Damon Gough chose his stage name from the title character in the show Sam and his Magic Ball, which he saw on TV at a party in Trafford, Manchester in 1995. Before he thought of using this name he made some business cards, each one unique, with a printed picture of a drawing by his nephew, and a small collage by Gough. This was then laminated and given out to friends and people at clubs in Blackburn and Manchester.
A chance meeting with Andy Votel at the Generation X bar in Manchester, where Gough's friends Scott Abraham and Damon Hayhurst were contributing to an exhibition by the Space Monkey Clothing Company and Votel was DJing, led to the foundation of Twisted Nerve Records. Badly Drawn Boy's first seven-inch single, EP1, was pressed the following year to critical acclaim, although only 500 copies were made.
In 2002, Q magazine named Badly Drawn Boy in their list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die", although this was as part of a sub-list of "5 Bands That Could Go Either Way" on account of Goughs tendency to talk and tell stories for extended periods rather than playing songs.
Image 11Old meets new at the Stockport Viaduct; designed by George W. Buck, it is the largest free-standing brick structure in the UK, built in 1840 when it was the largest viaduct in the world; it features in many L. S. Lowry paintings. (from North West England)
Image 15ITV Granada former studios in Castlefield, Manchester (from North West England)
Image 16Vauxhall's plant in Ellesmere Port exports 88% of its cars, although many of the components are imported, and has made over 5 million since 1962, also making the Vectra from 1995 to 2008; it makes 686 a day (two a minute, 100,000 a year) and the latest model was designed by Mark Adams and Malcolm Ward. Three million Astras have been sold in the UK since 1979, and featured on the Top Gear test track until 2015; the production is split with the Opel Manufacturing Poland site at Gliwice in southern Poland; the Corsa is made at Opel Zaragoza in north-east Spain, with 3-door versions at Opel Eisenach; the Insignia is made at Opel Rüsselsheim (from North West England)
Image 39A Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR2 (HS 801), built at Woodford (former Avro) and designed in Manchester in the mid-1960s, with XV148 (former Comet 4C) making its first flight on 23 May 1967, flying from Chester (Broughton, which had built many de Havilland fighter jet aircraft) to Woodford; 49 Nimrods were made for the RAF, entering service with 201 Sqn on 6 November 1970, serving until March 2010 with 38 Sqn (from North West England)
Image 40Kelloggs in Manchester, looking north along the A5181 next to GMFRS's Stretford Area Command HQ; the site is the largest producer of cereals in Europe (from North West England)
Image 47Former head office of the Girobank in Bootle; it closed in 2003; it was taken over by Alliance & Leicester in 1990; it was established in Bootle in the late 1960s with help from Hugh Baird; it was the first financial institution in Europe to be fully computerised from the start (from North West England)
Image 52Ineos ChlorVinyls at Runcorn in 2006; the UK chemicals industry is worth £57bn, with 180,000 people in around 3,000 companies (from North West England)
...that the 1673 history of Cheshire by Sir Peter Leycester questioned Amicia Mainwaring's legitimacy, leading to a "paper war" of 15 pamphlets with the Mainwaring family?
Photo credit: Gerry Lynch
The Parish Church of St. Nicholas and the Atlantic Tower hotel near Pier Head. The Atlantic Tower was designed to resemble the prow of a ship and to reflect Liverpool's maritime history.
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