In Rusholme looking for history

What I like about history is that it is always changing.

And that is just the way it works.

So new research or a chance discovery leads to fresh knowledge and new interpretations of the past.

And this is especially so of local history which often relies on local or family historians beavering away and uncovering lost data and stories about the people and the places where they live.

Now this I know because in writing a new book on the history of Didsbury I uncovered events and people who had long since fallen into the shadows.

The book, Didsbury Through Time is a collaboration with local artist Peter Topping, and aims to mix old images with new ones  of the area.

This is a familiar format and not one we wanted to copy, so Peter included some of his own paintings of the streets and buildings and I tried to find out about the people who lived behind the doors.

And with the book out on the shelves as I write we have decided to focus on Rusholme and Victoria Park.

Now the area is very well served by an excellent history site run by Mr Anderson which has some wonderful images of the place and plenty of excellent articles on a whole range of aspects of Rusholme’s history.*

So we shall again seek to do something slightly different which I hope will compliment all the other books along with Mr Anderson’s site.

In the meantime if anyone has any pictures they would like us to use, please contact us at, peter@gladtobe.in  Tel:07521 557888 and see the website http://www.gladtobe.in/

* Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive, http://rusholmearchive.org/

Picture; courtesy of Bruce Anderson, from Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive, http://rusholmearchive.org/

Didsbury Through Time by  Peter Topping and Andrew Simpson was published in November