.

Global Outreach enables students from thedeveloping world to study beyond borders andfulfil their potential whilst diversifying the talentpool at ManchesterThis initiative helps talented students from developing countries byproviding funds to cover their living costs during their studies here.The University waives the tuition fee in full for these students, whilstit is the generosity of alumni which has provided funding to cover allaspects of their living costs, from accommodation to transport costs.

Students belonging to this programme are studying on courses thatare likely to be of greatest benefit to their home country.

Your Manchester Fund plays a pivotal role in ground-breakinginitiative at the University, which is working closely with partnerschools and agencies overseas in Uganda and Malawi to findstudents from the developing world with the academic potential tocome to Manchester straight from school, or for postgraduate study.Due to the success of the programme, it will be made available forstudents in Bangladesh for the first time in 2009.

Since 2007, donors to Your Manchester Fund have contributedtowards providing opportunities to 15 students from developingcountries on this programme.

Hayley HepworthMBChB MedicineFaculty of Medical andHuman Sciences

“These scholarships areof immeasurable valueto students such asmyself who come fromless affluent families.Without this financialaid, studying for adegree in medicine (or any degree at all)may have proveddifficult, if notimpossible for me. Iwould like to thankthose who have donated money towards these scholarships as theyhave enabled me to prioritise my academic concerns. As a result, Ihope that I will experience more success academically. I have alreadyspent a large amount on books and resources related to my courseand knowing that I have extra money available for this is extremelyhelpful. I also anticipate that my future travel costs to reach clinicalplacements may be high and hopefully the scholarship should coversome of this expense.”

44 YOUR MANCHESTER

Global Outreach

Your Manchester Fund is the annual giving programme forThe University of Manchester, which creates opportunitiesfor thousands of current students through the generousfinancial support of Manchester’s alumni and friends.Funding is allocated to five key student-focused areas:Opportunity Manchester, Global Outreach, ReasearchImpact, Bridging Hardship and Learning Enrichment

Together we’re shapingthe world of tomorrow

Fund

Opportunity Manchester inspires deserving studentsto raise their aspirations and to realise theirpotential at ManchesterOpportunity Manchester Scholarships help to ease the financial strain ofeducation on students and their families, many of whom come fromlower socio economic backgrounds and have no experience of highereducation. The most deserving students are provided with a £1,000scholarship in their first year to help ease the transition between schooland university.

The scholarship programme is aimed at students in the local areawho have proved their ability and commitment to study throughachieving exceptional A level results and participating in theManchester Access Programme summer school.

Thanks to generous donations to Your Manchester Fund, 210students have benefited to date.

OpportunityManchester

Learning Enrichment comes in many forms – all positively enhancing the student experience at Manchester

Learning Enrichment Awards underpin our determination to provideand continually improve a world class teaching and learningenvironment at Manchester. Since 2004, projects such asManchester RAG, the University Counselling Service and StudentAction have been funded to a total of £307,500. Most recently, theLibrary, Careers Service and Disability Support Office have benefitedfrom alumni generosity.

Andrew Spinoza, Chair of the Alumni Association and YourManchester Fund Steering Group, made a special visit to theUniversity in October 2008 to officially unveil the latest package ofawards designed to enhance the learning experience across campus.

This package included a social learning environment in the Librarywhich provides refreshments to students studying throughout theday and on into the evening hours. The ‘Library Lounge’ has provedto be very popular with students.

Your Manchester Fund has also equipped the Careers Service with apodcasting facility which allows students to visualise and experiencepotential employment environments, and get first-hand advice fromtoday’s business leaders to support their employment applicationsand career aspirations.

YOUR MANCHESTER 45

Learning Enrichment

Research Impact Research Impact supports Manchester’s most talentedstudents as they undertake solutions-driven researchinto issues of national and international importance

Research Impact scholarships encourage final year Manchesterundergraduates and recent graduates to join top quality researchteams in seeking to solve some of the most challenging problems weface today – from poverty and cancer though to global warming anddebilitating medical conditions.

Generous support to these areas currently provides 28 postgraduatestudents with scholarships for the full three years of their PhD study.

Research Impact Scholarships are focused on six key areas:

• World Poverty – creating and sharing knowledge to help end poverty

• Cancer 2015 – translating leading research into life-saving realities

• Carbon Reduction – Putting our energies into the environment

• Regenerative Medicine – Advancing our human potential

• Science and Society – Promoting science and technology for thepublic good

• Social Cohesion – studying our communities to strengthen our society

Bridging HardshipBridging Hardship offers a helping hand to hard-hitstudents in order to see them through their studies at ManchesterBridging Hardship can mean the difference between a studentsuccessfully completing a degree course and having to end it prematurelybecause of misfortune. Any student, like any one of us, can be hit byunexpected problems at any time, causing temporary, but often critical,financial difficulties.

Our experience tells us that there are many reasons for unforeseen loss ofan income source: accident, illness or death in the family, a sponsoringcompany going out of business, or a natural disaster. Political, economicand environmental crises occur every day in the news and we can forgetthat this affects our individual students.

Your Manchester Fund has purchased a minibus to transport studentsto and from their volunteering projects easily and safely, providinggreater accessibility to community locations across Greater Manchester

Khaqan KhanBridging HardshipRecipientMSc Human ResourceDevelopmentFaculty of Humanities

“I really appreciate thesupport I have beengranted by YourManchester Fund, itmeans a lot to me inmany ways. TheBridging Hardshipaward has strengthenedme not only financiallybut it has also boostedmy enthusiasm and dedication to complete my dissertation and my degree.”

