Overview

It’s 1885 and the streets of Manchester are crackling with energy, youth and violence.As workers pour into Ancoats to power the Industrial Revolution, 50,000 people are crammed into one square mile. The mills rumble thunderously day and night. The air is thick with smoke. Life is lived large and lived on the street. This is the world’s very first industrial suburb and the young mill workers form the very first urban gangs, fighting over their territory with belts, fists and knives.Invisible in history, their lives, deaths, loves, lusts and defiant energy tell stories that will repeat and repeat over the decades that follow