Manchester in Motion
with Peter J Walsh
Peter Walsh captured a changing Manchester in the eighties before the movement would ripple around the world. As Acid House took over and raves became part of the weekend landscape, Peter was there capturing every aspect of the scene from the centre of the dancefloor to the bouncers at the door. Being a regular punter at the club allowed Peter to disappear into the crowds and capture from the inside out a radical moment in music history. Telling me about his career beginning capturing demos in Thatcherite Britain, Peter explains how he sharpened his skills and understanding of crowds on camera before taking on sweaty long nights at The Haçienda.
Peter also talks with me about the circulatory nature of arts and culture and how this influences his Buddhist practice. About the connection in our hearts and minds that the arts can bring us and how important this is for peace. How the parties and raves brought about creative change that shaped culture for the better and how the increasing attacks on culture today are cutting us off from experiencing new cultures and new ideas. He shares this quote with me from the Japanese Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda, “People who appreciate art and culture are important. Cultured people value peace and lead others to a world of beauty, hope and bright tomorrows. Tyrannical authority, on the other hand, only leads people to darkness - the opposite of art. For that reason, nurturing and spreading an appreciation for art and culture are crucial to creating peace.”
Interview by Esta Maffrett | 15.03.24
You first began photographing demonstrations in Manchester, how did you get into this?
I started taking a camera with me on family and holidays and things like that, my dad was quite into photography, around my 16th birthday my mum and dad bought me a really nice Canon camera. And so, I started to take more pictures as I got older. My dad was a trade union official for the NGA (National Graphical Association) which has all the printers of newspapers, cereal boxes, pound notes etc. In Manchester at the time there were a lot of demos going on because we were in the times of Thatcher and there was a lot of austerity especially up North, there wasn’t much money being put into things. Manchester City Council actively supported the demonstrations and so virtually every Saturday there would be one in town. So I used to go and photograph the things going on, the banners and the officials who would talk, I got talking to a couple of other photographers who were there all the time and we’d go for a cup of tea afterwards. They would give me tips and advice like having a wide lens and a longer lens and which ones to get, stuff like that.
I used to go to the Haçienda as a punter on a Friday and Saturday night before acid house when it was pretty empty, I’d go with my friend Mike, we’d play pinball and have a drink. One day I was leaving and walking home and passed a sign in the window that said ‘learn how to print and develop your own photographs’. It was at a Co-op called Counter Image where you paid a little money a year to join them for the materials like developing fluid or printing liquid and that was where I learned to print black & white. They used to have little exhibitions in the space and the first one I was involved with we got told to photograph ‘Things that you love about Manchester’. I went down to The Haçienda to photograph the front door and from across the road for a wider shot. Then there was a little record shop called The Record Peddler I photographed and things like that but it’s funny that some of the first photographs I took for an exhibition were of The Haçienda and yet I didn’t know where that would lead to further down the line.
John, one of the two photographers from demos who had helped me out, got me to print for him in the dark room in his house so for 12 months I was doing that and learning to print properly. That was such a great introduction to making things look properly good and the language of visual photography. I was soaking it up. After 12 months John and Paul said they were opening a Manchester agency and would I like to join? So I left my job and started working with them and started working with them to cover demonstrations and union conferences or if someone was presented with a plaque we’d get sent to cover it. We worked separately but once a month we would meet up and bring our prints and contact sheets to talk about the work and critique each other.
From demonstrations to music and clubbing both centre large crowds and people. Did you find it easy to translate your skills?
The training I had with the agency gave me the confidence to go into a situation, have a look at what’s going on and know in my mind what I needed to cover. Doing photography at demons you have to be quick so not to miss the shot. That’s why you have two cameras, one a wide angle and one with a wider lens, so you can catch more around you. You’d have a certain number of rolls on you, 36 pictures on a roll, and so you’d really have to know what you were photographing. So my grounding in documentary photography got my reflexes up in terms seeing a good picture.
I took my portfolio into City Life Magazine, like the equivalent of Timeout in London, began photographing for them and they sent me to do portraits, clubs, restaurants, fashion and some front covers for them. It was the next development for me and I started photographing different subjects. My skills crossed over and the camera in my brain and my hand melded together.
There were all these micro connections happening intermingling with ideas and creativity. It was great getting wide shots of The Haçienda but getting close stuff of individual dancers having these life changing moments within that space I felt really captured the essence and the spirit of it.
