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 rather think that Joe and Mary Ann would have been baffled by the idea of bottled water, and in particularly the practice of buying packs of the stuff to have in the house.
But that is what some of the family have opted to do and like Joe and Mary Ann I find it all a bit odd.
The cost is way ahead of what a similar quantity would cost out of the tap, has all the issues of re-cycling and to my mind doesn’t taste any different.
At which point I must admit that I have bought bottles of the sparking variety which we have had on special occasions, and when are in Italy with the family that is what they all ways drink, bought straight from the supermarket.
I suspect that has something to do with the history of water supply in Italy but we have had good quality drinking water for a very long time.
And I was reminded of all this when I came back across, Your City, Manchester 1838-1938, written by "the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild in co-operation with its Group for Research in Administration and Sociology in celebration of the Centenary of the City’s Charter of Incorporation, with special dedication to the Children of Manchester.”**
It was published as the story of what the council had achieved in the century we had had locally elected government.
So there were chapters on the improvements in sanitation, public health, education and housing, as well as leisure, and culture, town planning and the government of the city.
And it looked forward to the future, with clean and cheap electricity and gas, heating and lighting the homes across the city as well as fuelling the domestic appliances for cooking and washing.
My particular favourite is the Sludge Steamship Mancunium which took the treated sewage waste out to sea where it was “emptied into the ocean 22 miles beyond Liverpool or [that] portion broadcast,was broadcast on to the land and ploughed in helping to make the land good for agricultural purposes.”
Not so different then from the practice of our own farmers who bought night soil from the privies of Manchester to spread across the township fields.
As for household rubbish the book makes much of the slogan on the side of dust carts of the period to “Burn your own rubbish.”
Now given the number of open fire this was a practical solution and by extension the Corporation did much the same in its destructors, which “are really big furnaces ..... where cart loads of rubbish are burned down to clinkers, the useful parts of the rubbish – old tins, bottles, etc- being saved and sold to firms who melt them down and use them for making new tins and new bottles.”
Less attractive today but at the time lauded as the new and scientific way was “'controlled tipping'. Here the rubbish is dumped on low lying land and is spread carefully out and ‘sealed’ by covering with a thick layer of soil.
Then another layer of waste in put on top, ‘sealed’ and so the land is built up into what becomes in a year or two solid land.”
It’s a practice we might well now feel very uncomfortable with, but was how they did things just 80 years ago.
And that brings me back to our water, which I suspect comes via the Thirlmere Viaduct, and passed through Chorlton.
Its arrival in the city over a century ago was celebrated by the erection of a public fountain in Albert Square, which is now happily restored and is a pointer to the future, because we need more of these water fountains in public places and public buildings and perhaps in shops and offices.
The cost may well be off set in the long run by the demise of both the plastic bottle and the glass one.
No more will we have to throw away the plastic one or for that matter the costly route of recycling the glass version with its hidden cost in either washing or re-making a new glass bottle.
Well we shall see.
Leaving me to think that the few glass bottles Joe and Mary Ann would have used will have been washed and returned to the retailer.
Now that is an idea.
Pictures; from the collection of Rita Bishop, courtesy of David Bishop and from the collection of Andrew Simpson, from Your City, Manchester 1838-1938, the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild, 1938, Bottles of Water, reproduced from Tigros, Il Fresco Più Buona, Aprile 2018
*The story of a house, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house
** Your City, Manchester 1838-1938, the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild, 1938
 |
| Bottled water, Italy, 2018 |
But that is what some of the family have opted to do and like Joe and Mary Ann I find it all a bit odd.
The cost is way ahead of what a similar quantity would cost out of the tap, has all the issues of re-cycling and to my mind doesn’t taste any different.
At which point I must admit that I have bought bottles of the sparking variety which we have had on special occasions, and when are in Italy with the family that is what they all ways drink, bought straight from the supermarket.
I suspect that has something to do with the history of water supply in Italy but we have had good quality drinking water for a very long time.
 |
| A century of civic achievement, 1938 |
It was published as the story of what the council had achieved in the century we had had locally elected government.
So there were chapters on the improvements in sanitation, public health, education and housing, as well as leisure, and culture, town planning and the government of the city.
And it looked forward to the future, with clean and cheap electricity and gas, heating and lighting the homes across the city as well as fuelling the domestic appliances for cooking and washing.
My particular favourite is the Sludge Steamship Mancunium which took the treated sewage waste out to sea where it was “emptied into the ocean 22 miles beyond Liverpool or [that] portion broadcast,was broadcast on to the land and ploughed in helping to make the land good for agricultural purposes.”
 |
| Disposing of the water, 1938 |
Now given the number of open fire this was a practical solution and by extension the Corporation did much the same in its destructors, which “are really big furnaces ..... where cart loads of rubbish are burned down to clinkers, the useful parts of the rubbish – old tins, bottles, etc- being saved and sold to firms who melt them down and use them for making new tins and new bottles.”
 |
| Celebrating another civic achievement, circa 1900 |
Then another layer of waste in put on top, ‘sealed’ and so the land is built up into what becomes in a year or two solid land.”
It’s a practice we might well now feel very uncomfortable with, but was how they did things just 80 years ago.
 |
| The restored water fountain, 2013 |
Its arrival in the city over a century ago was celebrated by the erection of a public fountain in Albert Square, which is now happily restored and is a pointer to the future, because we need more of these water fountains in public places and public buildings and perhaps in shops and offices.
The cost may well be off set in the long run by the demise of both the plastic bottle and the glass one.
No more will we have to throw away the plastic one or for that matter the costly route of recycling the glass version with its hidden cost in either washing or re-making a new glass bottle.
Well we shall see.
Leaving me to think that the few glass bottles Joe and Mary Ann would have used will have been washed and returned to the retailer.
Now that is an idea.
Pictures; from the collection of Rita Bishop, courtesy of David Bishop and from the collection of Andrew Simpson, from Your City, Manchester 1838-1938, the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild, 1938, Bottles of Water, reproduced from Tigros, Il Fresco Più Buona, Aprile 2018
*The story of a house, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house
** Your City, Manchester 1838-1938, the Manchester Municipal Officer’s Guild, 1938
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