Rob AhearneResearch ImpactScholar, World Poverty

One of the ResearchImpact Scholarshiprecipients, Rob Ahearne,is undertaking researchunder the area WorldPoverty.

“In my PhD I aim tochallenge some of themainstream theories andunderstandings in contemporary international development”. In hisfieldwork Rob is working directly with local people in rural Tanzania inorder to have first-hand knowledge of their experiences and opinions.“The funding has supported my everyday life and meant that I have beenable to attend numerous relevant workshops and conferences.” he says.

46 YOUR MANCHESTER

Pleasepay

YYYYMMDD

£

Amountin words

Commencing on the

Name

Address Email

Tel

Postcode

Nameof bank

Bankaddress

Your account number

Sort code /

Postcode

/

Date

for years OR Until further notice(please tick)

Startdate /

Single Gift by Cheque or Credit Card

Date

Should name and address of card holder differ from the donordetails completed, please insert a note supplying these

£50 £200

£500

£1,000

Other

Visa CAFMaestro/Switch/SoloMastercard

I wish to make a donation of

Please charge the above amount to my

Expirydate

*

/

Card No

£100

* Please note not all cards havea start date or issue number.

I enclose a cheque made payable to‘The University of Manchester’

Regular Gift by Standing Order (please do not send this form to your bank)

Issueno

OR

The purpose of your gift

Your Manchester FundTo benefit the five student support priority areas at the discretion of theYour Manchester Fund Steering Group

the following Student Support area: (please tick)OpportunityManchester

Research Impact

Learning Enrichment

GlobalOutreach

Bridging Hardship

Other

Specific Research Theme (optional)

Please tick here if you would prefer your name not toappear in any future donor acknowledgement list

Donor Acknowledgement

If you are a UK taxpayer please take a moment to sign thisdeclaration. In so doing you will increase the value of your donationby 25% at no extra cost to you. For donations made from 6 April2008 to April 2011, HMRC will also add an additional 3% intransitional relief. A confirmation certificate will be sent upon receipt.I would like The University of Manchester to treat all donations I havemade for the past 6 tax years prior to this year, (but no earlier than06/04/2003) and all donations I make from that date of thisdeclaration until I notify you otherwise, as Gift Aid donations.

Gift Aid Declaration

Signature Date

Signature

Signature

Data Protection - 1998 Data Protection Act Your data is securely held in the University’s Division of Development and Alumni Relations and will be treated confidentially and with sensitivity for the benefitof the University and its members in accordance with the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998. The data is available to our schools and faculties, recognised alumni societies, sports and other clubsassociated with the University and is used for a full range of alumni activities including the sending of University publications and the notification of alumni events, fundraising programmes and for thepromotion of benefits and services. If you do not want your data to be used for the above purposes, please tick this box.

YOUR MANCHESTER FUNDShow your support for the transformational power of education and research.Your Manchester Fund is the programme through which thousands of Manchesteralumni target their support for a range of student scholarships, student supportresources, and research at the University. For further details on the priorities of the fund,or to donate online please see www.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchesterfund

Please complete in block capitals and return to:Your Manchester Fund,The Division of Development and Alumni Relations,The University of Manchester,Oxford Road,Manchester M13 9PLtel +44 (0)161 275 2619

Eachmonth yearquarter

to The University of Manchester Annual Fund donations account number30924369: Barclays Bank plc, Manchester City Office, PO Box 357, 51 Mosley Street, Manchester, M60 2AU (Sort code 20-55-34)

Please allow a minimum of 3 weeks to set up standing order

OR

Together we’re shapingthe world of tomorrow

Fund

REF: MAG 08/09

‹ ‹

YOUR MANCHESTER 47

When you remember The University ofManchester alongside your othercommitments in your will, you make astatement about the importance youattach to education, and the role thatuniversities play in tackling vital issues and moulding the responsible leaders of tomorrow.

A legacy to Manchester reflects yourvision and your values. Please visit ourwebsite or contact us today if you wouldlike more information.

Louise HancockResearch and Legacy Manageremail louise.hancock@manchester.ac.uktel +44 (0) 161 275 7230

RememberManchesterand say something about yourself

www.manchester.ac.uk/alumni/donorprogrammes/legacy

Legacy

J2303 05.09 The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL Royal Charter Number RC000797

Magazine Fund

Benefits News

Insights Networks

Views LegacyThe gateway to lifelong connections

Online

Your Alumni Association membership card entitles you to over 40 special discounts and offers. See the alumni community websitebelow for a full listing and click on ‘benefits and services’ – you will need to register if you have not already done so (see page 42). We have highlighted just a few of the benefits currently available below.

Alumni Benefitswww.manchester.ac.uk/yourmanchester

Irwin Mitchell SolicitorsWill Writing PromotionAvailable to members, at a specially discounted rate.Prices start at £69.00 (usually £100.00) for asingle Will and £99.00 (usually £175.00) for amirror Will (+VAT)

The Hospital and MedicalCare Association Is offering savings of up to 50% on privatemedical plans to members of The University ofManchester Alumni Association (UK only) and their immediate families

The MagazineGroupAlumni can save up to 75% on over 400 magazines andtrade journals

Cottages4YouA 10% discount is available foralumni on over 13,000properties in the UK and partsof Europe

This publlication is printed on FSC accreddited paper