Down at Basford House on Seymour Grove ......... revealing more about a Red Cross Hospital

This was Stretford Memorial Hospital on Seymour Grove which closed earlier this year.

It had opened its doors as a Red Cross Hospital in October 1914 and before that had been the home of the Nuttal family when it was known as Basford House.

I recently wrote about its time both as a hospital and a private residence* but have been drawn back by an entry in the official history of the Red Cross in East Lancashire during the Great War.**

The book was published in 1916 and contains descriptions of all the Red Cross hospitals in the area during the first two years of the war along with the names of the nursing and ancillary staff and offers a fascinating insight into the working of each establishment.

According to the book,

“Basford House was lent to the local British Red Cross Branch for conversion into an Auxiliary Hospital by James Nuttall, Esq., of Hale.

Seven wards have been arranged, together with mess room and day room, staff room, kitchens, etc., and the light airy aspect of the patients’ quarters has proved very cheerful.

Practically all the furniture and appurtenances were given or loaned by the local residents, and in consequence the cost of equipping was low, being under £100.

The Hospital was opened on October 28, 1914, providing accommodation for twenty patients but ten more beds were added during April, [1915] when more provision was essential to meet the requirements of the increased number of wounded soldiers coming to Manchester.

The upkeep of the Hospital has cost about 2s 8d  per bed, and this has been defrayed by the War Office Capitation Grant, augmented by public subscription.

Numerous entertainments have been provided in the wards, and the ample grounds surrounding the hospital have afforded facilities for tennis, croquet, football, etc.”**

Of the 154 men who were cared for between October 1914 and August 1915, 138 were British, 11 were from Australia and five were Belgians.  Most had “contracted their primary wounds” on the Western Front with having been wounded at Gallipoli and three from with Great Britain.

Of these 87 were bullet and shrapnel wounds, 5 were suffering from having been gassed, 18 from frost bite and the remainder were listed as “Miscellaneous.”

The average stay was 32 days and most went on to a period of sick furlough.

In this respect the information differs little from what was recorded from other Red Cross Hospitals and so offers up an insight into the impact of the fighting during the first year and a bit.***

Added to that what comes through is the huge voluntary contribution made by the local community.

We know that in the case of the Chorlton hospital on Edge Lane local fund raising provided a substantial amount towards the cost of running the establishment and caring for the patients.

And like Chorlton it should be possible to track the named staff using the Red Cross data base,**** census material, street directories and newspapers which will take us deep into the local community.

Now the book lists the names of 27 nurses, 25 orderlies and 12 cooks and at random I picked Mrs Cochrane who the database tells me was a Mrs Elizabeth Bertha Cochrane who was engaged on the day Batsford House opened and may well have been related to Miss Madge Cochrane who also started in October 1914 and Miss Muriel Cochrane who began service two years later.

With a bit of research it should be possible to track them down and maybe reveal a little of their work at the hospital.

We shall see.

Picture; Basford House, circa 1914, from East Lancashire Branch - An illustrated account of the work of the Branch during the first year of the war, 1916 and the hospital circa 1914 from the collection of David Harrop

Painting; Stretford Memorial Hospital © 2015 Peter Topping from an original photograph by Andy Robertson

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Additional material courtesy of the archivist of the Red Cross Society http://www.redcross.org.uk/

*Stretford Memorial Hospital, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Stretford%20Memorial%20Hospital

**East Lancashire Branch - An illustrated account of the work of the Branch during the first year of the war, 1916

***First World War volunteers, The Red Cross, http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/History-and-origin/First-World-War

***Red Cross Hospitals, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Red%20Cross%20Hospitals


****First World War volunteers, The Red Cross, http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/History-and-origin/First-World-War

Revealing the history of Batsford House on Seymour Grove ............... another Red Cross Hospital

This was Stretford Memorial Hospital on Seymour Grove which closed earlier this year.

It had opened its doors as a Red Cross Hospital in October 1914 and before that had been the home of the Nuttal family when it was known as Batsford House.

I recently wrote about its time both as a hospital and a private residence* but have been drawn back by an entry in the official history of the Red Cross in East Lancashire during the Great War.**

The book was published in 1916 and contains descriptions of all the Red Cross hospitals in the area during the first two years of the war along with the names of the nursing and ancillary staff and offers a fascinating insight into the working of each establishment.

According to the book,

“Batsford House was lent to the local British Red Cross Branch for conversion into an Auxiliary Hospital by James Nuttall, Esq., of Hale.

Seven wards have been arranged, together with mess room and day room, staff room, kitchens, etc., and the light airy aspect of the patients’ quarters has proved very cheerful.

Practically all the furniture and appurtenances were given or loaned by the local residents, and in consequence the cost of equipping was low, being under £100.

The Hospital was opened on October 28, 1914, providing accommodation for twenty patients but ten more beds were added during April, [1915] when more provision was essential to meet the requirements of the increased number of wounded soldiers coming to Manchester.

The upkeep of the Hospital has cost about 2s 8d  per bed, and this has been defrayed by the War Office Capitation Grant, augmented by public subscription.

