Getting prepared ………… Decimal Day ………. 1971

Now for anyone who has forgotten, and for all those who never knew, Decimal Day was February 15th, 1971, and it ushered in the decimalization of our currency.

Out went £sd, or again for those who don’t know, pounds, shillings and pennies and in came the simplified £ and new pence.

Hence forth a £ consisted of 100 new pence, which did away with the historic and wee bit confusing arrangement where a £ was made of 20 shillings, and a shilling was made up of twelve pennies.

In the process coins which went back into the long and distant past ceased to exist.

These included the shilling,  and the happenny, joining the half crown, threepenny bit and the farthing.

Now most of my generation and all those that went before me, we had no problem with counting pennies, shillings and Pounds, but I concede that in creating a decimal system was more logical.

Looking back at old news programmes, there were some who struggled with the change and mindful that it could be confusing, the Government ran a huge publicity campaign.

And out of that came New Money Snap, a game to be played at home by people of all ages.

I had completely forgotten it, but in turning out some old family stuff, I came across our copy.

The instructions point out that “The rules for ‘New Money Snap’ are the same as for ordinary snap with the additional rule that snap can be called where the money value is the same”.

Our pack is still in pristine condition, which rather makes me think that no one was at all confused, or worried about the changeover.

Location; the UK











Pictures; playing cards from New Money Snap, 1971, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

And the lights go back on in Manchester ………. August 17th, 1945*

The caption in the Manchester Guardian on that day in the August of 1945 simply reported “’Manchester Town Hall flood lit for V.J. Day’ A firework has just been sent up from the great crowd in Albert Square.”

Now for those who don’t know V.J. Day’ signalled the end of the war against Japan and followed on a few months after the defeat of Nazi Germany and the close of the European war.

Of course, to be strictly accurate the lights had gone back on ending the blackout on April 30th.* 

But as the Manchester Guardian reported elsewhere in that edition “The floodlit spectacle of London is naturally much grander this time than on V.E. nights”, which I suspect reflected the greater time to organise an event.

Victory in Europe Day had been almost a spontaneous outburst of joy after six long and bitter years of war.

Sadly, there was much more to the original photograph, but the passage of 80 years and the poor storage left the picture much battered.

Location; Albert Square, Manchester

Picture; Victory High Lights In Manchester, The Manchester Guardian, August 17th, 1945 

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 6 ........... winter in 294

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

Now I can’t remember which wintry scene this will have been but I am guessing it will be in the 1970s and because I don’t remember it being taken it might be after 1973.

I did  trawl through the “Monthly Weather Report of the Meteorological Office”** for evidence of snow in London which offered up the news that it had snowed on Christmas day 1970.

But there are a lot of years on either side of 1970 so I shall just leave it.

Instead the picture took me back to living in the house before dad put in central heating.

It was a cold house, that is to say while the gas fire in the back room and the oil stove in the front kept the downstairs warm there was no heating upstairs.

Not that I guess that was any different from many homes at the time and like countless generations before me, going to bed was a quick affair of stripping off and jumping under the covers followed by that frantic effort to heat the bed up by  thrashing around.

Now Dad did go round with hot water bottles but sometimes I missed out and was doomed to the fate of cold bedclothes.

And all the hot water bottles would not prevent the slow but inevitable spread of ice on the inside of the windows which in the really cold winters rarely seemed to budge during the day.

Of course back then that was what you came to expect and pretty much took it for granted.

A few decades earlier and the occupants of our house might just have lit coal fires in the upstairs rooms in the most severe of winters but by the time we moved in the hapless DIYers had taken them out or blocked them up a move which today seems the height of vandalism but back in the 1950s and 60s was the “cool thing” to do.

I doubt that dad would have had truck with the ideas that bedroom fires should only be lit when someone was ill, keeping warm was for him always very important.

So in the fullness of time we got central heating by which time I had gone, moving from one very cold student bed sit to another in the more shabby parts of Manchester where icy windows were but one of the problems.

Of course back then it was all an adventure and which pushed 294 well into the background and it has taken this picture to bring it all back.

It was taken from the small back bedroom which was where dad decided to locate the boiler and which gave a magnificent view of the woods.

But that is for another time.

Pictures; looking out to the woods, circa 1970, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Location;Well Hall, Eltham, London

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall   

**“Monthly Weather Report of the Metrological Office”http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/5/3/Dec1970.pdf

Bert Woodcock ………….. Chorlton artist ………….part 1

Now I like the way that stories come back, and so it is with one I did on the local artist, Bert Woodcock which I wrote back in 2016.*

I knew Bert and Doris Woodcock but only to nod to and pass the odd comment.

They lived on Beaumont Road directly behind us.

I must confess to my shame I made little effort to get to know them, but these were the years when the children were growing up and with a busy day job lots rather passed me by.

And so, it was a chance conversation with Alan which made me think of them again and the revelation that Bert was an artist who exhibited locally.

I went looking for a reference to his work but drew a blank but given that he was also a commercial artist I suspected in time I would find at least one picture.

And this week Robert Fleming got in touch, with, “Hi Andrew. I recently came across your blog and noticed you had written one about my late 'uncle Bert'.

He was my mother’s uncle (my grandmothers’ brother) but he was always known to myself and sister as uncle Bert and we would visit regularly in Chorlton. 

I have numerous pieces of his artwork and knowledge of his life passed on by my Mother and grandmother.

Happy to chat if you want to do a follow up as well as share his artwork.... a lot of which is owned by me, but none of it local.

He led an interesting life and would be nice to see him memorialized as I have such fond memories of him.

His real name was J H Woodcock by the way but known as Bert. As you said in your blog, he was a commercial artist and painted for catalogues and such in the days when it was cheaper to pay illustrators than it was to take photos. 

He was a soldier, a diehard City fan, very deeply religious and a freemason. He led an interesting life and I would await his illustrated cards every birthday as a child”.

All of which means that I am sure there will be follow up stories from Robert on Bert.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; paintings by Bert Woodcock, date unknown, courtesy of Robert Fleming


*Looking for lost forgotten local Chorlton artists ................ Mr. Bert Woodcock and J Montgomery, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=bert+woodcock

When history repeats itself ……. and art imitates art

 "Never work with children or animals" is that famous one liner attributed to W.C.Fields and to this can be added never take a famous artist and assume he never came to where you live.

At the Lowry home to his paintings, 2006

Which brings me to L.S Lowry which my Wikipedia tells me that “Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict Pendlebury, Lancashire (where he lived and worked for more than 40 years) as well as Salford and its vicinity [often depicting] scenes of life in the industrial districts of North West England in the mid-20th century.

He developed a distinctive style of painting and is best known for his urban landscapes peopled with human figures, often referred to as "matchstick men". He also painted mysterious unpopulated landscapes, brooding portraits and the unpublished "marionette" works, which were only found after his death. He was fascinated by the sea, and painted pure seascapes, depicting only sea and sky, from the early 1940s”. *

At which point I have to say he don’t do anything for me, heretical as that is and I await abuse from Mrs. Treliss of Broughton his industrial landscapes and people don’t do it.

And all this despite heaps of discussions with my chum Peter Topping who over the years has patiently set time aside to explain Lowry and show me examples of his non matchstick work.

Lowry's friends at the Lych Gate in Chorlton

Peter who is also an artist long ago took Lowry to his heart and has celebrated the painter by producing pictures of Chorlton in the style of the man.

These over the years have found their way onto the blog under the banner of “When Lowry came to Chorlton”, and now it seems he may have done.

Last night Peter emailed over his discovery that "I uncovered an Instagram post that someone posted with a B&W drawing with Lowry’s signature and date 1960.

 And someone on ebay selling a print of it.

 On further research I found that he had indeed come to Chorlton and sketched The Lych Gate and called it Chorltonville.

 

In the Library, 2026

Somehow the title had got miss read, or miss printed and catalogued as Charltonville see attached copy below

 There is a known Lowry drawing titled something like 'At Charltonville / The Old Cemetery', dated 1960, and it has appeared in auction listings.

One such listing describes it as 'L S LOWRY AT CHARLTONVILLE THE OLD CEMETRY 1960 PENCIL DRAWING' .

Perhaps Lowry visited our Library

This confirms that Lowry produced a drawing connected with Charltonville (note the spelling) and a cemetery scene around that time.

 L S LOWRY AT CHARLTONVILLE THE OLD CEMETRY 1960 PENCIL DRAWING” does indeed appear online — but only as the title of an eBay listing, not as an authenticated catalogue entry or museum‑verified work. The listing shows a hardback print being sold, not an original drawing, and the spelling ('Charltonville', 'Cemetry') is the seller’s own wording, not Lowry’s, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/187509554804?msockid=3df35e1922496e41178348a6230a6f34”

So with that in mind Chorlton Library have asked Peter to put on a Pop Up exhibition of some of his pieces in the series “When Lowry came to Chorlton” .

Alas all of Mr. Lowry's paintings including his 'At Charltonville / The Old Cemetery' remain copyright and for all the right reasons I ain't putting them up on here.

So its just down to Chorlton Library to walk where  history repeats itself ……. and art imitates art.

Picture; At the Lowry home to his paintings, 2006, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Painting; If Mr Lowry came to Chorlton, © 2017 Peter Topping, and new paintings from the Lowry series, by Peter, 2026 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

*L.S.Lowry, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._S._Lowry

Of horses, an RAF Band and a night at the Cheetham Assembly Rooms in November 1944

Now I wonder just how packed the Cheetham Assembly Rooms were, when the “Full RAF Rhythm Band” played on the Saturday of November 25 1944.

