The Columbian Exchange ..... on the wireless today

I am a great fan of BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.  

Torta di patate, 2025

It's stated intent is to "span history, religion, culture, science and philosophy" and bring interesting and thought provoking radio to the listener

And that is what I think they will do with today's offering entitled The Columbian Exchange*, in which "Misha Glenny and guests discuss the exchange of cultures and biology across the Atlantic and Pacific after 1492. 

That was when Columbus reached the Bahamas, a time when Europe had no potatoes, tomatoes, sunflowers or, arguably, syphilis in its most virulent form; the Americas had no cattle, bananas, sugar cane or smallpox. 

The lists of what was then exchanged are long and as these flora, fauna and diseases moved between continents, their impact ranged from transformation to devastation. 

In parts of the Americas, European viruses helped kill over 90 percent of the population. In parts of Europe, Africa and Asia populations boomed on the new American foods. Sheep from Europe grazed fertile land into deserts in some parts, while the lowered populations in others led to local reforestation which, arguably, is linked to a particularly cold period in the Little Ice Age.

With Rebecca Earle, Professor of History at the University of Warwick, John Lindo, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Emory University, and, Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science at University College London.

Producer: Simon Tillotson

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production"

Leaving me just to add that there is a purpose beihnd the image of torta di patate which for four decades I have been turning out for anyone who will eat it it.  

We simply called it Italian pie and its made from layers of cooked potato and mozzarella  cheese and topped with tomoato sauce and of course potatoes and tomotoes feature in the story.  Frivilous perhaps when set against syphilis but as the picture is mine it saves looking for a copyright free image.

Location; BBC Radio 4

Picture; torta di patate, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Columbian Exchange, In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002rrvz

Walking the last 88 years of Redbank

2018

I like the idea that there will be people who remember how Redbank has gone full circle, from a place to live and work to one purely to work and after a period as an empty space is again full of residential properties.

For those who don’t know Redbank nestles behind Cheetham Hill Road, rising up from the River Irk like a series of terraced olive groves starting at Scotland which faced the river.*

Not of course that there was anything exotic about the place. The area was well developed by the middle of the 19th century and rows of back to back properties existed beside a mix of industry.

1936

In the 1850s just north of Scotland was a tannery with a nearby piggery and off to the east was the Ducie Bridge Brewery owned by Smalley & Evans while directly over the river were a series of Corn Mills, and the main railway viaduct of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.

I hazard a guess that the bright sunlight of early spring struggled to lift the spirits and banish the noise of assorted industrial processes which vied with the all pervading smell from the tannery.

1930

By the time I was exploring the area most of the land from the river up towards the summit was empty waiting for the new development.

The transformation began in the late 1930s when the houses were demolished and replaced by low rise industrial units which eventually also were demolished.

Now I am not old enough to have seen that transformation but there will be people who have.

After all, a person born in 1930 will be just 88 as I write this and could have played amongst the half demolished houses in 1936, worked in one of the small factories or warehouses thirty-years later and have been invited by a grandchild to view a flat in one of the tall apartment blocks that look down on Redbank today.

1960

For the rest of us, there is that fine collection of pictures from Local Image Collection maintained by Manchester Libraries which hold photographs of the area from the 1890s from which I have chosen a few marking the changes.

Location Redbank, 1850-2018

1966

Pictures; the new developments, 2018 from the collection of Andy Robertson, and in 1936, m5139, later in the year, J F Stirling, m05142, and 1960, m05145 and 1966, T Brooks, m60605 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*This stretch of Cheetham Hill Road was Ducie Bridge

Adventures across London …… with nothing more than a train ticket a bag of confidence and heaps of curiosity

When you are 15, some days can lie heavy.

In Well Hall waiting for something to happen, 1964

The top park, 2007

It was usually on summer days when the weather turned from being blistering hot and sunny to a muggy wet  one, and the combination of the humidity and the ever-present threat of a heavy shower made going out less than attractive.

How much easier it had all been five years earlier, when even if you were “Billy no mates” there were adventures to be had.

Of course, these usually revolved around Pepys park which was actually two.

The first was your classic Victorian public space, with the remnants of a bandstand, a fenced off lake, and a simple play area.

