Lost in Manchester, looking for Jackson's Market and a bag of potatoes in the October of 1914

Now here is a mystery which I haven’t been able to solve.

We are on a Manchester street in 1914 and according to the caption the long queue is waiting to buy potatoes.

I wish there was more but there isn’t.

The starting point has to be Jackson’s Market and assuming that is where the supply of potatoes are then we are looking for a greengrocer of which the 1909 directory lists four.

Of these, three were in Manchester, with one at 11 Glebe Street, Levenshulme, a second at 67 Crosscliffe Street Moss Side and the third at 340 Stockport Road.

Each is part of a row of shops and so there is a potential match.

Sadly none of the neighbouring shops in the picture match the businesses on the three streets in the directory.

Of course between 1909 and 1914 our green grocer’s neighbours might have changed which could still keep us in the running.

But in 1911 a Jackson selling fruit and veg is no longer trading from any of those three streets, which just rather makes the mystery just that bit more difficult to solve.

But as I download the 1911 trades directory I may still have an answer.

So as they say watch this space for developments.

And for any one who mutters "well that was a dead loss" that is pretty much how it is sometimes with mysteries.

You can spend all day looking for an answer and wish you had gone to watch the paint dry on next door's garden shed.

But sometimes if you wait long enough it all comes out in the wash, or in this case a directory.

And that I think is enough of that.

Picture; Queue for Potatoes, 1914, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass