Welcome to (1960s) Manchester

Damon Wilkinson looks back at a modest booklet promoting the city's charms to tourists of yesteryear

- Damon Wilkinson

LATE last year Lonely Planet named Manchester as one of the world's must-visit travel destinations for 2023. In fact, the city is now the most popular tourist destination in the UK, outside of London.

But, back in the 1960s, the idea of taking a weekend break in Manchester was bit more out of the ordinary. But that didn't stop a forward-thinking town hall from trying to carve out a slice of the burgeoning tourism industry.

Sometime in the mid to late 60s the town hall's publicity and information office produced a guidebook to the city which gives an intriguing insight into how Manchester presented itself to the world back then.

Quaintly titled 'Manchester the centre of a region, it has none of the bombast of modern-day Mancunian marketing. There's certainly no 'And on the sixth day God created Manchester' posturing here.

Instead, its authors were much more modest and self-effacing about the city's charms.

Manchester was 'a city frequently maligned in the past by those who never knew it - and regarded with affection by those who did, it says.