The Morecambe Flip …… and other stories

Memories of the Milk Maid in Piccadilly will fast be fading from living memories.

The Milk Maid, 1906

Mine is sitting in the Milk Maid looking out onto the bus station with the gardens beyond.

It specialized in milk shakes, along with frothy coffee and sweet things.

The bar was light, spacious and had a figure of a milk maid picked out on the tiled side wall.

I doubt many others will remember the place.

Or so I thought but over the last few days people have messaged me with their own fond memories.  “Pancakes”, “frothy coffee” and “wonderful ice creams”, seem to be uppermost in what many remember, along with calling in after shopping or waiting to get the bus home. 

And for one it was “tomato soup with a swirl of cream followed by a cake” which characterized the place.

We frequented it in the early 1970s, usually after a day at the College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street.  What we had is lost in time, but I guess it would have been during my frothy coffee period.

I do remember the tiled figure of the giant milk maid.

Just when it opened and when it closed I have yet to discover and I still travel in hopes that someone will have a picture.

So far, I have not found an image of the place, but yesterday an old Union colleague phoned to tell me about The Morecambe Flip which was another of the Milk Maid’s specialities which was a pancake served with shrimps in a sauce.  Now Ray is from Morecambe and couldn’t resist asking if the shrimps were Morecambe Shrimps.  I think he already knew the answer which was confirmed when the member of staff just looked back with an expression of incomprehension.

The Golden Egg, circa 1960s

But he got me thinking again about little history, those events and memories which can claim no great place in history.  They are not high matters of state, earth shattering discoveries or the reverberations of war or natural disasters which roll down the generations.

Instead, they are the trivial recollections of the lives we have led.

They can be seeing the old Queen’s coronation on the telly, remembering exactly where you were at the news of the death of President Kennedy or Ottis Reading, or that first date which turned into a long and happy relationship.

And behind those memories are the bits of our own collective history.

The Ceylon Tea Centre, undated

So, in the case of the Milk Maid I am fairly convinced that it was run on behalf of the Milk Marketing Board, one of the state agencies set up to promote British agriculture alongside the Egg Marketing Board. 

Back then plenty of government agencies both here and abroad vieed to entice hungry customers to sample the produce.

In St Peter’s Square there was the Ceylon Tea Centre and on Deansgate the Danish Food Centre, and across the city and beyond there were multiple UCP outlets.

It was years before I realized that UCP stood for United Cattle Products which made sense when you walked past the trays of tripe, sausages and black puddings.

The Golden Grill, Woolwich, 1979

And in the more affluent decades of the mid-20th century there were those other chains of new cafes and restaurants, from Wimpey to the Golden Egg, and out on the main roads Little Chefs.

What they all had in common was that they offered up were uniform regular dishes, the same whether you were in Scunthorpe, Manchester or London.  Food purists might dismiss them but for a generation on the move with more money in their pockets than in previous generations they represented all that was new and exciting about the 1960s.

Of course they didn’t have the monopoly, mum would regularly go to a Lyons Tea House in the 1940s, and the Kardomah chain had been selling that blend of food, coffee and light entertainment from the early 1900s.

The lost Kardomah, South Mill Street, 2021

The Manchester Guardian in the 1950s carried several adverts for staff to work at the Market Street Café, which in 1952 was offering a successful applicant between £5-£10 for a 47 hour week, spread over 5½ days.  

No experience was required because “full training will be given”.*

All of which makes me think perhaps I will come across someone who worked at the Milk Maid and if pushed might offer up the answer to Ray question of where the shrimps for the Morecombe Flip came from.

We shall see.

Location; anytime between 1900 and 1980

Pictures; The Milk Maid, from a 1906 picture postcard from Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuckdb, https://tuckdb.org/  The Golden Egg menu circa 1960s, courtesy of Andy Robertson, the Ceylon Tea Centre, date unknown**, and the rival The Golden Grill, Woolwich, 1979 and the entrance to the Kardomah, South Mill Street, Manchester, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,The Kardomah, Market Street, 1958, m62093, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

The Kardomah, Market Street, 1958

*Wanted, Manchester Guadian, October 26, 1955

**Vernon Corea’s visits to the Ceylon Tea Centre at 22 Lower Regent Street London, https://vernoncorea.wordpress.com/tag/ceylon-tea-centre-lower-regent-street-london/

Searching the picture ….. London Road 1895

This is a photograph of London Road where it joins Store Street and we are in 1895.