Pepys park circa 1900

Looking back the play area may once have been another ornamental pond, long drained and filled with the simplest of apparatus, including the hollowed-out trunk of an old tree, which could be anything from a tank to the conning tower of a submarine.

I was not alone in playing in it and letting my imagination wander, as was witnessed by the thick sides and top of the trunk which were highly polished from countless kids climbing and sliding over it.

Seldon visited, 2007

The eastern side which ran along Pepys Road was a mass of trees and dense undergrowth making it a perfect hidden place to act out all sorts of searches, while observing the other park goers and keeping an eye out for the Parkies.

By contrast the top park, had little to commend it, other than a drinking fountain and some fine views to the city in the distance.  It was also just outside the area you felt safe in, as its bordered unknowns, and at ten you were always aware that some places were someone else’s territory.

Not so the adventures across London courtesy of a cheap return ticket from Southern Region or a Red Rover.

Such trips didn’t require wonderful weather because there was always a doorway, shop, or museum to take shelter in, and friends could be a distraction from going where the fancy took you.

But for every real adventure there were those that turned sour, like the time the promise of the magic of Bermondsey took us to a canal under a railway arch on a wet dismal Saturday.

These were on balance few, compared to the winners, which included a Wednesday in high summer on a railway station in suburbia.  There was little to see outside the station but the magic came from sitting on the grassed area of the platform at midday with just a bottle of warm lemonade and the stillness of  an empty commuter stop, punctuated only by the lazy sound of bees going about their business and the smell of tar on the wooden railway sleepers.

But by 15, there was far more to cope with, starting with that sense that everyone else was more confident, was having more fun and had a girlfriend.

Woolwich, 1979

It would be another year before all that happened to me, and I had to wait to leave the school in New Cross and arrive at Crown Woods.

In the meantime, there were aimless trips up Eltham High Street, hours spent in the library and visits to Woolwich, which reminded me of Peckham and was more edgy, and different from Well Hall, and of course offered up the River.

Even now, almost sixty years on,  I can get excited at the memory of the Thames.  But  not the fashionable clean, twee tourist Thames, but the working river, with its boat building yards, factories, and wharves.

The River, 1979

And here I am the first to point out that there was nothing romantic about living by and working on the River.  The work could be hard, dangerous and the pay pitiful, while much of the accommodation close to the water has seen better days.

That said taking the ferry at Woolwich, or wandering the market was away of killing time till something better turned up, which at 15 was still a year away, and the summers of 1966, 67 and 68 when the sun shone and all seemed perfect.

The Thames, 1979

Location; Peckham, New Cross, Woolwich, Well Hall

Pictures; Andrew in 1964, and views of the River, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson Telegraph Hill Park, 2007 from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick St Mary’s Church, 1906,from  Parish Churches and Telegraph Hill Park,  circa 1904, M G Bacchus, Telegraph Hill Society, http://thehill.org.uk/society/Telegraph.htm

Hair, .....accesories ..... and sunbeds ....... Stevenson's..... and Chorlton's history through its shopping bags

Now generations of people will remember with fondness the hairdressing business of Stevenson.*

J. R. Stevenson, 1910

For many it was where you went to have your hair done, or buy those must have accessories, and of course it provided employment for lots of young people, from those doing Saturday jobs to those training to be "Stylists to the stars".

It is a place I have written about, and its presence here in Chorlotn pretty much spans the last century, first on Barlow Moor Road and then on Wilbraham Road.

My interest was reignited when Annie Keogh offered up this bag from the shop, which is an appropriate image of where we shopped and kicks off a new series on Chorlton's history through its shopping bags. 

 Now that's a zippy title.

Included in the series will be many of businesses which defined Chorlton, from Kingspot and Hanbury's to the big chains like Liptons and Safeway.

And of course I am always open to more contributions.

Hair, cosmetics and fancy goods, date unknown

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; The shopping bag, date unknow, courtesy of Annie Keogh, and advert for J.R.Stevenson’s, 1908 from the Souvenir of the Grand Wesleyan Church Bazaar, 1908, courtesy of Philip Lloyd

*Almost a century of cutting hair on Wilbraham Road with the Stevenson family, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/04/almost-century-of-cutting-hair-on.html

**"Stylist to the Stars" is a lift from Carol Ardern's shop at All Saints who proudly proclaimed its connection to show business in the 1970s.

Synagogues ….. churches …… an Ice Rink and plenty more …. on the trail of Cheetham Hill Road

I never knew that old Cheetham Hill Road with its mix of synagogues, churches, densely packed houses, as well, schools, shops, and the Ice Rink.

Looking up Cheetham Hill Road, 1935

And despite having washed up in the city in 1969 it wouldn’t be till the mid-1980s that I wandered up Ducie Street and on to Cheetham Hill Road taking in bits of Redbank and Strangeways.

Since then, I have been back a few times, and the place remains a busy place.

True there are plenty of empty spaces which have been taken over by car parks, but in between there are heaps of small businesses, occupying some of the surviving old properties as well as specially designed single storey buildings.

You can take your pick of garment manufactures and retailers as well as garages, restaurants and offices.

Walking up Lord Street, 2025

Step off the main road and it is much the same story, but 21st regeneration is creeping up from the River Irk.

Looking down Cheetham Hill Road, 2025

So, Redbank is now the Green Quarter and where crummy houses squeezed between warehouses and factories, tall new residential properties are reaching up to the sky with manicured lawns and open spaces, with new street names.

And now there are plans for something new for Strangeways.

In March of 2025 Manchester City Council released details of a joint development plan with Salford City Council for “a programme of investment which could see up to 7,000 new homes across seven distinct ‘neighbourhood’ areas, [with] increased commercial floorspace of around 1.75m sq ft, [which] could support an additional 4,500 jobs”.*

Bent Street, 2025

It looks exciting and is in line with the last two decades of development which have seen many parts of the twin cities transformed with new residential, and commercial properties which have drastically altered the skyline.

I did rather great carried away with the bold plan and described Strangways as a place waiting for something to happen.

And that was a bit unfair given just how much is going on already, and just how varied and quirky are the businesses occupying the area.

So not more than a few minutes away from Big Image which is really a small garment business on Empire Street there is the Yard at Bent Street,  which is “A space where music and art thrive, and where creative industry start-ups and established pros can shake off the tired and let go of the expected*”*.

Empire Street, fashions, 2025

And close by the Brewery of Joseph Holt.

Watching, Cheetham Hill Road, 2025

Added to these there are bits of the past, from that Ice Rink, the former New Synagogue, Jewish Soup Kitchen and the Torah School which is now home to the Yard.

All of which suggests more walks looking for the historic Strangeways.

Location; off Cheetham Hill Road

Pictures; walking the streets of Strangeways, 2025 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Cheetham Hill Road, 1935, m16264, , courtesy of Manchester Archives and Local History Library, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Manchester City Council, Manchester and Salford present draft proposals for major Strangeways and Cambridge regeneration, March 2025, https://www.manchester.gov.uk/news/article/9657/manchester_and_salford_present_draft_proposals_for_major_strangeways_and_cambridge_regeneration

The former New Synagogue, Cheetham Hill Road, 2025

** The Yard, https://www.theyardmcr.com/

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 16 ........... a revolution on wash day

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now this was Dad's welcoming present to 294 when we moved in in 1964.

I say Dad's but the reality will be that it will have been mum who insisted on this piece of cutting edge technology.

And with that "keyplate" which "automatically selects the right water temperature, the right washing action, the right number of rinses and the right spin-drying time for what ever wash you are doing" we could really feel the future had arrived.

And on top of all that here was a front loading machine which was already plumbed in and needed no endless filling of water buckets to put into the machine.

I could also comment on the rather sexist headline but won't.

Location; Well Hall

Picture; advert for the Hoover Keymatic, The Observer Magazine January 30 1966 from the collection of Andrew Simpson







*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, 

The Lost Chorlton pictures ......... no 6. ......... across the village green

I doubt that anyone will remember the corner shop across the green when Mr Unsworth sold his meat from the place, and at present I don’t know the history of the shop from 1911 till 1969.

In that year it was J McNicholls, the hairdresser and a little under a decade later I got my haircut by Bob who ran the shop.

Sometime in the 1980s or later Bob sold up and moved to Norfolk.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; the shop, 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson