Walking with the Manchester Whit Walks in 1969

There will be many in Manchester with fond memories of past Whit Walks when the congregations of the local churches chapels and Sunday Schools walked in procession through the streets of the city as a witness to their faith.

These were really big events with hundreds turning out to walk the few miles and thousands more lining the streets.

Here in Chorlton a few pictures have survived of processions in the 1930s passing the green and prominent in that procession was our own Brass Band which dated back to the 1820s.

Now there are many photographs of these events and just today Adele posted some wonderful pictures from the 1969 procession.*

They were taken by her father and vividly capture the day.

But what makes them all the more fascinating is that they show scenes of that old Manchester which was about to vanish. The grand clearance plans and commercial projects were during the 1960s and early 70s cutting swathes through central Manchester and areas of Hulme, Moss Side, Ancoats and Bradford and Beswick.

All of which makes these pictures so important for they are not the posed carefully composed images of professional commercial photographers, but photographs by people who lived where the procession was passing and had links to both the Walks and the people in them.

And something of the fun and pride of the participants comes through from Adele’s pictures.

Here then on that Whit week in 1969 are a few of Adele’s pictures.

Pictures; courtesy of Adele