Off topic for this blog, but indulge this expatriate Northerner. I wanted to mark the passing of Tony Wilson (aka Anthony, Anthony H) late of Granada TV, Factory Records, Hacienda and so on. We attended the same school (most emphatically NOT a public school!) in Salford but I outranked him by a year: I can actually remember him in a Sixth form uniform, a rather unlikely appearance in view of his later career. I have to admit my mum know Anthony a lot better than I did: he was a regular at the music club my family ran in Manchester, up to the time he founded his own.
The best obits I've seen are from today's (Manchester) Guardian
and the Manc Evening News and there's not a lot to add to them, apart from one sideline.
The last time I saw Anthony, he was chairing an Indies conference at the Salford Lowry, about 4 or 5 years ago I think. One highpoint was a mock news report he'd made which featured the 'news from the future' about the Manchester-based BBC-2 channel. Amongst the audience was the then head of BBC2, Jane Root. I don't believe anybody took the report seriously - well how wrong can you be?