1944

Or for that matter whether the audience knew that part of their 10 shilling ticket entry was going to the Little Horses Charity Fund.

And that set me thinking about the charity and its need for money, particularly when the world was engulfed in a war that would ultimately see the death and displacement of millions, when members of the armed forces were at that moment fighting on mainland Europe and in the Far East and when the surrounding streets bore the scars of nights of German bombing.

I had never come across the Little Horses Charity but a search showed that there were quite a few charities devoted to the welfare of horses as well as other animals, one of which had opened a hospital for animals injured in air raids during the war.

At which point there will be a few who offer up detailed accounts of those welfare organizations particularly
those given over to horses which had a wretched time during the 19th and early 20th centuries when so much of our transport relied on horse drawn vehicles.

1959

I suspect there will also be a few with stories of the Assembly Rooms which opened in 1857 and lasted almost a century before it closed because if declining numbers, and according to one site was bought in 1960 with the intention of turning into a tyre warehouse.*

Now that was an ignominious ending for such a grand place, but its final chapter was perhaps even sadder, for after that century which saw concerts, soirees and late night suppers, it was demolished, with the site becoming first a petrol station and now a car wash business.

1965

All, a long way from the night when “Miss Stitt came as the White Cat and Miss Goldie as the owl in the ivy bush, ....... and Mr Bradshaw as a time-traveller, dressed as ‘a gentleman of the early twentieth century’” during the event arranged by "twenty bachelors of Manchester for 450 ladies and gentlemen on January 19th 1870".*

Leaving me just to thank David Harrop who provided the advert, and comment on the two pictures of the Rooms just before the end.

"Removed to Waterloo Road" 1965

Look very closely and on the second can be made out the notice announcing that “Fitzsimons Tyres Removed to Waterloo Road” and on the first the old telephone kiosk from which members of the band may well have phoned loved ones in the interval.

I doubt that there will be anyone who can offer up a memory of that November night, but I bet there will be quite a few who have other stories of the Assembly Rooms in equally magic nights.

Well I hope so.

Location; Cheetham Hill Road

Pictures; poster advertising the dance, 1944from the collection of David Harrop and the Assembly Rooms in 1959, R. Mirza, m16437, and 1965, W. Kay, m16303, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Epic of Gilgamesh: myths and heroes in ancient Mesopotamia .... on the wireless

Now this is one I enjoyed today.

Hero mastering a lion, 8th century BC

It comes from the Radio 4 BBC series, You're Dead to Me*

"Greg Jenner is joined in the ancient world by Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid and comedian Marjolein Robertson to learn all about the famous Mesopotamian poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Sumerian poems about a legendary king called Gilgamesh began to be composed sometime in the third millennium, and were told and retold throughout Mesopotamia until a Babylonian scholar named Sîn-leqi-unninni wrote down what has become the standard version. 

The tale he recorded tells of a tyrannical king of Uruk, Gilgamesh, and the transformative journey he takes with his enemy-turned-friend (and possibly more), Enkidu. In the 3100 lines of the poem, they fight forest guardians and celestial bulls, anger the gods, and even challenge death itself. In this episode, we retell the story of Gilgamesh, exploring the history of the epic’s composition, what it tells us about ancient Mesopotamian storytelling and beliefs, and how it was rediscovered in the nineteenth century, written in cuneiform on clay tablets housed in the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. 

We also look at the themes of companionship, community and environmental protection that are still relevant today, and ask the question: is Gilgamesh just a legend, or was he based on a real king?

If you’re a fan of captivating myths and legends from the ancient world, heroic kings and impossible quests, and historians decoding ancient texts, you’ll love our episode on the Epic of Gilgamesh.

If you want more ancient history with Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid, listen to our episodes on the Babylonians and Cuneiform. And for more from Marjolein Robertson, check out our episode on Robert Bruce.

You’re Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past.

Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet 11: Story of the Flood

Hosted by: Greg Jenner

Research by: Katharine Russell

Written by: Katharine Russell, Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Dr Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner

Produced by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner

Audio Producer: Steve Hankey

Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett

Senior Producer: Dr Emma Nagouse

Executive Editor: Philip Sellars"

Picture; Hero mastering a lion, 8th century BC, palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II in Dur-Sharrukin, current Khorsabad in Iraq at the Louvre Museum, photo by Urban, This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. and Neo-Assyrian clay tablet. Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet 11: Story of the Flood. Known as the "Flood Tablet" From the Library of Ashurbanipal, 7th century BC.Author of picture, BabelStone (Own work)This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

*Epic of Gilgamesh: myths and heroes in ancient Mesopotamia, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002rd8y,