As Manchester starts its day, a quiet army finishes work

'You have to do what you have to do in order to survive'

Dear members — today’s newsletter looks at the experience of cleaners in Greater Manchester.

As you know, we like trying to interview people who are in some way hidden or less visible, and whose stories don’t tend to crop up in the media. Dani got up early a few mornings recently to speak to cleaners as they left work and ask them about their working patterns and their lives.

Join in: Last night we had a great ‘Grist to The Mill’ members’ discussion thread where we asked for your ideas and suggestions about what we could write about in the next few weeks. That thread is still open and you can find it here.

Shout out: We got a mention on the popular website Unherd this morning, in an interesting piece about Substack and how journalism is changing. About The Mill, they very generously write: “Barely a year old, it’s already better than any local newspaper in Britain.”

And a quick correction: In yesterday’s newsletter, one of our graphs had a mis-labelled line, which one eagle-eyed membe…