Numerous entertainments have been provided in the wards, and the ample grounds surrounding the hospital have afforded facilities for tennis, croquet, football, etc.”**

Of the 154 men who were cared for between October 1914 and August 1915, 138 were British, 11 were from Australia and five were Belgians.  Most had “contracted their primary wounds” on the Western Front with having been wounded at Gallipoli and three from with Great Britain.

Of these 87 were bullet and shrapnel wounds, 5 were suffering from having been gassed, 18 from frost bite and the remainder were listed as “Miscellaneous.”

The average stay was 32 days and most went on to a period of sick furlough.

In this respect the information differs little from what was recorded from other Red Cross Hospitals and so offers up an insight into the impact of the fighting during the first year and a bit.***

Added to that what comes through is the huge voluntary contribution made by the local community.

We know that in the case of the Chorlton hospital on Edge Lane local fund raising provided a substantial amount towards the cost of running the establishment and caring for the patients.

And like Chorlton it should be possible to track the named staff using the Red Cross data base,**** census material, street directories and newspapers which will take us deep into the local community.

Now the book lists the names of 27 nurses, 25 orderlies and 12 cooks and at random I picked Mrs Cochrane who the database tells me was a Mrs Elizabeth Bertha Cochrane who was engaged on the day Batsford House opened and may well have been related to Miss Madge Cochrane who also started in October 1914 and Miss Muriel Cochrane who began service two years later.

With a bit of research it should be possible to track them down and maybe reveal a little of their work at the hospital.

We shall see.

Picture; Batsford House, circa 1914, from East Lancashire Branch - An illustrated account of the work of the Branch during the first year of the war, 1916 and the hospital circa 1914 from the collection of David Harrop

Painting; Stretford Memorial Hospital © 2015 Peter Topping from an original photograph by Andy Robertson

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Additional material courtesy of the archivist of the Red Cross Society http://www.redcross.org.uk/

*Stretford Memorial Hospital, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Stretford%20Memorial%20Hospital

**East Lancashire Branch - An illustrated account of the work of the Branch during the first year of the war, 1916

***First World War volunteers, The Red Cross, http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/History-and-origin/First-World-War

***Red Cross Hospitals, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Red%20Cross%20Hospitals


****First World War volunteers, The Red Cross, http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/History-and-origin/First-World-War

Pictures from a time after Christmas 2015 .......... part 1 on an empty tram to town

Now usually the tram from Didsbury to town would be crowded with all the seats full and only standing room from Lapwing Lane onwards.

But today of course is different because we are in that funny time between Christmas and New Year when more and more people have the full week off.

It is something I have already reflected on today elsewhere but an an empty tram is worth commenting on especially as it passed through Chorlton.*

Once and not to long ago the day after Boxing Day would be a pretty normal event and only teachers and children and those who had earned the time off would be staying in bed or watching the procession of office and shop workers heading for the bus.

And in the same way before its closure Chorlton Railway Station would have seen its fair share of commuters bound for Central Station and a shedload of offices and shops across the city.

So I like the idea that as Sally's almost empty tram passed through Chorlton she thoughtfully recorded the empty platform.

I of course was at home with a coffee and the first emails of the day.

Not that I make any value judgement just the observation that today my friend Sally has had the tram to herself.

Pictures; on the 7.40 tram from Didsbury, courtesy of Sally Dervan

*Of a time between Christmas and New Year .............. Lausanne Road 1958, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/of-time-between-christmas-and-new-year.html

Of a time between Christmas and New Year .............. Lausanne Road 1958

We have reached that in between time, by which I mean that time after the presents have been opened and before the New Year bash begins.

That said back in Lausanne Road there was no long break from Boxing Bay to New Years Day.

Dad was back at work on the morning after Boxing Day, the milk and papers arrived on time and from memory the trains were running and the buses passed along Queens Road.

To all intent and purposes December 27 was a normal day and only if it fell on a Sunday was it a quiet time.

Of course school didn’t begin up again until early January so for us it was still a holiday but that sense that life was on hold for everyone else was not the case.

Now I know that there are plenty who have gone back to work as the procession of people past our door from just after half six onwards testify.

And given the disastrous floods across the North this year there will be plenty more on standby, helping the unlucky or just cleaning up after their own personal tragedies.

But for many the week between Christmas and New Year is a week to take off or at the very least to extend the holiday on till December 29 or later, making a seamless stretch from Christmas Eve to January 2.

All of which takes me back to Lausanne Road in the 1950s and 60s and the run up to the New Year.

Not that we celebrated the coming of the New Year over much.  We didn’t indulge in parties, no one with a lump of coal was invited in and New Year resolutions were seen as silly, after all why resolve to be different on January 1 when either the decision was forgotten a week later or was important enough to have been taken in June.

So for us the week passed quietly and was marked more by Uncle George’s trip up “West” to the January Sales than a rowdy night of fun and booze.

There was a special but more modest meal to mark the event and the obligatory late night session with Jimmy Stewart and the White Heather Club but that was it which given that our family were Scottish was all the more remarkable

And that I suspect is why I have never really given New Year much house room.  For me and as it has turned out my lads, you are either a Christmas or New Year person and I have always settled for Christmas, with all that comes with it from a big tree, to the joy of the cards and of course the magic of the day.

