Just how did Didsbury vote in 1835?

Now every General Election will have a clear set of issues which the political parties offer answers to, and as the Brexit train moves on into even more uncertain times, I was reminded of the 1835 General Election.

Didsbury Village, 1853

It followed just three years after the Great Reform Act reshaped our electoral system, creating the South Lancashire Constituency of which Didsbury, Withington and Chorlton-cum Hardy were part of.

The General Election which followed the Reform Act saw the  two Whig candidates elected, who went on to play their part in the reforming Whig government which prepared the way for a uniform system of local government, created a new way of administering benefits to the poor, unemployed and old, abolished slavery in the Empire and had made some inroads into factory reform. 

But after two years there were divisions within its ranks and some outside who were unhappy with its record. 

The radicals were disappointed that the Reform Act had not gone further and was now seen as an end to further Parliamentary change.  The urban working class were again organising themselves industrially and through the Chartist movement demanding a vote in elections. 

The parish church, 1852

In the rural areas poverty had led to widespread riots at the beginning of the 1830s and the Whig Government made martyrs of six Dorchester farm labourers who had protested at falling wages. 

And while certain sections of the population thought the Government had been too hard on these Tolpuddle Martyrs, there were others who felt the Whigs had not gone far enough in quelling the rural disturbances during 1830and 31.

And both the urban working class and the rural farm labourers were hostile to the 1834 Poor Law which had created the Poor Law bastilles and stigmatised any who needed parish relief.    Against this background there was also a Tory revival which saw it gain ten seats in by-elections between 1832 and 1833.

From the outset the Tories were determined to win.  Their leader Peel had issued a clear statement of policy which appeared to promise both change and stability. 

It was contained in an address to his own electors in Tamworth, but its real intention was to signal to the country that the Tory party could deliver reform where it was most needed but would also conserve the best of the old. 

Didsbury's electorate, 1836

The Reform Act was a reality which Peel would not overturn and it followed that in the same spirit of improvement there should be “a careful review of institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, undertaken in a friendly temper combining, with the firm maintenance of established rights, the correction of proved abuses and the redress of real grievances, -”.   But there was to be no further extension of the vote, “the reform bill was a final and irrevocable settlement of a great constitutional question”, and the Tories were opposed “to a perpetual vortex of agitation”.

By contrast the Whigs were divided and complacent and up against a sleek Tory electoral machine, which was as ruthless in the  way it manipulated the registering system as it was in intimidating voters at a time when you cast your vote in the public gaze and your choice was recorded.

How Didsbury voted in 1835

The degree of that intimidation was reported widely in the press who also remarked on the Tory’s monopoly of cabs which they used to ferry their own to the nomination meetings.

Of course, the Didsbury electorate was small, with just 52 men, entitled to vote out of a total population of 1,789.

We will never know just the degree to which intimidation and corruption played a part in Didsbury, although across the border in Stretford, Thomas Joseph Trafford of Trafford Park instructed his tenants to vote Tory, and all but one of them did just that. The level of potential intimidation was all too clear from the one tenant who refused to follow the line.  He expected “in the spirit of the olden times, to hear of Tory vengeance.” 

According to one London newspaper quoting the Manchester Guardian “Mr Egerton of Tatton, we understand personally headed up his tenants, and waited on the booth whilst they voted”.

How Chorlton voted in 1835

As it turned out, 9 of the electorate voted Liberal and 20 voted Tory, with similar results in Chorlton-cum Hardy where the split was 7 voting Liberal, 19 for the Tories and in Withington the Tory share of the vote was 67%.

Leaving me just to search the records to see how far the voters in Didsbury were connected in some way to the Tory Egerton family which owned most of south Manchester.  A similar search in Chorlton showed significant links.

Pictures; Didsbury showing the Church Inn and Old Cock, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ Didsbury Parish Church, 1852, from from A History of the Ancient Chapels, Rev. J Booker, 1852, and tables taken from data published by the Leeds Mercury, January 1835.

*adapted from The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012

Down a Chorlton alley ……….. reflecting on small businesses and a bit of our local history

The alley is the one on Wilbraham Road, beside Adastral House and just opposite Buckingham Road and today it is home to Stitched Up which I think have been there since 2015, and before that it was occupied by Annatiques and Anna’s Gift Boutique and Kidzone Clothing.

Andy Robertson came across it earlier last week, commenting, “not noticed this before, between Adastral House and Kingbee Records Block on Wilbraham Road”, and much earlier Peter had painted the earlier business.

All of which got me thinking about the history of the building, and of other buildings which over the years have had many different uses.

Many here in Chorlton began as coach houses accommodating a space for the carriage, and a horse, with a loft above for storing the hay.

I still vividly remember the one at the bottom of Nana’s long garden, outside Derby in the 1950s.

On long hot summer days, the place fascinated me.  It had long ago lost its carriage, horse and hay, but the smell of dried grass lingered on, mixed with that of crumbling plaster and old wood, which was set off by the lazy buzz of insects.

Most of those in Chorlton appear to have morphed into workshop for the repair of cars, while a few have been converted for residential use.

As for this one, I can track it back to 1933, when it shows up as a line of buildings running east, following the railway track.

Just when they were built and what they were used for is still to be discovered.

But some one will know, and the presence reminds me that history is messy, and you can still be surprised at what you come across, and sometimes mystified by what the story behind them is.

Location; Wilbraham Road

Picture; down an alley off Wilbraham Road, 2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Painting; Annatiques Chorlton. Painting © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures

Watching the sun set over southern Israel

There remains something very powerful about watching the sun set, and in a  way it doesn’t matter much if it is over a tenement in Glasgow, across the emptiness of the Aegean or in this case the hills of southern Israel.

