Walking with history …….. Bucatini Cacio e Pepe

It is one of the obvious observations that some of the simplest of dishes remain both fun to make and above all are totally delicious.

Bucatini Cacio e Pepe

So, it is with Bucatini Cacio e Pepe which combines my favourite pasta with cheese and pepper.

I have been making a variation for over forty years mixing pasta with olive oil, grated pecorino cheese and heaps of black pepper.

Our kids all grew up with it and will still opt for it as an alternative to chilli and garlic pasta.

But I had never tried the equally simple and quick Bucatini Cacio e Pepe.  

One source records that it originates with Italian shepherds who wanted something quick to make while out in the fields and originates in the region of Lazio.

And it is quick, only requiring you to cook the pasta mix it  to a bowl of grated pecorino and add a quantity of the pasta water which forms the sauce and then finish off with as much black pepper as you want.  

Three ingredients made in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

That said maybe I didn’t use enough cheese because the sauce was not as gooey as I suspect it should have been, but it was a first attempt.  

On the other hand, I might just revert to the even simpler pasta, olive oil, cheese and pepper.

The dish will be centuries old and reflects that basic peasant cooking which does the best with the minimum.

Ingredients for Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino

And that will also explain Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino, or Spaghetti with garlic, oil and chilli.

Now my Silver Spoon Cookbook says I should just fry the garlic and chillies in some olive oil and add the spaghetti by pulling the pasta out with a fork rather than draining it which keeps the pasta moist and just softens the dish.*

As a variation I prefer using linguini and throw in just enough tomato sauce to add a bit of extra colour. 

At which point purists will sniffily point out that I have wandered into making Spaghetti All’ Amatriciana, which blends my chilli, garlic and tomato mix with diced pancetta, which is close, but as a vegetarian would never include meat.

A variation on Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino

But then this Neapolitan dish like all peasant meals will change slightly depending on what ingredients are available and on the preferences of the cook.

So, with that in mind tomorrow I may look at what exists in the cupboard and the fridge to ring the changes on these two basic friends.

Location; our kitchen

Pictures; wot I cooked, 2026, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 *The Silver Spoon, 2005, 2000 Italian recipes

How we lived and what we did in 1938

I am back with that slim book which celebrated 100 years of civic achievement here in Manchester.

Your City, Manchester 1838-1938 was written by "the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild in co-operation with its Group for Research in Administration and Sociology in celebration of the Centenary of the City’s Charter of Incorporation, with special dedication to the Children of Manchester.” 

Of course when it was published it was the story of what the council had achieved in the century we had had locally elected government.

So there were chapters on the improvements in sanitation, public health, education and housing, as well as leisure, and culture, town planning and the government of the city.

And it looked forward to the future, with clean and cheap electricity and gas, heating and lighting the homes across the city as well as fuelling the domestic appliances for cooking and washing.

All of which makes it a remarkable document, because you can read it as people back then did, marvelling at what one hundred years of municipal endeavour had achieved or treat it as a  bit of a historical record.  After all 75 years have passed since its publication and some of what it describes are themselves distant memories.

The uniforms of the police and their role in traffic management have changed, as has the way our household refuse is collected.  You have to be well into the middle years of your life to remember a dust cart like this or that rubbish was deposited in metal dustbins.

My particular favourite is the Sludge Steamship Mancunium which took the treated sewage waste out to sea where it was “emptied into the ocean 22 miles beyond Liverpool or [that] portion broadcast,was broadcast on to the  land and ploughed in helping to make the land good for agricultural purposes.”

Not so different then from the practice of our own farmers who bought night soil from the privies of Manchester to spread across the township fields.

As for household rubbish the book makes much of the slogan on the side of dust carts of the period to “Burn your own rubbish.”

Now given the number of open fire this was a practical solution and by extension the Corporation did much the same in its destructors, which “are really big furnaces ..... where cart loads of rubbish are burned down to clinkers, the useful parts of the rubbish – old tins, bottles, etc- being saved and sold to firms who melt them down and use them for making new tins and new bottles.”

Less attractive today but at the time lauded as the new and scientific way was “'controlled tipping'.  Here the rubbish is dumped on low lying land and is spread carefully out and ‘sealed’ by covering with a thick layer of soil. 

Then another layer of waste in put on top, ‘sealed’ and so the land is built up into what becomes in a year or two solid land.  

Just as the clinker obtained from the incineration method is put to good use in road making, the controlled tipping method is usefully applied to filling up waste land, and as you will find on the Mersey Bank at Wythenshawe that a large area of waste land previously liable to floods has been built up by this method into high solid land, grass-grown and suitable for all sorts of purposes, such as playing fields and parks...”

And that I suppose is where I part company with the civic achievements because that neat new scientific solution ruined the meadows between our village and the Mersey.  What had been an area of carefully cultivated meadow land became a dumping ground which raised the level of the land and destroyed for ever a unique way of farming.

