Sunday 2 April 2023

Shops I have known

I can’t even remember when I took this photograph but it wasn’t that long ago.

Like all these types of shops there was a wonderful collection of anything and everything ranging from under a £ to a tenner.

In the pursuit of a washing line I came across a pink plastic embossed flower vase, mounds of household goods and of course that picture of New York Bridge in the early morning.

It provided cheaper versions of things and more often and not things which were unavailable in the supermarkets.  Its passing was quickly filled by other such shops and now in the last month a new You and Me has opened up beside the bus station.

Not that it has always been a shop.  Back at the beginning of the 20th century it was the home of Mrs Margaret Barber and her six children.  In those days it was a fine 11 roomed house facing out on to Maple Avenue.

But some time during the mid century the extension was added and it became a shop.

Now I will set myself the job of digging out just what Harvey’s were selling in the May of 1959 when A.H.Downes took his photograph and I guess it continued for sometime before becoming You and Me.

And for those who regularly pass the spot they too will have seen it transform into different furniture shops.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, and from a series taken by A.H. Downes in May 1959,  m17594, Courtesy of Manchester , Information and Archives, Manchester City Council 

4 comments:

  1. In 1959 Harvey’s was selling a lovely range of baby clothes, cot and pram bedding etc. I think they also sold underwear. Bought several items of baby clothes whenI had my firstborn in 1962.

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  2. Another fascinating bit of history; thank you, Andrew

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  3. Arthur Downes a great mentor for me. A former president of the Royal Photographic Society no less.

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  4. My first ever job was at you me and us as a school boy around 2001. Dragging it all inside at closing time for a tenner a week! Great article

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