Press quotes on  "A World of Manchesters"

"City Life" 20.11.02 Review by Jonathan Schofield

"This is a curious little book, cranky and sort of mad, but beguiling for all that. Roy Cookson has self-published a guide to as many other Manchesters as he could find, including brief histories and descriptions where available. Our city has been a prolific parent spawning well over 50 kinder across the globe.........The most surprising namesake is the Manchester in Bolivia.........Roy has found the Mancunian, Anthony Webster James founded it in the late nineteenth century around a long gone rubber processing plant. Roy deserves, at the very least, a Manchester suburb named after him for all his illuminating and entertaining legwork."  

"Manchester Evening News" (The biggest circulation evening paper in England) 15.10.02. Full page article by Paul Taylor.

"Ever wondered how many other Manchesters there are in the world? 

Roy Cookson's search for the answer to that question took six years 

and ended with him writing and publishing his first book.

Quotes from the book

Manchester, England, 2002

"the greatest mere village in England" Daniel Defoe 1745

"the capital of the North" Manchester, England, 2002

Manchester, Illinois.

"The spot where Manchester now stands was first settled in 1812 by Mr. Marks."

Manchester, Massachusetts, 1717.

"Many is the time and oft, that I have entered this dismal and solitary homeward path, when for a good part of the way, it was so dark that I could not see my hand to save me - was compelled to feel out the path with my feet, with my heart in my mouth, my hair well nigh erect, and my blood nearly curdled, for the prowling wolves were about my path and had often raised their hideous yells in my very door yard."

Manchester, Vermont, c1900.

"The golf links lie so near the mill

That almost every day

The labouring children can look out

And see the men at play"

Sarah Cleghorn

In addition to information on each Manchester the book contains sections on "Lost" Manchesters; "Adopted" Manchesters; Famous Mancunians, a Manchester Miscellany and "Odds & Ends"