This handbook celebrates Manchester in 1926. The photographs show buildings that I recognise but Manchester’s manufacturing, its trade, its optimism and its massive civic pride are not so obvious today.

In the mid 1920s the Port of Manchester was buying 335,000,000lbs of cotton a year; it was selling 6,000,000,000 sq yards of ‘Cotton Piece Goods’ and 46,000,000 lbs of Cotton Yarn. It was importing enormous quantities of tea, rubber, grain, Petroleum and tobacco and exporting salt, linoleum, machinery and sheep skins.

Today, the Port of Manchester no longer exists. The ship canal, which had connected Manchester to the sea became too narrow for the ships of the second half of the 20th century and the area has now been developed for new BBC buildings, The Lowry Centre, The War Museum and expensive housing.

This handbook is full of superlatives.

There is  a little backward glance at the quaint habits of the…