The death of Dame Jennifer Jenkins aged 96 in early February gives me the opportunity to honour how this formidable lady helped Manchester become an unlikely tourist destination.

Jennifer was chair of the National Trust, who successfully campaigned for the White Cliffs of Dover to become an official national asset, but as head of the Historic Buildings Council in the 1970s she toured the then rotting, rotten south-west corner of Manchester city centre with the head of Planning, Warren Marshall, and agreed to promote his proposal to honour the remarkable history of the area, setting for the terminus of Britain’s first canal and the world’s first railway station, by creating a new phenomenon, the country’s first Urban Heritage Park, what is now succesful, chic, busy, bustling Castlefield.

Jennifer was the wife of Roy Jenkins, one of the most remarkable Britons of the 20th century, who as home secretary in the 1960s abolished the death penalty, decriminalised homosexuality, relaxed the divorce law and liberalised the abortion law.

These are the people who made modern Britain and Manchester.