Now the quality of the postcard reproduction is a bit iffy.
This is our Post Office shortly after it had opened on Wilbraham Road in 1905.
It did the business of selling stamps, taking in parcels and offering advice on the cost of postcards to America, until it was damaged beyond repair in the Manchester Blitz just before Christmas 1940.
The picture post card was acquired today by David Harrop, who like me was less interested in the photograph and more on the message on the back, which hoped that “you have arrived safely”, adding “I am glad to say there was no one hurt”.
And that reference to no one being hurt was tantalizing.
A quick trawl of the newspapers revealed that in the few days before the card was sent there was an accident to HMS Implacable which caused the death of two stokers, while at Tynmouth, three bathers were drowned when a “heavy sea running 50 yards from the beach” caught them “in a strong current and they were rapidly carried out to sea” and late that evening another chap was drowned at Llangollen.*
But despite these deaths, the Manchester Guardian also reported that no one had been hurt when a motor train of the Great Western Railway ran “into the station at Oswestry without reducing speed and proceeded towards the stop blocks which, with a tremendous noise threw high into the air, snapping the metal like tinsel, and forcing down the boundary wall and railings adjoining the main road”.**
It may seem a trivial story, but it is a Chorlton one, and is a reminder that back in the early 20th century, it was possible to send and receive postcards on the day they were sent, allowing people to arrange to meet later in the day or announce their return from holiday on the day they set off.
Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Picture; picture postcard, 1905 from the collection of David Harrop
*Accident on Implacable, Manchester Guardian, July 13th, 1905 and A Dangerous Sea, The Manchester Guardian, Jul 15, 1905
**Runaway Rail Motor, Manchester Guardian, July 15,th, 1905
It did the business of selling stamps, taking in parcels and offering advice on the cost of postcards to America, until it was damaged beyond repair in the Manchester Blitz just before Christmas 1940.
The picture post card was acquired today by David Harrop, who like me was less interested in the photograph and more on the message on the back, which hoped that “you have arrived safely”, adding “I am glad to say there was no one hurt”.
And that reference to no one being hurt was tantalizing.
But despite these deaths, the Manchester Guardian also reported that no one had been hurt when a motor train of the Great Western Railway ran “into the station at Oswestry without reducing speed and proceeded towards the stop blocks which, with a tremendous noise threw high into the air, snapping the metal like tinsel, and forcing down the boundary wall and railings adjoining the main road”.**
It may seem a trivial story, but it is a Chorlton one, and is a reminder that back in the early 20th century, it was possible to send and receive postcards on the day they were sent, allowing people to arrange to meet later in the day or announce their return from holiday on the day they set off.
Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Picture; picture postcard, 1905 from the collection of David Harrop
*Accident on Implacable, Manchester Guardian, July 13th, 1905 and A Dangerous Sea, The Manchester Guardian, Jul 15, 1905
**Runaway Rail Motor, Manchester Guardian, July 15,th, 1905
It looks to me this was addressed to the Isle of Man (I.O.M.)
ReplyDeleteLooks to me this was posted to an adress in the Isle of Man (I.O.M.)
ReplyDelete