And before anyone claims that this has prevented flooding close to Chorlton I would just remind them that this was our flood plain which generations had quite happily accepted as the price paid for living close to the river.

But that is not quite the end.  That refuse deposited here 70 or so years ago is still there and may not have gone away.  Just a few years ago my old botanist friend came across a newspaper from 1938 in perfect condition out on the Stretford side of the river.  It appears to have been unearthed by people digging for old bottles or some other ancient treasure.

What was remarkable was that it was in perfect condition which begs the question of what else sits below the surface?  A question which the more sober, dispassionate and scientific readers will be able to answer.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; from Your City, Manchester 1838-1938, the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild, 1938

Hailing a cab in Chorlton in the 1920s

Charles Croton was one of our taxi drivers and successful enough to have moved from horse and cab to motor vehicle by the 1920s and was listed in the telephone book by 1911.

All of which makes him a suitable candidate for a story.

He was another of those new people who moved in to Chorlton just as the place was expanding.  He had been born in London in 1867 and his father was also a hackney coach driver.

His earlier years are a little murky but I know he married Ann in 1887 and their first child was born two years later.  These were the years when they seemed to move about the country. Some of the children were born in Hulme but others in Littlemore in Oxfordshire, but by 1901 they were settled here in Chorlton on Sandy Lane.

So this makes them a perfect example of the families who moved here to take advantage of the new housing development which was going up mainly along Barlow Moor, Wilbraham and Manchester Roads and the areas off in each direction.

These were the middling people who mostly earned a living by working as office workers and professionals in the city taking advantage of the new railway which could whisk commuters into Manchester in under fifteen minutes.  But there were also more wealthy families who owned businesses as well as skilled semi skilled and manual workers who lived in the six shilling a week houses.

The Croton’s however occupied what had been a farm house and here the attraction may well have been the yard where the taxi could be kept as well as the close proximity to Shaw’s motor garage and petrol pump on Barlow Moor Road.

And in other ways they reflect this new Chorlton with all four of the children entering the new trades.  So while Reg the eldest followed his father into the cab trade, was an engineer in the Corporation electrical works and both daughter worked as shop assistants, one in confectionary and the other in drapery.

Charles died in the summer of 1926 but the business continued into the 1930s still on Sandy Lane.  Which takes me back to Reg.  The picture was taken in 1922 which would have made him thirty years old.  He is parked up in the station I guess waiting for the arrival of a train and a potential fare.

So there you have it, a little bit about one of our families.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Pinching pictures ……ever acceptable?

It will have been sometime in the summer of 1979 when I wandered back to the Cutty Sark on Ballast Quay.

Ballast Quay, 1979

A decade earlier the pub had been one of our regular haunts.

Even now the memory of sitting on that low wall on warm evenings with the powerful smell of the River and listening as the boats banged together from the swell of a passing pleasure cruiser is still magic undimmed by the passage of nearly sixty years.

And as you do the first  picture has featured over time in my stories about the pub, Greenwich and the changes to the area.

Ballast Quay, 2022

So, I shouldn’t be surprised that "the man, the power station and the pub" should turn up on a social media site.

What I am not so happy about is that it was posted with no acknowledgement to me who took it or a date.

And that at best diminishes its value as a piece of history and ignores its ownership.

Without a date there is no context, no understanding of the place in the story of Greenwich and it becomes just a picture with little significance.

As such it is useless to a casual observer or the historian.

But a date places it in its time and allows you to draw conclusions about what the place was like in 1979.

More so when standing at roughly the same point in 2022 as recorded by Google Maps.

The advent of AI has in certain circumstances challenged our perception that what you see is really what it is.

So a date and source helps validate the image and I think makes it a more useful window on the past.

Added to which just lifting or more realistically pinching it does nothing for the person who created it.

Ah I hear you mutter, "it’s just the internet, its there so its fair game", but it’s not because if you adopt that attitude, it could be a parked bike standing outside the sweet shop …. "it’s there so it is ok to take it away".

But that would be pinching.

And for many their pictures or their research is their livelihood, and reflects their skill and talent, which is not served by picking it up at random and plonking down in an inappropriate place.

Now I make no great claims about my photograph but it is mine, and courtesy alone demands that I am credited.

But at least Peter the Pincher didn’t choose to crop the image which might totally distort the story behind the photograph.

Before I cropped my picture, 1979

In this case I did that.  

And I did so because I wanted just "the man, the power station and the pub", and that was my choice, but because both images are out there it is possible for people to assess them both.

Fair is fair.

Location; Ballast Quay, 

Pictures;  the man, the power station and the pub, ; Ballast Quay, Greenwich 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Ballast Quat, 2022, courtesy of Google Maps

In search of the sellers of sleep on Angel Street …..

Now yesterday I was on Angel Street exploring the stories behind the doors of the lodging houses, of which there were many in the surrounding area.

