The Manchester Briefing from The Mill

When news broke about an attack on Jewish worshippers outside Heaton Park synagogue, The Mill's staff writers Jack Dulhanty and Ophira Gottleb were sent to the scene to report. In Ophira's case, she spent the best part of three days straight in the area, interviewing people and vising a community in shock and at prayer. She and Jack discuss what it was like to cover the atrocity, and why Ophira chose to write a much more personal - and hopeful piece - a few days later. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends to spread the word, or become one of our members with a discount by clicking here. Note: this podcast was recorded on Tuesday 7 October and only published on Sunday 12 October because of an issue we had uploading.

Backstabbing parents, extortionate private tutoring companies and a 'web of deceit'. This is the world of Trafford Grammar Schools, a highly selective group of schools where each year, desperate families put their children through extensive private tutoring to pass the rigorous 11+ exam. Are they living up to their original promise of delivering exceptional education to working-class children? And is there a sense of cruelty in how the system works? Ophira Gottlieb, staff writer at The Mill, takes you inside her reporting.Read Ophira's first story: Backstabbing, crying, and a ‘web of deceit’: Inside the fight to get into Trafford’s grammar schoolsRead her second story: Grexit: should Trafford keep its grammar schools?To read more of these stories and support our mission to bring about a renaissance in high quality journalism in the North, sign up as a paying member for just £4.95 for your first three months.With thanks to our sponsor, Newton Music Festival. If you fancy a summer weekend of DJs, bands and festival fun, Newton Music Festival is offering just that from Friday 1st to Sunday 3rd August. The lineup includes (former Mill contributor) Dave Haslam on Friday, The K’s on Saturday and Flash (a Queen tribute band) on Sunday, and is set to repeat the incredible success of last year’s festival. Hosted in the beautiful Mesnes Park, just a 20 minute train from Piccadilly, Newton Music Festival has something for everyone. Day tickets start at £15 and Mill readers can get an exclusive 10% discount using the code ‘1qjpad’ – click here to book.

Ophira has a story for you — one about Frank Evans, the 81-year-old Salford-born matador who now splits his time between Seville and Worsley like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Yes, that’s right: matador. While the city proudly boasts of luring the BBC up north, appearing behind the Smiths in That Photo, and producing Paul Scholes’ right foot — somehow, Frank slips through the net. But this is a man who traded Eccles cakes for cape work, and against all odds became one of the only Brits to ever rise to bullfighting’s top tier.

Jack tells the story of his trip to the newly-built Royal Nawaab, the multi-story curry house which has been built in Stockport’s iconic glass pyramid on the Valley of the Kings. But while Mahmood Hussain, the curry maestro with a “strongman’s slab of tache resting on his top lip”, hopes his £15 million renovation will pay off, has he considered the ancient pharaoh's curse which has been said to hang over the valley…

Our writer Ophira Gottlieb tells the story of the Britannia Coconut Dancers of Bacup, in Lancashire. For over a century the troupe of morris dancers has performed up and down the town’s streets dressed in knitted jumpers, candy-striped kilts, and painted completely black. “I worked in a pub just outside Manchester,” Ophira remembers, “many of the customers felt the practice was racist and badly outdated, but just as many disagreed.” On Easter weekend, Ophira finally met these dancers. Nicknamed the “Coconutters”, Ophira set out to understand why they hold a practice that many find so offensive so close to their hearts.

In the first of our new series of audio storytelling, Jack tells the story of how the new bike repair shops that have sprung up to offer rapid repairs to Manchester’s legions of delivery riders. “Some Mill stories are the result of months of work and research and planning, and some are born out of necessity,” Jack says, “The story I’m about to tell you was the latter.” But while the story itself was written to replace another story that fell through, it became a reader-favourite, offering an insight into a hidden world.

Late last year, when the Royal Exchange Theatre was forced to cancel its production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the media fallout became one long nightmare. Stef O'Driscoll, the play’s director, accused the theatre of censorship, and its chief executive Stephen Freeman eventually stood down. But there are two sides to every story - over the last month, insiders at the Royal Exchange have been telling us they've been uncomfortable with the narrative that the play's director was censored for a rap about Palestine, and that they feel the theatre was the victim of a "witch hunt". In this week's episode, Mollie and Jack take you inside our reporting and reveal what really caused the theatre to cancel the entire run of its long-anticipated autumn production.Recommendations:A midsummer’s nightmare: What really caused the Royal Exchange’s cancelled show? The Mill

On a cold day in January, our reporters stumbled upon a strange story about Joseph Wheeler, a car marketing executive from Milton Keynes who had been granted extraordinary power at the University of Greater Manchester (formerly the University of Bolton), whose company had received £8 million in the past six financial years for performing marketing and brand management services, and who was accused of making racist remarks and threatening to sack people if they didn't bend to his will.Then, the story became stranger. We uncovered evidence that Joseph Wheeler and another senior university executive, Paul Starkey, tried to pressure ECN, one of the university's biggest commercial partners, into transferring 40% of its revenue into a private company that Wheeler owned. That deal looked like an arrangement for kickbacks – a form of illicit payment in return for something – to be paid to Wheeler’s firm, and the circumstances in which it was signed suggest bribery laws may have been broken.Private Eye has picked up our story, and MPs Phil Brickell and Neil O'Brien have raised our reporting to the Department for Education and in parliament. In today's episode, Mollie and Joshi reflect on the last month of reporting, and where the university goes next.The University of Greater Manchester saga in full16/08/2024: Our first story about the university. The university was planning to let 82 members of staff go, and was battling to change its name from the University of Bolton to the University of Greater Manchester.06/02/2025: Over a dozen staff members accuse Joseph Wheeler of making racist remarks, and Wheeler is caught on tape saying: “At the end of the day, somebody from Nigeria looks exactly the same as somebody from Ghana.”  10/02/2025: The university announces that Joseph Wheeler had resigned.15/02/2025: Our sources give us evidence that showed the university had misled us. Joseph Wheeler was still taking calls with staff members and his marketing agency, RSM, was still under contract with the university.19/02/2025: Our latest exclusive. We uncover evidence that Joseph Wheeler and another senior university executive, Paul Starkey, tried to pressure a key university partner into diverting hundreds of thousands of pounds in tuition fees into a private company.24/02/2025: The Office for Students, the university's audit committee and board of governors ignore our questions about the allegations. Phil Brickell MP writes to the Department for Education asking for an independent investigation into the university.