The Rats' Tale - Martin Green

For someone seemingly afraid of almost everything Garry Stanley is something of a genius, for he has an innate ability to entertain people or more specifically to understand exactly what will entertain Mancunians sufficiently to make them throw a quid or two in his guitar case on a Saturday afternoon. Garry is the inspiration and emotional glue which binds the most famous busking band in the UK, the Piccadilly Rats. Each of the Rats has led a colourful life on society's margins; there is former friend of the Krays Ray Boddington, whose pavement performances were so beloved of Mancunian audiences that his untimely death was commemorated on the front page of the Manchester Evening News and bass player Heath whose personal journey led him to cross three continents before finding his spiritual home on a street corner in Manchester's city centre from where the Rats blasted their way into the public's conscience. In the past decade the Rats have conquered the country from London to Blackpool, appearing on the main stage at some of the biggest festivals in the UK and even appeared on ITV's Judge Rinder Show but their ability to stop commuters and shoppers in their tracks by the sight, sound and sheer insanity of their performance in full flow has left many onlookers wondering just who these people were and how the hell they got here...