By contrast apart from a few very drunken events in my 20s and 30s the night passes off with little fuss.
A few decades ago it would have been marked by the ships sirens from the docks which carried across the still night air and were not drowned by the noise of endless fireworks.

But as hard as I try I can’t now remember if back in Lausanne Road that was the case but I suppose we were just too far away and like so many memories this will be one that sits in my imagination unless someone can verify it.

What is all the more surprising is that we are now midway between the two events.

Tina has gone back to work, one of our lads has headed back to Sheffield, another flies out for a week in Morocco and a third will see it in somewhere in New York with his Polish partner.

And a full 59 years after the White Heather Club in Lausanne Road we will pass the evening with Jools Holland and may be just maybe will be woken up by the fireworks to wish each other a Happy New Year.

We shall see.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Thank you

Now this is a thank you.

A thank you to all those who have read the blog, passed on comments, offered up fresh memories and pictures and especially all those who have told their own story.

Along the way there have been a shed load of cracking accounts of lives lived out across the last three centuries as well as heaps of research undertaken on topics as varied as the humble telephone kiosk to life in rural Canada in the 19th century.

Now all of this is pretty good stuff added to which I have made many new friends and that perhaps has been the best thing about this year’s blog.

Picture; Varese, Easter 2009, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Telephones Boxes I have known ............. part 7 down at Central Ref having a break from the Social Sciences Library

Now it’s been a few weeks since I featured a telephone kiosk, so here area a pair from just outside Central Ref.

Back in the late 60's and early 70's I used them a lot.

Mainly it was to track down a new place to live.

The property page in the Evening News came out on I think a Thursday at noon, and if you weren’t quick by 10 past the bed sit/ flat for four had gone, so these two kiosks were pretty important and of course offered a break from reading some dense article in the Social Sciences Library.

Picture; two telephone kiosks, 2015 from the collection of Brian Robertson

Looking for the history of that house on Northenden Road ............. as it goes

So the site of the immediate demise of this big house on Northenden Road created a lot of interest

Well that was Monday, and yesterday this was what was happening.

Picture; Northenden Road Sale, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Another story from Tony Goulding ..... the bombing of Chorlton-cum-Hardy Christmas Blitz 1940 together with raids from March and May 1941

What follows may serve as a salutary and timely reminder of the human cost of what are now known rather euphemistically as "strategic air strikes." 

A factor it behooves us to reflect on, whether we be for or against, when we consider such actions over Syria, Iraq, or any other "targets"

On the nights of 22/23rd and 23/24th December 1940 Manchester was visited by the German Luftwaffe and Chorlton-cum-Hardy did not escape the resultant death and destruction.

This "Christmas Blitz" was the heaviest attack suffered by Manchester during the conflict but there were several other raids both before and after this one. One such one, and particularly devastating in its consequences for Chorlton-cum-Hardy, occurred on the night of May 1st. 1941
         
These rows of new houses on Chatfield Road (top) and Corkland Road (bottom) were built on void sites, left as a result of these German bombing raids during World War 2.

The present homes were built in the 1970's (1974 - according to one resident) and replaced the "prefab" temporary housing erected in the immediate post-war years.

Those on Corkland Road providing evidence of the impact of the onslaught on that Christmas Eve, Eve 75 years ago.

The destruction caused by the later raid of May 1941 is indicated by the Chatfield Road development.

They mark the sites not only of severe property damage but also of a tragic loss of life.
 
The greatest death toll (1) at a single location was at 1-3, Chatfield Road, known at the time as Chatsworth Road. At no.3, there were four fatalities all middle-aged to elderly ladies, and a Swiss couple Charles Albert and Ida Caspar, both in their 60's, perished at no.1.

Still another death was recorded at the adjacent house on Cavendish/Corkland Road. No. 19 witnessed the sad loss of David Maitland Hebert, a baby of just 7 months. (2)

This sad toll had almost been matched during the Christmas raids when a massive bomb cut a swath of destruction from the top end of Corkland (then known as Cavendish) Road through to Wilbraham Road, where the Post Office now stands. (3)

On Corkland/Cavendish nos 2-4 were destroyed no 2 being the home and surgery of a prominent local dentist Mr. Stephen Laurence Wilson.

The devastation on Wilbraham Road was worse the old post office building and the adjacent  Martins Bank (nos.553 & 551) were severely damaged whilst more tragically in the flat above 549, four members of the Carr family were killed , the father Ernest, mother Jeanne together with their 9 year old son William died at the scene. 11 year old Hazel died of her injuries the following day in Withington hospital.

Additionally at no.545 a 65 year old widow Mrs. Mary Coffey was also a casualty that night.

It has been speculated that the bombs which fell on Chorlton on the night of 1st. /2nd. May, 1941 came from a "rogue" aircraft.

The pilot, being off course through navigational or error instrument damage, jettisoning the planes bomb load before following the railway line south heading for home.

There are some grounds to support this hypothesis in that on this night there were only 8 deaths recorded in Manchester and all of these occurred in Chorlton-cum-Hardy however, without any hard, documentary, evidence this must remain a matter for conjecture.
       

