During Mario Farquharson’s first job interview as a teenager he sat opposite a man who spent the entire conversion filling his pipe and staring him down. When asked at the end if he’d like to contribute any questions he glared at Mario and said simply: “You Black b******.”
Bundled out of the room by shocked colleagues, Mario was told this display of outright racism was a ‘test’. It would prepare Mario for discrimination he would likely experience on the job as an electrician, they claimed.
“Was it a test? Of course it wasn’t,” says Mario now. And it’s not the only racial hatred he can recall from his years growing up in south Manchester during the 70s and 80s.
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He vividly remembers running from the old Moss Side bus depot along Princess Road on his way home from school as drivers hurled missiles at him. “I used to have to run home and they would be shouting out of the window of the car shouting ‘n*****, n*****’.
“It was like running a gauntlet. Especially in the evening,” he says.
It’s moments like this he is keen today’s young people don’t have to experience themselves. Mario is currently at the heart of an operation to revive Manchester’s Windrush Millennium Centre – a business centre in Hulme specifically for the West Indian and African communities.
More than 30 small businesses currently operate here. Among them is a soup kitchen run by an award-winning chef, a clothes exchange, a group providing STEM education to underrepresented communities and a community radio station. The centre is a hive of creative energy.
Mario has spent the last couple of years back on home turf after a long career working in human rights. He took a sabbatical from his role to return to Manchester and become chairman of the Moss Side and Hulme Community Development Trust. He is determined that entrepreneurial Mancunians from this area should have a headquarters where they are supported to thrive.
That’s certainly what he and his friend Andrew Wade experienced when they first left school in the 1980s. At that time, ‘elders’ like Mario’s dad taught many of the suburb’s young men a trade, like carpentry and electrics to arm them with skills for the real world.
“The younger generation didn’t trust the system. Schoolchildren were getting thrown in the back of cars and beaten and thrown back out onto Princess Road,” says Mario.
“Young people were reluctant to go outside of the area. One or two may have gone to Manchester Metropolitan University.
“The elders who were here were magistrates and they put a lot of time and energy into building the community. It was part of the Independent United Order of Mechanics.
“At about 16 me and Andrew would go to the headquarters in Claremont Road and we learnt a bit of everything. As soon as we finished school we went to work with these elders and they taught us a trade and discipline.”
Mario trained and worked initially as an electrician, then an electrical engineer before moving into construction and later, the law. He credits the Moss Side Independent United Order of Mechanics with his success.
These local men, or ‘elders’ put their efforts into guiding local young people and building the Moss Side community. The society focussed on philanthropy, mutual aid and moral education. As well as guiding young men into a trade or profession, they ran hostel accommodation for single parent mothers.
Among them was Whit Stennett MBE. He came to Manchester from Jamaica’s Dry Harbour in 1959 with nothing but a bible, £50 and a suitcase full of cricket gear. But he went on to become Trafford’s first black mayor and one of Greater Manchester’s most respected community figures.
Whit, now 91, first arrived in Manchester at the time when Manchester boarding houses hung signs saying `No Blacks, No Dogs and No Irish.’
He lived above his uncle’s greengrocer’s on Moss Lane East and says he was shocked by the poverty he witnessed in 1950s Manchester. “My first job was working in the market and I would go up Oldham Street and see white women scrubbing their steps. I came here as a nationalist but I thought ‘I’ve got to be a socialist’ after seeing that.”
Aside from dealing with Teddy Boys who were ‘nasty pieces of work’, he says his wife Gwendoline experienced racial hatred in her role as an NHS nurse. And he recalls a visit to a local Anglican Church when the minister took his hand and said: “I don’t mind you coming but my congregation said you seem too loud”. Whit later wrote to the church pointing out the sign that hung on their wall instructing worshippers to ‘make a joyful sound’.
Whit also witnessed persecution from police. He says he has seen drugs planted on black men or seen them bundled into a police van simply for having a laugh about the cricket – with officers claiming they were too loud and causing a ‘nuisance’.
“There were some good police officers but there were some who were just nasty nasty people,” he says.