44 Angel Street, 1897, 

Number 44 Angel Street was typical.  It was run by Mr. Patrick Comer.  On the night of March 31st 1901 when the census was taken it was home to thirty two men ranging from William Paxton aged 22 from Wigan who described himself as a street hawker to Thomas Reed from Ireland who at 74 was still working as a labourer.

All of them earned their living from manual work or the slightly more precarious occupation of selling on the streets.

Most were single although a few were widowers and while the largest single group had been born here there were those from the rest of Lancashire, as well as Ireland Scotland and even London.

I doubt their stories will ever be told, and even after combing all the official records for the 32 the results will be fragmentary and much of their lives will remain in the shadows.

And so following up on comments from John Anthony Hewitt and Geoff Ashworth, who were both interested in the owners and managers of these places who were what the French called “sellers of sleep".

Inside 44 Angel Street, 1897

Not that the owner would have been over bothered at the use put to his properties.  In the case of number 44 this was someone listed as Allanson.  He or she first appears in the Rate Books owning numbers 44, 42, and 38, but by 1898 the empire had shrunk to just 44.

On Angel Street, 1900

A search of the records has so far not thrown up any candidates that I can be confident as being the owner.

That said I was a little more successful with the man I take to be the manager.  This was Patrick Comer who may be one of the men staring out at us from the photograph dated 1898.  He seems an interesting character as he is also listed as occupying both numbers 44 and 40.

And yet the census returns for 1901 offer no reference to Mr. Comer.  Of course he had moved on between 1891 when he appears in the Rate Books and 1901 when is absent from the census.

Or perhaps he was still officially the occupier doffing up 7/6d a week for the rent on 44 and 5/- for number 40, and then collecting  a sub rent from those actually living in the two houses.

So more searching and more speculation.

Location; Angel Street

Pictures; Angel Street, 1900, m85543 44 Angel Street, 1897, m08360, 44 Angel Street 1898, m00195, and Angel Street common lodging house, 1897, m08365, S.L.Coulthurst, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Angel Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Angel%20Street

When Chorlton made cars ………..

It is a story I have twice come back to having had a stab at finding out where and when a firm set up here in Chorlton making cars.

Shaw's Motor Garage, date unknown

First time round I tried following up a request about Ashby Cars, but only got as far as learning that they relocated from Towcester sometime after 1921 and ceased production later in the decade.

Then after a conversation with Ian Henderson who thought they might have been based on Edge Lane my interest was reignited.

And as before I turned to Graces’ Guide to British Industrial History who offered up “Pioneer Motor Works, of Towcester and Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.”  The business was run by Victor James Ashby and his son Victor Stapleton Ashby.

The history of the firm is a bit sketchy, and there is a gap between them producing an experimental car in 1901 and 1919 when they commenced production of about 50 "Ashby Cars" before going into partnership with the aeroplane makers Short Brothers.

According to the Grace database, “After returning from the First World War Victor Stapleton Ashby designed a cyclecar that came to the attention of aeroplane makers Short Brothers. 

Short Brothers employed six Ashby staff members, with the car being known as the Short-Ashby in 1921. 

Short Brothers withdrew their support in 1922 owing to poor sales. The Ashbys then moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where production of a two-seater light car powered by a 970 cc 8 hp engine, three-speed gearbox or four-ratio friction drive, continued until 1924.

After which they introduced a 2 hp / 550 rpm engine in1925”.*

Site of Shaw's Motor Garage, circa 1990s

And that pretty much is that.  Grace mentions a garage workshop in Towcester but I very much doubt I will be able to find it, although I did trawl Brackley Road where they were still living in the May of 1921 but drew a blank.

As for the location on Barlow Moor Road that is still to be found, but my money might be on that stretch of the road from the old cinema/Co-op to High Lane which in the early 20th century was home to Charles Shaw’s garage which was still trading in the mid-1950s at 483 Barlow Moor Road.

It is just possible he rented space out.

Alternatively there was a an industrial unit on what is now the Marks and Spencer's store which might have briefly been our motor car factory.

My Facebook pal Tony has access to the directories for the 1920s and I have asked him to go looking, while I will search the local newspapers.

So, we may be in luck.

We shall see.

Ian has found an image of Short Ashby car and it wil appear once I can check out the copyright.

Location; Towcester and Chorlton

Pictures; Charles Shaw’s Garage, 483 Barlow Moor Road, date unknown and again circa 1990s  

*Grace's Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Victor_Ashby_and_Son

Walking the River ......... by the Cutty Sark

A short series taken from one day when I walked along the River.

Back then the Thames was still a place to to earn a wage and watch as ships, and barges plied their way on the water.*

Location; the Thames

Picture; the River in 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The lost Eltham, Greenwich, and Woolwich pictures, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20lost%20Eltham%20and%20Woolwich%20pictures