Down at the Precinct ...... recording the little changes

Now I have said it before that most of us don’t do recent history very well.

So I bet while there will be consensuses on what last occupied the two properties either side of the Precinct entrance ask who was there in 1979 and there may not be a lot of agreement.

Of course there will be those who mutter it hardly matters over much but I think it does and it does on a number of counts.

First it’s our history and secondly it points to that bigger picture of how Chorlton has changed in the last four decades.

And I am not talking just about the bar/cafe culture but also that proliferation of charity shops and estate agents few of which were around back in 1979 and all of which point to the end of the traditional way of shopping.

Now like most I lament the end of all those little local shops from the hardware store smelling of paraffin and waxed string to the grocer’s green grocers and butcher’s shop but also recognise that in the world of the supermarket and online shopping fewer and fewer of us were going there.

Of course we still do have lots of independent traders.

But we have also lost a lot.

And that brings me back to the picture.

Long before that coffee chain and Thomas Cook there was Crockets Dry Cleaners, and Going Places, while a walk into the precinct would have taken you to that double fronted DIY shop which later became the cafe.

Not great sweeping history perhaps but still a bit of our past.

Picture, the precinct June 2015, from the collection of Andrew Simpson