London Road, 1895

There is nothing very remarkable about the picture and might well be described as eight people, two posters  and one antique shop.

But there is of course more and it is the more that has drawn me in.

Above the brick pillar is the approach to London Road Railway Station and that antique shop is still there.  I remember it as a tobacconist and also as a betting shop and is now empty and boarded up.

London Road, 2019

Just whether it will ever see better days again is debatable.

It is after all on that very busy stretch of London Road which most pedestrians shun and is given over to speeding traffic and passing trams.

All of which means it’s footfall is limited.

But not so back in 1895 when an H Entwhistle captured that group of four boys and four men staring into the camera in front of Mr. William Butterworth Wharton’s shop. He described himself as a “dealer in works of art”, and I can track his presence there from 1888 to 1911.

Earlier he is listed during the late 1870s and early 1880s on Half Street by the Cathedral and was living at Oak Bank Cheetham Hill Road.  Now that begs the question of whether the move to London Road was a step up or a slide down.

He died in 1915 leaving the sum of £1150.

Sadly, so far there is little of him in the official records.  He is missing from the census returns but I know  he married in 1880, that his wife Maria died in 1912 and he had at least two sons. They along with his wife are buried in the same plot in Manchester General Cemetery.

And as they say …. Watch this spot because a Sarah Ellen Makin, a Joseph Shevlin and a Betty Mckeown share the plot.  These last three may have no family connection with the Wharton family but it will be fun to explore the chances that they were.

Our man, 1895

At which point I have to confess our dealer in art was not how I was drawn into the picture, that prize goes to one of the eight staring back at me.  He is the one with the hat and by chance his face is the one most clearly visible.

He leans against the poster stand looking back at the camera with what could be a mix of curiosity, or disdain challenging the photographer to  discover what he is thinking.  

And what ever he is thinking I am convinced that he will never offer up any details of his life or his secrets.  

By contrast the others are a blank canvas and could be any one of the thousands of passers by confronted with the new technology of photograpy.

To their right are two posters advertising an event at Bell Vue featuring the Storming of Port Arthur during the short Russo Japanese War of the year before.

The caption on the picture refers to the “crack in the abutment” which 130 years later is still there.

Leaving me just to ponder on what the man on the left has in that basket and just what the neatly dressed  boy with cap and posh looking overcoat was doing on London Road .

But I doubt we will ever know, as for what our man in the hat was thinking .... that is just utter conjecture which has no place amongst the facts other than as a piece of tosh.

Location; London Road, London Road, 1895, H Entwhistle m63006, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Mr. Wharton’s shop, 2019, courtesy of Google Maps

Music from the Jewish diaspora ……. here in Chorlton

Chorlton Arts Festival just keeps giving ....... from paintings to poets, to drama and music .... its got the lot.*

James Nissen

And last night we listened to James Nissen take us through what was billed as “Journeys in Jewish Song”, encompassing music from across the Diaspora with influences from classical, pop and jazz.

He is a researcher, teacher and musician, and has collaborated with arts and media organizations including Band on the Wall, the BBC, Music Action International and Olympias Music Foundation. 

He says of his work, “I am an active community musician, and I have experience performing in a variety of musical styles, including pop, jazz, classical and klezmer/Yiddish song. I have also taught in university, school and community contexts. 

The HE modules I have taught on include ethnomusicology, fieldwork and ethnography, music cultures of the world, music and consumption, and ensemble performance.

As part of my project on international music festivals in the UK, I am building a network for scholars to engage in collaboration and exchange in this area of research.”

But last night it was the variety of songs and his engaging performance which captivated the audience and made for a memorable evening.

Having looked Mr. Nissen up I was confident we were in for a memorable evening and for those who want to know more there is a fascinating interview in which James talks about his music.*

Location; 99 Reasons, 99 Manchester Road

Pictures; “Journeys in Jewish Song”, 2026 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Chorlton Arts Festival, https://chorltonartsfestival.org/

*James Nissen's Oral History, The Yiddish Book Centre, https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/oral-histories/interviews/woh-fi-0001750/james-nissen-2025

Picking up the packet boat from Stretford and then post haste to Castlefield on the Duke’s Canal

Now I often write about living in the township in the mid 19th century and I reckon if I had wanted to travel into Manchester it would have been by water.

The price of a package ticket

So if I could have afforded it I would have chosen one of the twice daily package boats from Stretford along the canal which transported passengers in comfort and speed.

A ticket for the front room cost 6d [2½p] and the back room 4d [1½p].*

This was travelling in style.   These packet boats were fitted with large deck cabins surrounded by windows which allowed the passengers to sit “under cover and see the country” glide by at the rate of six miles an hour, made possible by  two or sometimes three horses which pulled the packet.  And if that was not style enough the lead horse was guided by a horseman in full company livery.**

Cornbrook south towards Stretford

It was a pleasant enough journey for most of the route was still across open farm land and it was not till Cornbrook that the landscape became more industrial.

From here on there was no mistaking that the final destination was that busy, smoky and energetic city.

The chemical and dye works of Cornbrook gave way to saw mills, a textile factory, paper mill and all manner of wharves and ware houses before the packet arrived in the heart of Castlefield.

But we all know that I wouldn’t have been in the money and so there would have been no fast packet boat for me and no walk out of the village along the old road to Stretford, instead it would have been a longer and slower tramp, north through Martledge.  But that is another story for another time.

Pictures; Packet boat charges from Pigot and Slater’s Directory of Manchester and Salford 1841, and detail of the Cornbrook stretch of the Duke’s canal from the OS map of Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*This was beyond what most of our residents could afford.  A domestic servant might earn 2s 9d [13½] while that of a labourer was 13s.6d [57½p].

**Slugg, T.J., Reminiscences of Manchester, J.E.Cornish, Manchester 1881, Page 223

First posted in March 2013

Calling in at the parish church on a spring day in 1851 at the start of our Eltham walk

The Old Vicarage from Well Hall Lane, 1833

Now I had planned on starting our walk up the High Street in the spring of 1851 at Sherad House which was roughly on the site now occupied by the Nat West Bank.

But that would be to ignore the church and the vicarage.

So like all best laid plans it has gone out of the window, and instead I am at the corner of Sherard Road which was where Well Hall Lane began.

All of which was a surprise to me given that I have always thought that Well Hall Road began beside the church and the old Burtons and ran north to the station.  But not so, once before the beginning of the last century it had a more devious route and before it was Well Hall Lane had been known as Woolwich Road “so called because it led to Woolwich.”*

And so standing by the beginning of what was Well Hall lane and is now Sherard Road, this is what we would have seen.  In the distance are the old church which was demolished in 1875 and the vicarage.

The Church, circa 1860s

Now the old church was not exactly the most elegant of places leading one writer to comment that it was

“A mean fabric, much patched and modernised; with scarce a trace of anything like good work, and from repeated alterations, the plan has become irregular.”**

But that belies the point that this was a working church at the heart of the community and which underwent alterations partly to reflect its growing use.

So I shall return to the description of the place
“The nave has a south aisle cased in brick, and a north chapel of stone, bearing the date 1667, with square headed, labelled windows, and a door of mixed Italian character.  

The chancel was wholly brick.  At the west end of the nave was a tower of flint, cased with brick, with large Buttresses and pointed doorway.  It was surmounted with a spire of wood, covered with lead (shingle).  

Inside the old Church

Galleries were carried all around the interior of the church, and a double one at the west end, with an organ.  The north chapel opened to the nave by three pointed arches, with octagonal pillars.”

Now at this point I have to confess that much of the story is not original research but comes from that wonderful book, The Royal Story of Eltham, by R.R.C.Gregory, which I will use again when we spend more time in and around the church its vicarage and actually begin the walk up the High Street.

Location; Eltham, Londson

*R.R.C.Gregory The Royal Story of Eltham, 1909

**Sir Stephen Glynne 1830, Churches of Kent

Pictures; from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm,

In our village school on the green in the spring of 1847

Our village school on the green circa 1870

From, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, The Story*

In 1847 our village school was just two years old.  It was the second National School here in the township and replaced the first which had been established in 1817.

These were church schools and provided elementary education for the children of the poor.  They were the product of the National Society which had begun in 1811 and aimed to establish a national school in every parish delivering a curriculum based on the teaching of the church.

