‘Peterloo’ director Mike Leigh has been awarded the Freedom of Salford.
The award-winning director said it was an ‘extraordinary honour’ and something he could ‘never have dreamt of’ when he was a young boy in the city.
Salford council said the award recognised the 76 year-old’s achievements in cinema and his decades-long contribution to popular British culture - particularly in representing northern working class voices.
Receiving the award in the town hall yesterday, Leigh said: “It is something I could never have dreamed of at Salford grammar school, as I sat glumly in detention all bent over to receive the slipper on my backside.”
“I haven’t yet discovered what scurrilous misdemeanours I may now legitimately commit in the Precinct of this great city but I look forward to them with relish,” he said.
Previous recipients of the honour include Nelson Mandela, LS Lowry and Ryan Giggs.
Leigh said: “Being a Salfordian is a unique thing. It often simply involves refuting the appalling accusation that you’re a Mancunian.”
Leigh - whose films include Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake - most recently directed Peterloo, an account of the massacre ahead of its bicentenary.
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The acclaimed director has won several Baftas and the prestigious Palme d’Or over a career that has spanned four decades and which has particularly focused on portrayals of working-class life.
In the town hall ceremony yesterday, he recounted his upbringing on Great Cheetham Street East and recalled his trips to the Rialto cinema as a boy - which he described as his ‘alma mater’.
“This was where as a kid I would sit in the dark and think ‘wouldn’t it be great if you could have a film and the actors were like real people,’” he said.
Presenting the director with his medal, Salford city mayor Paul Dennett said Leigh’s work is a ‘refreshing and straightforward reminder of the world in which the majority of people live’.
"Mike’s work elevates the city of Salford - as it does the world - to aspire towards a greater level of empathy, compassion and understanding for the human condition," he said.
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