Through the Mechanics – a community-oriented, lodge-based organisation – Whit worked with young black men to rise above the injustice they faced and seize opportunities. From a first floor shop on Claremont Road, the group supported members’ financial, social, and healthcare needs.
But it wasn’t easy, as police were concerned members were akin to something like the Black Panthers, in the US. “We came up against a lot of opposition,” Whit says.
“Our uniform was all black so we had police officers and undercover people following us. But we were just about working with the local men.
“Through the lodge we could get to these people who had had run-ins with police. We were strict but kind. Not everybody was ready for what we were saying.”
For Mario, being given the opportunity to progress in a career meant everything. He is keen that young men and women have similar opportunities and ambitions these days and that Manchester’s West Indian and African communities have a space to thrive.
He is tight-lipped about his life’s achievements and modest about his hand in the work here, but it’s clear he has been a huge driving force in revamping the Millennium Centre over the last couple of years.
“Without Mario we could have lost everything in Moss Side – the sports and social club, the Millennium Centre, The West Indian Centre on Carmoor Road in Longsight,” says Whit.
The former mayor and magistrate says now is the time for West Indian and African communities to shout about their achievements. And there is no better place to do it than at the Windrush Millennium Centre.
The Trust has been working at the Centre since 1989, supporting more than 1,000 small businesses. Founded to address the social and economic challenges facing Moss Side and Hulme, the Windrush Millennium Centre has evolved into a trusted hub for community-led initiatives.
Over the last few months Mario and his team have been working hard to install state-of-the-art kitchens, work spaces and a radio and podcasting studio at the centre.
Among those working at the centre day-to-day is Monsen Limbada, who runs the community pre-loved shop, where top of the line clothes are sold for between £3 and £5. “I know this area really well and it’s massively changed over the years,” he says.
“I remember when it was all gangs. It’s massively changed.
“I remember going shopping with my mum at the precinct and there were signs that said ‘Smash the National Front’.
“People have still got a bad perception [of Moss Side] but there are a lot of good people here. But people are struggling with the cost of living, which is why we have set this up.”
Over at the Clicksafe Club, staff are preparing to run holiday activities with a science, technology, engineering and mathematics focus. They offer these sessions to children aged five to 16.
In this little unit, Lego, cogs and batteries abound and the walls are adorned with inventions from young minds – such as a cat robot called ‘Fitpaws’ to remind you to stay fit.
On any one day across the centre there will be several languages spoken, exams sat, and conferences held. It runs youth programmes, mentoring, training, workshops, fitness programmes and even a Caribbean Colouring Group – aimed at combating loneliness and anxiety among the elderly Caribbean community.
The Windrush Defenders Legal C.I.C provide legal support to those affected by the Windrush scandal. And there are regular events like the Island Rhythms Fest – a vibrant celebration of Caribbean culture, music, and community. Next month, the efforts of the last few months will be on view when the centre hosts Manchester Jerk Festival.
Most of the businesses are Black or Asian but the centre – run on a non-religious, non-political basis – is used by the wider community too.
In one large unit, Michael Golding is installing a community radio station in memory of his mother, Mary Elizabeth Golding Ngawoofah. She was a probation worker who helped hundreds of young people over the years.
The Golding Touch Podcast Lounge will be used by those aspiring to be in the media, with plans to expand and include a recording and photography studio.
“The younger generation, we will put them on stage at the Nia Centre, then send them out into the wider world. It’s a completely holistic approach,” says Mario.
Michael says his mum would have loved to have seen this high-tech new space in action. And for those working with probation to be inspired and rehabilitated back into the community here.
“Sometimes people just want an arm around them,” he says. “My mum knew that.”
After the success of the MOBO Fringe events in Hulme and Manchester in recent weeks, the team here have been buoyed. Mario says people in Moss Side and Hulme have been shy about their achievements for too long. He’s keen to change that.
“The people who trained me from 16, they nurtured us and there are many of us who have done really well. But many of us moved on to different areas and they didn’t return.
“I’m a believer in keeping your feet on the ground. Moss Side was a family. It still is.”