On the contrary, there could be no doubt that the Christmas Blitz was a concerted brutal attack designed to smash both the infra-structure and morale of the city after which German propaganda boasted the city was a burnt out shell.
           
Mid-way between the blitz of December and the isolated bombing in May there took place another heavier assault on the Manchester area which resulted in a larger number of casualties throughout the city as a whole but with just three fatalities in Chorlton.

This raid was particularly memorable as the stands and pitch at Old Trafford football ground suffered huge bomb damage of such severity that Manchester United were required to play for the first three post-war seasons at Maine Road, the home ground of cross city rivals Manchester City.

A curiosity arising out of this arrangement is that, apart from record aggregate attendances(4) at Maine Road during the seasons concerned, is that the largest number of spectators to attend a UNITED "home" league fixture (and still the national record ) remains the 83,260 who, somehow, squeezed into CITY'S ground on the 17th January, 1948 to watch Them Vs. Arsenal.

On this air-raid, also, a cluster of bombs fell on the Sandy Lane area leaving a trail of death and devastation.

The  impact of some of these bombs is clearly discernible by observing the "new-build" semi-detached houses on Torbay, and Dartmouth Roads.

In these locations were the Chorlton deaths. At 19, Torbay Road young Peter Goodyear was a 2 year old victim whilst in neighbouring Dartmouth Road at no.32, Ida Teer and her 20 year old daughter Barbara Mary died.

My friend David was born, less than 3 years after the bombing, close by the bombsite (and still lives) on Dartmouth Road and although his testimony may be uncorroborated hearsay I still think it worth the telling.

He gives two anecdotes about the event, firstly he relates how his mother was at church (it would have been High Lane Primitive Methodist) as the bombs fell.

When news reached her that a bomb had hit a house at the Sandy Lane end of Dartmouth Road she had rushed home fearing the worst. His second story tells that the two individuals who lost their lives  at 32, Dartmouth Road were sheltering, as per Home Office guidelines, in the cellar whilst the father,

William who was upstairs in the kitchen when the bomb struck was thrown out into the rear garden and survived.

Notes:
1) There was a total of  more than 20 fatalities in the Chorlton district during the two nights of bombing 66-8 Newport Road and 18-20 Cheltenham Road suffered multiple deaths. Casualties were also recorded on Claude Road (where a member of the Home Guard was killed), Silverdale Road, Clarendon Road, and  Saint Werburghs's Road.
2) Another resident of Cavendish/Corkland Road was to also to die in an air raid precisely a month to the day later. Mr Albert Henry Bowers, a 54 year old designer, who lived at no.40 was killed at 80, Cumberland Street, Deansgate whilst carrying out his duties as a firewatcher. He was one of 8 such volunteers to die that night in what proved to be one worst raids on the city with around 45 fatalities in Manchester with a similar number in Salford.
One of these deaths was another Chorltonian , Mrs. Frances Mary Curphey the 33 year old wife of Jack of 84,Whitelow Road. She died at George St./Portland St.
3) My mother, as a young teenager, would have witnessed this devastation at  very close hand as she was living at the time only 50 yards away at 5, Keppel Road. It is very likely she was, at least, acquainted with young Hazel Carr.
4) The population having been starved of any meaningful competitive  sport for more than 6 years,  In the immediate post war year football crowds soared dramatically (to unprecedented and un-repeated heights) and attendances for both clubs regularly passed 60.000 whilst it was not unknown for them to approach and on occasion surpass 70,000

©Tony Goulding, 2015-12-12

Pictures; Corkland Road, Wilbraham Road from the collection of Tony Goulding, and Wilbraham Road from the collection of Tony Goulding, and Torbay Road,08620 & m08621 , 
courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Outside the Royal Oak earlier today ........... remembering Renshaw's Buildings and that other pub

Now I just couldn’t resist running Andy Robertson’s picture of the Royal Oak taken today in the December sunshine.

The pub has a long history dating back to the 1830s when it was a modest establishment which was the first pub the Sunday trade out from Manchester would happen on.*

Back then it was situated a little further along the road.

The present pub was built in the 1920s and stands on a block of cottages called Renshaw’s Buildings which date from before 1832.**

And as I have written about both the old Royal Oak and Renshaw’s Buildings I shall leave it at that.

So I shall just point to the old brewery sign picked out in the sun.

Picture; The Royal Oak, December, 2015, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Royal Oak, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Royal%20Oak 

** Renshaw's Buildings in Martledge, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/renshaws-buildings-in-martledge.html

Looking for the history of that house on Northenden Road before it goes

Now here is a house for which I no stories other than that it will soon according to Andy Robertson have gone the way of so many big old piles.

It is on Northenden Road in Sale and in the fullness of time I shall go looking for its past.

Of course there will be someone who can tell me so I shall just await developments.

Picture; Northenden Road Sale, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Watching the milkman's horse make a getaway down Lausanne Road .......

I can’t now remember if I have imagined the day the milkman’s horse made a dash for it on Lausanne Road.

If it happened it will have been sometime in the mid 1950s and the horse, the orange and white UD float and a lot of pints were across Queens Road and on down Pomeroy Street before our milkman had got out of number 28.