My favourite photo of yours is of the bar staff at The Haçienda. It shows something we see in a lot of your photos which is the world around the dancefloor as well as on it and how many people go into making a night happen. How did you come to this decision to not just photograph the dancefloor?
Because I’d gone to The Haçienda before Acid House and saw it as it started to happen it really felt like a moment of change. Something was going on here and the music was changing. I loved house music and techno the most, I was into dance music, and I would spend my spare time going clubbing and listening to DJs. It was a significant moment. I wanted to photograph it for myself and not only for the magazines but documenting bouncers and the backstage and queues because it was a shifting culture. Something really big was going on here but they didn’t realise how big at the time. I knew it was important because growing up I used to watch a lot of documentaries like The Rolling Stones and see that counterculture happening so I could see that happening. Being a regular I got to know everyone quite well. Angela is in the middle of the bar staff in the photo, everyone was a raver and when they weren’t working they’d be out dancing. Tony Wilson would get me to go and photograph parties and backstage whenever something was happening.
It wasn’t just about the bands or the music and the DJs. It was about the people, it felt sort of quite a socialist movement because it affected everybody and everybody who went shared d a mindset of being into it and wanting to enjoy themselves. If you went to other clubs in Manchester you had to wear a jacket, a shirt and a tie, and the culture was drinking with lads standing around the dancefloor and women dancing in the middle. You’d get fights because everyone was drunk. When you went to the Haçienda you could turn up in what you were wearing and the space was totally different to all other clubs. No sticky carpets. Because before they’d made the club they’d gone to New York's Paradise Garage and Danceteria and they’d gone ‘we want one of them in Manchester’. So they created this space in an old yachting warehouse and the people going were able to open up their mind on so many levels and experience something new. From the early days of Acid House until 1990 nobody really knew what was happening, the police didn’t care. Angela used to say that the beer sales dropped but the soft drinks and water just went through the roof.
So documenting it I felt like I had to cover everyone because they’re all just as important as each other. I did an interview with Tony for a short film and he talks about how there was no VIP area in The Haçienda like in other big clubs because the exciting things were happening on the dancefloor.
Your photos really centre the people in the scene and often groups of people at a time, were you interested in the feeling of community that was coming from it?
More clubs started opening up and the music was kicking off. People were becoming DJs, promoters, starting fashion labels, starting bands, starting their own clubs! So you had this entrepreneurial spirit like people could really change their lives. There was all this creativity that was being spawned by the music and it was amazing. Because of ecstasy arriving people weren’t fighting anymore but instead were chatting with people from different areas about how much they loved music. Not everybody was on drugs but it really shifted the energy. There were all these micro connections happening intermingling with ideas and creativity. It was great getting wide shots of The Haçienda but getting close stuff of individual dancers having these life changing moments within that space I felt really captured the essence and the spirit of it.
To archive something you must believe it’s important in the moment but often you’re also thinking about how it will be portrayed in the future. When you were capturing the scene were you thinking about how it could come under threat or how global it would become?
When The Haçienda was due to close the first time we thought that would really be forever. I set up a studio in the basement on the Friday and Saturday night to photograph the clubbers and ravers. All of us wondering if this would be the last time we’re in The Haçienda. I took those photos for myself to document it and a lot of them haven’t been scanned yet. Like when I photographed Joy, the rave in Rochdale, an all night thing that carried on to the next morning. About 2 o’clock in the morning I realised I was running out of film and I had to stop because I knew when the sun came up those photographs would be really important if not more important. So it was really important for me to capture as much as possible but I was also lucky enough to work with magazines like The Face and iD through commissions to document different parties. I thought this was going to be big but it got bigger and bigger and now it’s a worldwide billion dollar industry.
If you could put one object into the Museum of Youth Culture, what would it be and why?
I’ve got an old lighting kit which I used to photograph all the different bands and DJs which would be an interesting part of the backstage worlds. They’re called traveller lights.
Another thing, I don’t if you could get it, would be to capture the essence of what I was talking about with different people and cultures bonding together. Something that could represent that would be a great thing. When The Factory built Dry Bar on Oldham Street it was the first bar where you could go and get nice coffee during the day, maybe some food. Like a European bar in Manchester but before that time there weren't any bars like that, bars were pubs where you got a pint and maybe some crisps. I think that’s what Tony and everybody at Factory were trying to do. Tony was into The Situationists who said if you create something, something will happen. By creating something like art, music or photography you start a chain reaction which can move and change peoples minds.
You can follow Peter on Instagram here.
