About this issue: Overview
Spaced out in Salford: If the UK is to maintain its place in the space race, we’ll need a new generation of intrepid engineers. Michael Rose meets the students on an unusual training course in Salford who might become the first people on Mars. Plus, a small satellite state: With 7 per cent of the market the UK is a world leader in space innovation but will Brexit throw us out of orbit, and who’s going to clean up our mess? Kevin Gopal asks the experts.
It’s never too late: Two sunny bank holidays and you’ve decided to get yourself an allotment or dig a veg patch. But the old-timers say it’s too late to plant anything. Paul Peacock shows you how to turn back time and still get yourself a crop this year. Plus, redemption through radishes: When she’s not Big Issue North deputy editor, mother of two or tending an occasional social life, Antonia Charlesworth is down on the allotment – and sometimes very down.
On the news pages, another major outsourcing company in trouble. This time it’s Serco, responsible for housing Manchester’s asylum seekers in lousy conditions.
In arts and entertainment, Father John Misty’s latest is among the new albums reviewed, comedian Jason Manford is taking his new show on the road, including Grassington Festival, and Lauren Groff, whose last book was one of Barack Obama’s favourites, tells us about her new short story collection Florida.
Another author – although very different – Wilbur Smith writes a letter to his younger self, while columnist Roger Ratcliffe is alarmed by the lack of birdsong this spring.