But that is the trouble with memories.

Most have an element of truth but with the passage of time have been overlaid with other events equally fragmentary and a lot which are just wishful thinking or surrounded with shame like the challenge to walk along the parapet of a bridge over a disused railway line.

I suppose with some old maps and a bit of time I should be able to find the railway line which must have been somewhere between Lausanne Road and Nunhead.

But given that we could have been no more than ten I doubt I will ever be able to peel back much else of the memory.

I suspect I was with Jimmy and John Cox and there will have been a few others whose names and faces are now lost to me but I was too wimpy to walk the walk and instead I chose to watch.

But that railway line does feature in other adventures which started out with the promise of so much excitement and proceeded with a long walk along a railway cutting with no opportunity to get back to street level and ended with a tedious tramp back to where we started.

And that highlights that other thing about childhood memories that we tend as always to remember the fun events.

So I doubt that Jimmy or John will ever think back to the day we got trapped in Thames mud down at the unfashionable end of Greenwich pier or standing in long lines in the hall at Samuel Pepys during countless assemblies wishing I had done my Maths homework and pondering on the excuse to offer Mr Gubby at the start of period 1.

Of course as we head towards that “Day” memories of the run up to Christmas are slowly making their way to the surface after a lifetime of being buried underneath the busy round of work, bringing up the children and worrying about the leaking tap.

And so now with all but of the lads launched, a retirement which will soon clock a decade and a dislike of the Christmas markets I am spending more time thinking back to that milk float.

That said so many half remembered things have been corroborated by new friends, like the cocoa factory on Kender Street, that old wooden archway on the corner of Pepys Road and Banfield’s the coach company which whisked us off once a week to Ewell to play sports.

Which just leaves me to go looking for a news report on the runaway milk float.

Pictures, toy milk float from the internet, source unknown and from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A painting, a hospital and a story of a local building company ............. at Stretford Memorial Hospital

This is Stretford Memorial Hospital on Seymour Grove, or at least it was because it closed in October of this year.

And that closure ended a century of medical care which had begun with the Great War.

Now I am deep into researching its history as a Red Cross hospital which in time will yield how many beds it had, the number of patients it received during its first year of service and the names of its medical staff.

And judging by its size and location close to the railway it would have been welcomed by the Red Cross when it was handed over by its last owner who I am pretty sure was Mr James Nuttall who lived there with his wife Beatrice, five children and four servants.

The property was known as Basford House and contained fourteen rooms set in its own grounds.
James Nuttall was a public contractor, and in the space of a decade had risen from being an assistant in the family firm to running the business with his brother.

In 1911 Edmund Nuttall & Co was  based on Trafford Park Road.

"The company was founded by James Nuttall Snr in Manchester in 1865 to undertake engineering works associated with infrastructure developments, such as the Manchester Ship Canal, which opened in 1894 and the narrow gauge Lynton and Barnstaple Railway, which opened in 1898.

In the 1900s and 1910s James Nuttall Snr's two sons—Sir Edmund Nuttall, 1st Baronet (1870–1923), who was made a baronet in 1922, and James Nuttall (1877–1957)—built the company into a nationwide business.”*

In the 1920s and 1930s the company was run by Sir Edmund's son, Sir Keith Nuttall, 2nd Baronet (1901–1941), who served in the Royal Engineers in the Second World War."

And in the course of its long history was responsible for a shed load of civil and industrial projects including the Liver Building, tunnels under the Mersey, the Thames and the Tyne and during the Second World War were one of the contractors engaged in building the Mulberry harbour units.

All of which means that James Nuttall was no jobbing builder, but does not help me with the big question of where the family went in 1914 when they handed their home over to the Red Cross.

That and much more about the building will unfold, and when it does I rather think I will feature Peter’s painting of the hospital all over again.

Painting; Stretford Memorial Hospital © 2015 Peter Topping from an original photograph by Andy Robertson

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*BAM Nutall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAM_Nuttall

Forget Me Not ................. a new play on British Home Children at the Bush Theatre

A fascinating short piece on Woman's Hour today from BBC Radio 4 on the migration of children to Australia.*

“Forget Me Not currently at the Bush Theatre in London examines the consequences of the policy of sending so called 'vulnerable' British children to Australia in the 50's and 60's, many of whom then grew up in appalling conditions. 

Actor, Eleanor Bron talks about her role in the play alongside Margaret Humphreys, director of the Child Migrant Trust.”*

In the course of the discussion Ms Bron also refers to the migrations to Canada and Mrs Humphreys talks about the impact on migrations on the "second generation" of young people migrated.

And in the process the piece explores issues of guilt on the part of parents who  agreed to their children being sent and Mrs Humphreys describes how she got involved in the story and the current role of the Trust.

Forget Me Not at the Bush Theatre from now till January 16.**


Pictures; Forget Me Not at the Bush Theatre, Photographs by Helen Murray


*Woman's Hour, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06s1b8p

**Forget me Not, The Bush Theatre, https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/whats-on/
Box Office:
020 8743 5050
Monday - Saturday, 12pm - 8pm

Send us an email
info@bushtheatre.co.uk

Saying goodbye and other family stories of migrations past and present and to come

Today has been one of those momentous days for our family.

