As always I met Len over a small table accompanied by two black Americanos. It’s been a decades long tradition now, usually to chat about Len’s latest project, this time an illustrated  book called ‘Bars and Barbers. Sketches from the Northern Quarter.’ Running my finger along the spines on my Len Grant bookshelf at home I traverse his journey from photographer and writer to urban sketcher. In 2010 ‘Billy and Rolonde,’ words and photographs about and featuring a heroin addict, an asylum seeker and a homeless alcoholic. From 2020 his hard bound, epic ‘Regeneration Manchester, 50 years of storytelling.’ A product of those endless days and hours of lockdown when Len assembled his archive into a definitive retrospective of his work.

 

And then he set off to document street life in honed in areas of Manchester through his sketching. Burton Road, Rusholme, Mayfield. I happened upon Len sitting on his painting chair on Tib Street about a year ago. He had his back to the window of a barber’s shop and was drawing (I think) Siop opposite his perch. “Latest project Len?” I don’t think at that stage he had formulated a project, was just out sketching as always. But it was NQ and so I presumed that an NQ book was on the way. But when we sat down with our Americanos I asked Len about the final title. Of course every other shop front in that part of town is a bar it seems. But it hadn’t occurred to me that barber shops were almost as prolific. “There are more barber shops in a quarter square mile in the Northern Quarter than anywhere else in the world.” Len grinned. “Of course I’ve made that up. But there are a lot.”

 

Being folically challenged it was something that I hadn’t really clocked. I don’t need to do barbers. I said to Len that last time I visited a barber for a clipping (I’ve done my own for many years now) it was a tenner. Now it seems that twenty five or thirty quid is the norm. Although Len said that his own barber, based on decades of patronage, still just charges him a tenner. “The best thing about sketching in a barbers is that you hear the banter. Of course there’s lots of banter in bars and pubs, but in a barber’s shop when I’m sat there for an hour or so the stories are more complete. One to one’s with the barber.” 

 

This then goes back to Len’s interest in social issues. Thirty quid for a hair cut is unimaginable for ‘an addict, an asylum seeker, or the homeless.’ ‘Bars and Barbers’ is accompanied by snatches of conversations overheard in and around his sketching locations. He jots eavesdroppings down as he is sketching and it must be just as difficult to select which to include as it is to select the sketches for publication. But the NQ eavesdroppings capture the vibrancy of NQ life, as opposed to the socially challenged comments in Billy & Rolande. And yes, they are funny; NQ philosophical moments that we are not sure whether to take as philosophy or wry Manc humour. ‘I love what you’re doing just sitting there on your own. Eagles fly alone.’

 

“Most urban sketchers concentrate on the buildings, but I love to focus on the people engaging with the buildings. Of course with my style of sketching people can’t really recognise themselves. But that doesn’t matter.” One ‘over the shoulder’ observed to Len that she’d ‘love to be able to draw, but I can only copy.’ “That’s what this is really,” Len replied. “just copying what’s in front of you.” 

 

Bars and Barbers. Sketches from the Northern Quarter, will be launched at Foundation Coffee House, Lever Street M1 on September 4th, 6-9pm

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