The new school had been built with grants from the National Society and the Committee of Council on Education   on land given by George Lloyd in 1843 “for the purpose of a school for the education of poor children inhabiting the said township of Chorlton cum Hardy......and for the residence of the master of the said school for the time being, such schoolmaster to be a member of the Established Church, and the school to be conducted upon principles consistent with the doctrines of the Established Church”

Ours was a fine brick building which could hold three hundred children which was just as well because we had 186 children between the ages of 4 and 15.  Most were at school, a few were educated at home, and fifteen were already at work.

The youngest at just ten was Catherine Kirby who was born in Ireland and worked as a house servant.

There were slightly more boys than girls and they did a mix of jobs ranging from errand boys to farm worker and domestic service and most were born here.

There may even have been more for when William Chesshyre interviewed their parents in the March of 1851 some children were described as farmer’s sons and daughters.  

They may have been at school or they may have already begun to work alongside their parents on the farm.    And as we shall see just because parents described their children as scholars was no guarantee they attended school or even if they did that they were there full time.

The national picture was one of children even younger than 10 being employed.  A labourer’s child could earn between 1s.6d and 2s. [7½p-10p] a week which was an important addition to an agricultural family’s income and in the words of one government report was “so great a relief to the parents as to render it almost hopeless that they can withstand the inducement and retain the child at school”  

But in some cases this child labour would have been seasonal.   In one Devon school up to a third of boys over the age of seven were absent helping with the harvest, while in another school during the spring upwards of thirty were assisted their parents sow the potato crop and then dig it up in the summer.  

It was just part of the rural cycle and which one contributor to the Poor Law Commissioners on the employment of women and children in agriculture in 1843 said would at least teach children “the habit of industry,”      which fitted in with the belief much held in the countryside that “the business of a farm labourer cannot be thoroughly acquired if work be not commenced before eleven or twelve.”

And yet it may be that most of our children were in school for at least some of the time because while parents did remove children out of season to help with other farm work or in the case of girls look after siblings, “in the greater number of agricultural parishes there are day schools, which a considerable number of children of both sexes of the labouring class attend.”  

*A new book on Chorlton, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton  

Picture; from the collection of Tony Walker

A community play ............ for a community festival

Our arts festival is now in full swing and yesterday one of the events caught perfectly the guiding principle of “a community Arts Festival for and by Chorlton people”.

It was billed in the programme as “A Play In A Day – Workshop” which took place in one day involved 30 participants, followed by a performance and no experience was needed.

And in the words of Jules Gibb the project director "This play has been created today in the true spirit of the Arts Festival- by forming an inclusive community of local people. 

The participants have never worked together before and have created this piece in an afternoon. 

They tell an important story. 

Ada Nield Chew was a self-educated young factory girl when she took on the patriarchy and capitalism single handedly. 

She went on to become an important campaigner for women’s rights, suffrage and socialism. 

She started her activism in Crewe and after her marriage lived in various addresses in the northwest.

 From her address in Chorlton she continued her work unionising and organising women workers everywhere along with her daughter Doris."

And the rest was a rewarding day for the actors and an equally enjoyable night for the audience.

Which is all I have to say other than I am glad I went and include these sleeve notes from Jules on Ada Chew,who "was a Staffordshire lass and travelled on the first Clarion Van which left in the 1890’s from Chester and travelled across the north and Scotland speaking to women about the ILP and union membership. 

The Vans had three feminist activists on board. On the first one was Sarah Reddish and Caroline Martin as well as Ada. 

The Vans were horse drawn and George Chew was the driver. He was from Rochdale but an active ILP member. After their marriage they settled in Rochdale. 

Ada continued her activism from there and travelled with her baby daughter all over the country. The family definitely lived at the Chorlton address according to Doris Nield Chew the daughter. 

They finally settled in Burnley where Doris got the education that was denied her Mother. She graduated in History from Mcr University and taught History in Burnley Grammar School. 

She published a book of her mother’s writings". 

Location; Chorlton Arts Festival

Pictures; “A Play In A Day”, 2026 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Chorlton Arts Festival started on May 8th and runs through to May 21st, with 200 events across Chorlton, covering all the Arts. 

*Chorlton Arts Festival, https://chorltonartsfestival.org/