Our Saul having finished working on a project on the shores of the Great Lakes is heading north to spend time with our cousins in Ingersoll before celebrating Christmas in New York, while my nephew is somewhere high in the sky on a journey to exciting new possibilities in Australia.

For Saul the last three months have taken him across North America and in the process he has met some of our Canadian family and then in January will be returning to Poland.

Adam will later tomorrow be reunited with his Australian partner and begin forging new friends on the other side of the world.

Of course such things are not new. In the last century and a bit members of my family settled in Canada, Australia and Africa and spent time in India.

Emigration to Canada, 1870

Others chose careers which took them across the oceans of the world on tramp steamers, while my father’s family began the migration south from the east Highlands which by degree saw them move through Scotland before crossing the border around 1900 and ended with dad in London in the 1930s.

And as part of the Italian miracle after the last war Tina’s parents left Naples and headed north, a journey which brought them first to England and then back to northern Italy, and my grandmother who was German married a British soldier in Cologne and in 1923 made a new home in the Midlands.

In the same way many of our friends can match these stories with one whose parents were part of the Windrush and others who can trace their families back to Ireland.

And so looking at all these migrations it is easy to assume it is so much easier today.

Air travel has replaced the long and arduous sea journey while the telephone and Skype offer up instant communication banishing the wait for a letter which was at the mercy of sea storms and the vagaries of a foreign postal system.

The Harland family, 1912

Now all of that is true but what I was not prepared for was the way that in the 19th century more and more people not only made those long life changing journeys but did them more frequently that I had expected.

So the family of my friend Lois regularly sailed between Britain, New Zealand and Australia in the 1840s while others having made the Atlantic crossing chose to move on again to the gold mines of South Africa, the vastness of the Northern Territory or countless islands in the Pacific.

And even in this country small rural villages like Chorlton cum Hardy with a population of just 750 in 1851 could echo with the accents from the Home Counties, Wales, Scotland and Yorkshire.

Such movements of peoples was not something I was taught in school and while it may not be a surprise to some I remain fascinated at the scope and frequency with which it happened.

German refugees, Berlin, 1946

Today of course every news bulletin carries harrowing images of migrants risking their lives in the seas around Europe and I still have vivid memories of the boat people and those forced to flee Uganda.

They mingle with the stories of the huge migrations of people after the partition of India, and the refugees who crisscrossed Europe at the end of the last world war.

And other people will be able to offer up equally painful stories of mass migrations of peoples fleeing war, famine and economic dislocation.

All of which is a long way from our Saul and Adam so perhaps this is the moment to close.

Pictures; Ontario 2015, from the Simpson family collection, poster from the report of Cow Cross Mission, 1871, The Harland family 1912, courtesy of Carol Spencer, German refugees, Berlin, 1946, Otto Donath, German Federal Archive   licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic

Gazing into the secrets of that warehouse on Hulme Hall Road .............. what Andy Robertson uncovered

There is always something quite fascinating about the partially demolished buildings from our industrial past.

Much of what is on display as the building falls to the demolition ball would never usually be seen by all but a handful of people which makes the next brace of pictures from Andy Robertson so interesting.

They are of that building on Hulme Hall Road which was damaged by a fire in the summer and is now all but gone.

He was back on Friday and recorded this scene of the basement and immediately I am drawn into the bits and pieces of the building.

It starts with those large lumps of bricks and stone which have tumbled from a vanished floor and moves on to the pipes and cables and the white washed walls and finishes with the arches which were utilized in many different ways including a lavatory.

And then there is that door still hanging on its hinges but offering no explanation for what it once enclosed.

Of course any one walking along the canal and crossing that bridge would have no idea of what existed just beyond the wall, and very soon all of what Andy has recorded will also be gone.

Pictures; from the Hulme Hall Road project, 2015, courtesy of Andy Robertson

No babes in arms just bug sprays and exciting films ....................... Lydia remembers the Ideal cinema on Queens Road

Now I am back with the Ideal Cinema which stood on Queens Road midway between Pomeroy Street and Kender Street.

The Ideal Cinema 1914-1940

It had opened in 1914 as the Queens’ Cinema House, changed its name a year later to the Queens’s Road Cinema and in 1916 was renamed again as the Ideal Kinema.

Then around 1935 it was bought by Naborhood Theatres Ltd around 1935 and became the  Narborhood Cinema.

And there in its 790 seat theatre audiences could have thrilled to Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin and been enthralled at the first talkies.

Alas it’s time as the Narborhood were numbered.  It was destroyed by German bombs in 1940 and the remains demolished the following year which I suspect was why I knew nothing of its.

That said there are people who remember attending the place in the 1930s.

One of these is Lydia Bush who told me that "the Ideal Cinema was on the main road, on the left side going towards New Cross, with the pub was on the corner.

Tom Mix, 1925

It was a small cinema with one level, no balcony, I remember on the other side was a small barbers.

I think it may have been privately owned, and based on an American style.

I went to one in the States just like the Ideal , and that really brought back memories.

