It was today 40 years ago, the 18th of May, that one of Manchester’s greatest talents, Ian Curtis, took his own life at his Macclesfield home. We pay tribute.

Ian Curtis was a tortured soul, a visceral, troubled mind with a voice that echoed Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop and Matt Monro. Curtis briefly led Joy Division, the finest flower of the early days at Manchester’s Factory Records, shaking sensibilities and sending shivers down the spine on an all too brief catalogue of classic works, epitomised by the harrowing “Dead Souls” and “Shadowplay” in which he prefigured his own sad suicide.

This year our tour of Curtis’s Manchester haunts can’t take place of course on the day itself. When we can resume we will take you to Rafter’s, Pip’s, the Afrique Club, Arrow Studios, Rare Records, the Briton’s Protection, the Beach Club, forgotten, almost pre-historic Manchester heading into the very “centre of the city where all roads meet waiting for you”.