I wonder where young Connie of Chorlton cum Hardy went with her suitcase that she won in the UCP tripe competition in 1939

I wonder where Connie Dick of Chorlton cum Hardy went with her suitcase that she won in the UCP tripe competition in 1939?

Now who could resist a question like that?

My friend Sally came across the UCP advert and like me was intrigued.

UCP stood for United Cattle Products and as the ad announces specialised in “Tripe and Cowheels Fresh Daily”

Now there will be many who remember the large UCP restaurant on Market Street which was one of 146 such places in the North offering up tripe dishes in the 1950s.

It was a large four storied building, emblazoned down the side with the initials UCP and announced that it offered  a “Restauraunt Cafeteria  [and] Banqueting”

I must have passed it loads of times but never went in and only years later discovered what the initials UCP stood for.

I can’t be sure when it closed but it was still offering up “ox tail, cow heel and other bovine extremities in an age when little was wasted.”*

Today there is even a web site dedicated which offers up some fascinating pictures and the chance to “OWN A PIECE OF HISTORY [and] BUY THE 1932 UCP RECIPE BOOK.”*

Now I doubt we will ever discover whether Connie enjoyed tripe and I have no idea if she went on holiday with her 25 shilling consolation prize, “British leather covered suitcase”

But I do know that was ten years old and was living in Eleanor Road in Chorlton.

Ten years later she married Thomas P Le Vicount and died aged 70 in Stockport.

Constance was one of three siblings whose father had also grown up in Chorlton.

All of which leaves me wondering what she thought of that consolation prize and above all whether she had entered a painting of an essay about the seaside which the advertisement promised could win “a wonderful free holiday” along with £500 in other prizes.

Picture; advert, 1939 courtesy of Sally Dervan

* UCP TRIPE, http://www.unitedcattleproducts.co.uk/