It changed the film on Thursday, but in those days cinemas didn't open on Sunday.

I remember a sign on the small box office which said 'No babes in arms!'

They came round with a spray occasionally, I used to think it was perfume!

But it was probably bug spray!

I saw many films there, mum was a film fan, I think she must have kept it going.

Hated the walk home though.”

Now that bug spray was not peculiar to the Ideal, and talking to people across the country they not only remembered the practise but singled out certain picture houses as “flea pits” and “bug havens” where you went at your peril.

And likewise many of them continued to refer to the cinema of their choice with names that long ago had been changed .

So for Lydia our cinema will always be the Ideal and in that she was not alone, because maps of the 1930s and 40s still referred to it by its pre 1935 name.  In fact the updated map of the area in 1953 continued to show the cinema which had long ago shown its last film and seen its last bug spray.

So there you have it ............ in the space of a few days the Ideal has offered up more of its story.

All we need now is a picture.

Pictures; the Ideal cinema and Queens Road, 1953 from historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at Historical map extract courtesy of Southwark Council at http://maps.southwark.gov.uk/connect/southwark.jsp mapcfg=Historical_Selection&style=historical&banner=historical with mapping provided by Landmark Information Group,  Tom Mix, May 21 1925, Wikipedia Commons, this work has been released into the public domain by its author, Herbert A. French, who grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

This story first appeared in 2015

Back with Furness Vale Local History Society and one for the diary*

Drawing on his extensive collection of photographs, Chris Simpson takes us on a pictorial journey through the Goyt Valley.



















* Furness Vale Local History Society, http://furnesshistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/dont-miss-our-january-meeting.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+FurnessValeLocalHistorySociety+(FURNESS+VALE+LOCAL+HISTORY+SOCIETY)

December 15 1915 a quiet day on the Western Front ............... remembering Gunner William Watson killed this day a century ago

December 15 1915 seems to have been a quite day on the Western Front.

The Battle of Loos had ended in October with the loss of over 59,000 British soldiers and with the onset of winter campaigning had come to an end.

All of which makes me wonder just how Gunner William Watson of the Royal Field Artillery was killed on that day in December.

The official records list the event but give no detail and I have yet to research the war diaries for his unit for December 1915.

Earlier in the month there had been a mix of activity with British air raids on German positions and on December 10 “an expensive morning ‘Hate’” when according to the Manchester Guardian 3,000 shells had been fired in two and half hours.

The paper reported that  “the guns on both side have been very active again during the last few days, despite the adverse weather conditions. 

In reply to the early morning bombardment of our artillery on the German positions in the vicinity of Pilkem a few days ago, the enemy retaliated with 3,000 shells, fired between 10.30 a.m. and one o’clock ....... at every point of the front artillery duels have been of daily occurrence.....”*

So perhaps this was how Gunner Watson died but for the time being I have no access to his records and only know that he had enlisted at Preston.

I doubt that I would have even known this much if it wasn’t for the photograph of the young William which was taken with his girlfriend or his sister and which someone has written on the back, “In memory of William w Watson kia 15/12/15 from Finland Road Edgeley Stockport, 19 Royal Field Artillery buried in France.”

He had been born in 1897 in Stockport and the family seem to have moved around the town.  In 1911 they had been in Middle Hillgate and just before his death were living in Finland Road.

So far I haven’t been able to discover much more about the family.  His parents had been married in 1900 his father was a butcher and William’s sister was two years younger.

It’s not much but it is a start and with time I might find his obituary and that will lead to more.

As for Wednesday December 15th it also seems to have been a quiet day across Manchester and Stockport.  The papers were full of commodity prices, stories of battles far away in the Balkans and on the Eastern Front and the opening of the film The Story of an Avenger at the Grosvenor Picture Palace at All Saints,  Manchester.

It was a “TRADE SHOW” with one performance at 11 am, and like the story of Gunner William  Watson the film has been equally elusive.

Pictures; Gunner Watson date unknown from the collection of David Harrop, and film advert from the Manchester Guardian December 13 1915, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

**3,000 SHELLS IN TWO HOURS AND HALF, Manchester Guardian December 16 1915
David Harrop, Stockport, Stockport in the 1900s, The Great War

Dumplings, left over’s and the odder things I ate as a child

What goes round comes round, will be pretty familiar to anyone who was born in the first half of the last century.

And it pretty much extends to everything.

I have seen the remakes of umpteen films and TV series, pondered on whether | like the reissue of 60s hits from Dusty Springfield and have been amused at how the humble baseball boot of my youth has been reinvented as the "converse."

Such is how it is.

All of which I was reminded of yesterday morning as I took the remains of the Sunday roast and made soup.

Now that is a bit of a challenge given that I am a vegetarian and I don't like soup.

Leaving those two very big facts to one side there are a few in the house who like their roasts and soups.

So on a Sunday I make the dinner and just enjoy everything except the meat and on Monday evenings am quite content to watch others have the soup.

Of course using up the left over’s not rocket science and has gone on for centuries.

I still remember the metal mincer which attached to the kitchen table and came out regularly to turn yesterdays lamb, beef or pork into something which could be used for another meal.

