What: John Gray (Paper & Twine) Ltd.

Where: 48 Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter.

When: John Gray set up his business on the opposite side of Thomas Street in 1875. The name, the business, and the premises now belong to Andy Robinson and Sue Robinson, who bought it in 1996, just in time for the bomb.

Now: Andy is enterprising. Not to say funny, energetic, and passionate about Manchester in general, and the Northern Quarter in particular. And passionate in particular, about traffic restrictions, parking regulations and the crippling damage that they are doing to his and other small businesses. Paper, packaging, shop signs, and twine: laid out and stacked up like the assembly room for a global attack of pass-the-parcel. If brown-paper packages were weapons of mass destruction, Andy and his loyal guard would have to take to his cellar.

During World War II the basement of 48 Thomas Street was decked out as the air-raid shelter for Smithfield market. The ceilings are lined with corrugated iron, and are underpinned by steel girders. There are stencilled signs directing you to the Urine Buckets. Like everything else about his shop, Andy likes it. The building, its business and everything in it, needs someone like Andy to care for its future, soppy as that sounds. There's no nostalgia here, unless it has been recruited to the cause of keeping the business afloat. So the tethered order-bike is more of a marketing tool than a useful means of transport, though it does ply takeaway containers between Thomas Street and China Town on a regular basis.

Strictly speaking, Andy and his lads should be wearing long brown warehousemen's coats, with highly polished shoes. Instead, they've got John Gray logoed sweatshirts. There's every form of pre-made container, and self-sealing gift-wrap for cack-handed men; available to view on www.4-bags.com. A very modern Victorian purveyor of paper & twine.

Future Prospects: Not much is going to stop Andy Robinson, though he does seem acutely aware of the daily problems of being located where he is. Parking and random break-ins aside, he clearly loves the mixture of Asian textile traders and curry shops, and the mix of creative industry types that surround him. His [ads are particularly happy with En Vogue Studios, the makeover photographers opposite. They've been knobbled so many times, the future is in doubt. Nobody who is in business in the Northern Quarter is under any allusions. They are vulnerable. It is hard to tell whether the big increase in apartments on the Smithfield site will make matters better or worse.

People like Andy are curating an important part of our city heritage. Businesses that have survived more than 100 years, and are working hard to make themselves modern and viable today, deserve a better crack of the whip. Draconian parking regulations are not hurting WH Smith, but they are deterring the out of town traders who used to park up, and provide Andy with the bed-rock of his business. Maybe he, and others like him, should relocate to a light-industrial shed, or to some suburban side street. Fine. It could happen. There's a lot I wouldn't miss in the city. If the global downturn reduces the number of McDonalds and Starbucks, I wouldn't bleat. But if John Gray (Paper & Twine) had to shut up shop, not because the business is not sustainable, but because the conditions in the city centre cannot sustain it, all of us, in some small way, would be losers.

Back to the future

Boss uses a handcart to beat city's traffic jams

COMPANY boss Andy Robinson is turning back the clock to beat Manchester's traffic gridlock.

The 40-year-old is so fed up of jams and parking restrictions that he has started making deliveries by handcart.

Wearing a long brown coat and bowler hat, Mr Robinson, director of John Gray Paper and Twine, of Thomas Street, near Shude Hill, is using the cart to supply customers - reserving the company van for long distance deliveries.

He says his trade has fallen 40 per cent since the council took control of parking last year and replaced traffic wardens with contracted attendants who enthusiastically "book" customers who park outside his shop to pick up goods.

But the last straw came with the build up of traffic jams around the city.

"I did a delivery to Portland Street and I was stuck in the van for an hour and a half," he said.
"Obviously, I won't be able to do this forever - it is incredibly hard work for one thing - but I felt I ought to make the point, at least until Christmas."
Mr Robinson bought the 125-year-old family firm five years ago and has a staff of five. Despite several meetings with the council, he has not persuaded the parking attendants to go easy on his customers.

Last month, he even sent a £20 cheque to pay one customer's fine. In a letter of protest to the council's parking contractor, Control Plus he wrote: "We have survived the blitz, survived the IRA, but we won't survive Control Plus."

He said; "I like being in the city centre. This city is a great place and we are Manchester people serving Manchester businesses. But it just seems to me that the council is laying a red carpet all the way to the Trafford Centre.

"This is a unique area and people come from as far away as Scotland to buy wholesale from us. All this is just driving them away from the Northern Quarter."
A council spokesman said; "The balance between allowing traders to load freely and ensuring that traffic flows is a delicate one."

HATS off to firm boss Andy Robinson, who is using a handcart for deliveries to beat traffic

Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter houses a real survivor. This is John Gray (Paper and Twine) Ltd, established in 1875. It comes as a smile-inducing revelation that an outlet with such a tight specialisation could stay the distance. Paper and twine since 1875 - wow! Even the shop building is a treasure of heritage, 60 or 70 years older than the company, with weaver's windows on the third floor.

Of course, paper and twine is not the whole story. Amiable proprietor, father of two and employer of four, Andy Robinson explains, "I'm a bit sentimental about the name, we're really a wholesale packaging cash and carry with a 1000 lines. We have numerous business customers as well as callers into the shop. We deliver across the city centre by van or traditional barrow boy." John Gray's barrow boys are distinctive, they sport a bowler hat. The bowler is traditional black with a metaphorical red trim, sporting the signatures of Ryan Giggs, Andy Cole and David Beckham. The latter's moniker arrived when DB and spouse popped into the shopfitters next door to pick up posh coat-hangers and found the John Gray bowler stalking them when they left.

Looking round the cramped space you wonder where all the 1000 lines can be; the tiny shop is filled to bursting with packaging and stationery. But outside, and lurking through a sidedoor and down steps, is the tidiest stock room you've ever seen. This is made fascinating by the period stencilling on the walls with instructions about exits and urinal buckets. The stockroom was the local traders' bomb shelter on WWII.

Business is steady but since Control Plus have been operating the city's parking, teams of vigilante-like wardens have been chasing away trade. For the sake of variety we hope that shops and businesses such as John Gray can survive the present bungled policy to give Mancunians another 126 years of service.