Monday, 16 July 2012

Heaton Park, some trams, and lots of children on a summer's day in 1922


It’s a postscript really but if I am honest it isn’t over even yet.  

Now earlier in the month I explored the story behind this photograph of a group of girls arriving by tram at a park sometime in the early 20th century, and with the help of Mr Turnbull at the Museum of Transport, Greater Manchester and a bit of deduction we were able to pin the place to Heaton Park and to August 2nd 1922.*

It helped that the Museum had a copy with the date and the place.  Now they have gone one better, and found a copy of the picture in an extract from the Manchester Evening News captioned, “The children are grateful to you, here are some of the guests of the Evening News readers disembarking at Heaton Park from the cars provided for free by the Manchester Tramways Department for their Joy-day trips.” 

All of which leads me off to trawl back copies of the Manchester Evening News because there are now more unanswered questions.  What were Joy-day trips?  Had the children entered a competition or were they needy cases and how had Manchester Tramways Department been persuaded to run free trips?  All I am sure will be revealed either by me and back copies of the newspaper or by someone who remembers their parents talking of the event.  We shall see.

Not as I said before earth shattering detective work but nevertheless a little bit of the past brought out again into the fresh air.


You can follow the older stories at http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Stories%20behind%20a%20picture


Picture; from the Lloyd Collection


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