But somewhere along the way I lost the habit of saving money and using up what there was.

I suppose it was a lot of things not least the reaction to the way mum did things and that for a big chunk of the 80s and 90s we had a dog who would eat anything when mixed with Wilsons that old standby and  favourite cereal for dogs.

Now with time on my hands and a nod to economy and the scandal of wasting food I am in the kitchen with the soup.

And bit by bit a whole shed full of recopies are surfacing from mother’s Dr Who’s which were thick slices of corn beef covered in batter and dropped into the deep fryer, to Nana’s potato pancakes which we then turned into a sandwich.

But it was also how my family cooked.

Nana would use cloves when she cooked peas and also used them in apple sauce and apple pies.

And when it came to that weekly dish of mince there were always two possible versions depending on whether Dad or mother made it.

Dad added corn flour which made it far heavier than mother’s which was just the meat with Bisto and occasionally an onion.

I guess there was an element of bulking out the meat so it went further which is why we always had plenty of dumplings in the strew and in turn reminded me of a conversation with a miner who had spent a lifetime working at Bradford colliery in east Manchester.

He vividly remembers as a child in the 1930s being offered stews full of dumplings and potatoes and being told to eat them all up to get to the meat at the bottom of the dish.

It would only be years later that it occurred to him that there had been very little meat at the bottom but by then he was full.

But memories of childhood meals can work in other ways like the adamant rejection of Sunday left over’s by the foreman at the factory I worked at in the 1960s.

It wasn’t just a vague disapproval but a very clear rejection of the idea.

I didn’t ask why and to this day I can only assume that with the growing prosperity of the decade and the cheapness and variety of food it was something to be left behind.

I on the other hand will now go back to the soup, secure in the knowledge that it will feed a few but not me.

Pictures from Ministry of Food publications, 1946-9 courtesy of Mrs Piggott

Stretford Memorial .................. and the promise of more to come

Now Stretford Memorial is a place I have never been in and one that I tend just to give an occasional nod to as the bus goes down Seymour Grove.

And that is a shame because as Andy Robertson’s picture shows it is still a grand building and one that hints at its former grandeur.

From memory my mate Lawrence was born there and there will be plenty of other people with memories of the place.

In time Andy has promised to go back and take more pictures which will also be the moment to delve into its history.

But for those who can't wait, it was once Basford House, became a Red Cross Hospital during the Great War and  remained a hospital until it closed  in October 2015.

And as it has an entry in the Red Cross book covering the hospitals of east Lancashire during the war I rather think three will be lots to say about the place, along with memories, stories and old photographs which I hope will flood in.

So no pressure there then, Andy.

Picture; Stretford Memorial, December 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson and in 1915 courtesy of David Harrop

Growing up in Pomeroy Street in the 1930s ............. Margaret Nash remembers

I was born into a house that was not only falling down but also over crowded.

This wasn't unusual for residents of Pomeroy Street but what was unusual was that the houses in the street were all different as if built at different times in the
1800's.

Our house had two rooms and a scullery downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs and these were shared between my mum, dad, sister, two brothers, my Nan and
Uncle Jack.

My Nan had lived in Pomeroy Street since her marriage but in the early 1930's she left my granddad and crossed the road to live with us bringing Uncle Jack with her.

Uncle Jack wasn't a relative at all but a friend of my dads, he had no family and had lodged with Nan and granddad since his early 20's and stayed within the family until he died in 1988.

You may wonder how we all fitted into this tiny house well Uncle Jack and Nan had the front room as a sitting room which also doubled up as Uncle Jacks bedroom while Nan went next door but one to sleep at my Aunts house.

I can see her now putting on her coat, picking up her alarm clock and going out of the front door to go to bed. We had the back room as a living room and my two brothers shared the back bedroom while me and my sister shared the front bedroom with mum and dad.

Despite everything it was a happy house and everyone got along.

There must have been cold rainy days but I can only remember the sunny days which we spent playing on the bomb sites or hanging around the cocoa factory in the hope of getting a bit of cocoa which we would mix with sugar to make a 'dip' or getting some free crumpets from the crumpet factory.

Once we'd broken up for the school summer holidays it was time to get ready for hop picking.

A few families in the street used to go hopping so it wasn't unusual to see vans or lorries loading up with tea chests and bits of furniture ready for a summer in Kent. I remember one year my mum sitting in an armchair on the back of a flat backed lorry while us kids dangled our legs off the back.

We must have been a sight to behold as we drove through the Kent countryside.

Then in 1953/4 the Council condemned the houses on our side of the street and one by one families moved out and into the new flats that had been built since the end of the war.

Most families moved into the flats including Nan and Uncle Jack. My dad wouldn't live in a flat so we went to live at Bellingham which none of us could settle to.

I still came back to New Cross to go to school and to see Nan and my mum carried on working at the café in Kender Street.

When I got married in 1966 I left for the Church from Nan's flat and spent the first year of married life back in New Cross.

Whenever I've been back to New Cross in recent years there's very little left of the place I grew up in but the memories are a treasure to hold.

© Margaret Nash 2015

Picture; family pictures in the Pomeroy Street, from the collection of Margaret Nash,