The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*
Now I never knew Joe or Mary Ann but I wish I did, if only because they played a part in the development of our bit of Chorlton for a big chunk of the 20th century.
Joe was a builder, the son of a plasterer who had come up from London in the 1880s, and Joe built many of the smaller two up two down properties on the smaller roads off Beech Road and Ivy Green.
And given that he and his father built our house I have always been fascinated by him and his wife.
Joe died in 1968 and Mary Ann just six years later, and while there are still people who remember them sadly those memories are vague and so far I have been unable to turn up a picture.
But yesterday Joyce who lived just up the road told me that she remembered “Joseph Scott and my parents who lived at 28 Beech having a huge row because our cat had gone missing and apparently killed and even though {rumour has it} Joe knew it belonged to the house adjacent to his, he kept quiet and buried it in what is now your garden. Please don't do any extensive garden work as you might have Whiskers for company”
And of course it was already too late for us to heed the advice. We had not only found a few of what I take were the remains of their cats, but added some of our own.
When we moved in we brought a baby black Labrador which we called Bagel and he become so much a feature of the house that for many years it defined who I was.
The dog walkers on the Rec would refer to me as Bagel’s and all my sons learned to walk holding on to him.
We had already inherited one stray cat which we called Tamla Motown and took into two more who were called Harvey Moon and Henry Harris.
Tamla speaks for itself, Harvey came from a gentle TV show of the time and Henry was named after a Labour Party canvasser who travelled all the way on the bus from Crumpsall to help in elections.
And along the way if but for short periods there were gerbils, rabbits a guinea pig and very briefly one goldfish.
None of which is surprising really.
Most family homes will pick up the odd pet at some point.
All of which takes me back to Joe and Mary Ann who had their fair share but they went further and left the house to the PDSA.
The People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals was established in 1917 offering free care and treatment for sick animals in the Whitechapel area of London and spread across the country with the first horse drawn mobile clinic starting in 1924.
Now I grant you in all the twists and turns of the history of the house the story of its pets may seem trivial and yet it is as much a part of what went on as anything else.
We may not be able to boast a snake or a goat but between our varied collection and that of Joe and Mary Ann's we have pretty much filled most of its time with the noise of animals.
And here I have to confess that elements of this story have appeared before, but I don’t think there is anything wrong in that.**
Pictures, Bagel and Tamla, circa 1983, Harvey 1988 and the two, 1990, and from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The story of a house,
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house
**One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 51 ............ the dog, the cats, two gerbils and a couple of rabbits, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html
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| Bagel & Tamala 1983 |
Joe was a builder, the son of a plasterer who had come up from London in the 1880s, and Joe built many of the smaller two up two down properties on the smaller roads off Beech Road and Ivy Green.
And given that he and his father built our house I have always been fascinated by him and his wife.
Joe died in 1968 and Mary Ann just six years later, and while there are still people who remember them sadly those memories are vague and so far I have been unable to turn up a picture.
But yesterday Joyce who lived just up the road told me that she remembered “Joseph Scott and my parents who lived at 28 Beech having a huge row because our cat had gone missing and apparently killed and even though {rumour has it} Joe knew it belonged to the house adjacent to his, he kept quiet and buried it in what is now your garden. Please don't do any extensive garden work as you might have Whiskers for company”
And of course it was already too late for us to heed the advice. We had not only found a few of what I take were the remains of their cats, but added some of our own.
When we moved in we brought a baby black Labrador which we called Bagel and he become so much a feature of the house that for many years it defined who I was.
The dog walkers on the Rec would refer to me as Bagel’s and all my sons learned to walk holding on to him.
We had already inherited one stray cat which we called Tamla Motown and took into two more who were called Harvey Moon and Henry Harris.
 |
| Harvey 1988 |
And along the way if but for short periods there were gerbils, rabbits a guinea pig and very briefly one goldfish.
None of which is surprising really.
Most family homes will pick up the odd pet at some point.
All of which takes me back to Joe and Mary Ann who had their fair share but they went further and left the house to the PDSA.
 |
| The two stayed very briefly |
Now I grant you in all the twists and turns of the history of the house the story of its pets may seem trivial and yet it is as much a part of what went on as anything else.
We may not be able to boast a snake or a goat but between our varied collection and that of Joe and Mary Ann's we have pretty much filled most of its time with the noise of animals.
And here I have to confess that elements of this story have appeared before, but I don’t think there is anything wrong in that.**
Pictures, Bagel and Tamla, circa 1983, Harvey 1988 and the two, 1990, and from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*The story of a house,
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house
**One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 51 ............ the dog, the cats, two gerbils and a couple of rabbits, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html
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