Counter culture hero

SAD LOSS OF MAN WHO COOKED UP MANCHESTER'S MARVELLOUS LEFT-FIELD MUSIC IN THE KITCHEN

- DAMON WILKINSON

JAMIE Nicholson had just moved into a four-bed flat on the top floor of Hulme's Charles Barry Crescent.

It was a big place for someone living on their own.

But for what he had in mind he needed even more room.

His solution was simple. Without asking permission, Jamie, who died earlier this month aged 60, knocked down the wall to the adjoining flat and The Kitchen recording studio a key part of counter-culture Manchester - was born.

Hulme Crescents in the mid-80s was the type of place where council flats could be knocked together without anyone batting an eyelid.

At the time Europe's largest housing estate was crumbling and largely derelict. The council had stopped charging rent and to all intents and purposes the vast concrete blocks had been abandoned by the authorities.

It became a magnet for artists, druggies, musicians and squatters.

Ian Brown, A Guy Called Gerald, Mike Joyce from The Smiths, Mick Hucknall and Nico from the Velvet Underground all lived there at one time or another.

Jamie, who grew up in Epsom, Surrey, moved to Manchester in 1982 to study maths and physics at university. Music-obsessed and fiercely independent, he had begun recording bands while still a teenager. At university he's said to have lived on a diet of lentils so that almost every penny of his student grant could be spent on musical equipment.

And in Hulme Crescents he found the perfect place to harness his passion. "I think he went to Hulme because it offered him the space to be creative," Jamie's brother, Dr Lindsay Nicholson said.