You watch as the sun sinks lower and finally disappears leaving you to ponder on the night ahead.

And out on the hills of southern Israel it looks particularly striking, as the barren landscape slowly becomes indistinct.








Location; southern Israel

Pictures; sunset, 2017 from the collection of Saul Simpson and Emilka Cholewicka

Moor Street in Rusholme some around 1965 ............. now long gone

We are on Moor Street in Rusholme, sometime just before it was cleared away around 1965.

Moor Street circa 1965

Now I can’t be exactly sure of the date, but the picture belongs to Ken Fish whose grandmother lived here from 1911 till 1965.

And given the bricked house in the same terrace I think we must be close to that date.

Moor Street ran from Wilmslow Road to Nelson Street, and you won’t find it today on any modern map.

That said it is possible to locate it fairly accurately because across Wilmslow Road directly opposite was Rusholme Grove which is still there today.  It is a narrow unpromising stretch of road broken twice by short footpaths.

But stand at the point where it joins Wilmlsow Road and look toward the city centre and just across the road is a modern row of shops which makes the site of Moor Street.

Back in 1911 it consisted of 21 properties including greengrocers, a fish and chip shop, a butcher’s and a beer shop.

Ken remembers "the off licence was still there in the sixties, my Gran’s was the last one on the right and the"offy" was next door to my gran’s but was forward of her house with the backyard more or less level with her front door.   

Between them was a footpath that led on to Claremont Road and came out near a paper shop and a police station and some other cottages, they were strange because they were below the level of the pavement and there was a slope to the front doors.

My Gran’s cottage when you went in you stepped directly into the front room and down a step, in between the two rooms were very steep stairs with a door to them.  The back room was the kitchen and the floor was made up of natural flag stones with a grid inset in the middle to the sewers.  

The upstairs I can only remember going up once and the ceiling was very low, the other thing that comes to mind is the heavy drapes over all the doors to keep the draughts out, there was also an outdoor toilet and I think if you wanted hot water you had to boil it."

Now there are plenty of pictures of houses from this period in the digital archive but sadly many will have been lost so Ken’s is a fascinating glimpse of a bit of the city just before it vanished forever.

Picture; from the collection of Ken Fish

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........... nu 57 looking across at Greengate ...... from Bearings to high rise

Now if I hadn’t given the game away in the title, there may be may who would find it hard to place this new development which thrusts up into the sky.

2017

1980

But then I have already offered up the location and the rest as they say will be a flood of memories from many who long ago left Salford.

When I last wrote about the spot there were plenty who commented on the shops and more than a few who remembered that bus stop.

For some it was where they caught the bus home after a day at work and for a few it was the staring point for a night out.

And I am hoping that these pictures will produce

2017

more than a few more stories.

Location; Salford









Pictures; on Greengate, 2017 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and in 1980, m66776, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council  http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

One car, one camera, and three pictures of the changing landscape.

Now the trip in along Chester Road into town continues to be one dominated by new build, most of which is unremarkable and pretty standard.

And then just after passing St George’s the skyline id dominated by those new towers which rise from the ground, almost as if they had been planned to keep the Beetham Tower company.

What is all the remarkable, is that just three years ago only the Beetham scraped the sky, and that transformation has been recorded by Andy Robertson, almost level by level as the towers moved upwards.

Nor has he been alone, because Cathy Robertson regularly also chronicles their development.

And earlier in the week she took four pictures in quick succession, as if to re emphasis the size of the buildings.





Location; coming into Manchester

Pictures; three pictures of the new towers, 2019, from the collection of Cathy Robertson

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........... nu 56 standing on Greengate one year on

Now it has been over a couple of years since I was last on Greengate, and the development on either side is all but finished.

All a lot different from when this was a building site and Greengate was closed off to traffic at the Chapel Street end.

And even more different from when the corner by the railway bridge had a number of small shops, which many will remember with affection.

I could go on, but I have written about the place in the past and no doubt there will be plenty of people who will chime in with their own memories, stories and pictures.*

So these two are all for today but with an option on more from the past tomorrow.

Location; Salford

Pictures; Greengate, 2017 and 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

You wait 67 years for a tram ....... and two turn up at the same time

Now I don’t remember those old stately Corporation trams that rattled acoss all our cities for half a century and more.

That said there is a family story that father did take me down to New Cross bus and tram depot to see the last London one finish its last journey on July 5 1952.

Sadly I have no recollection, so for all those like me who are fascinated by those trams, here are two from Paul  Sherlock and Ron Stubley.

Both were taken in Blackpool.

Paul tells me his picture sports the markings of Bolton Corporation, while Ron’s is from the magic and famous 53 route which finished up at Belle Vue.

And that is about it, except to say that I we have a new series celebrating trams from San Francisco, to Warsaw, and Berlin.

To which in time I shall add my own favourites which ,include the London Transport double decker  that passed our house, the old green single decker from Rome and the equally striking orange ones of Naples.

Location; Blackpool
















Pictures; a Bolton tram courtesy of Paul Sherlock, 2016, and the 52 to Belle Vue, 2010 from the collection of Ron Stubley

British Home Children in Birmingham ……September 14th to the 22nd ….. one for the diary

Now I collect local history societies, even if I am too far away to attend.

And of course, become quite excited when they feature stories of British Home Children.

So, I was especially pleased to read a post from Marion Crawford, whose Canadian Facebook* site advertised the Lost Children Exhibition in Birmingham organized by the Balsall Heath Local History Society, from September 14th through to September 22nd. **

It looks fascinating, and has a personal resonance for me, because both my grandfather and one of his brothers was born in Birmingham, and later it was the Birmingham based Middlemore Society which took that brother across the Atlantic on behalf of the Derby Union.

So, the exhibition has a personal dimension and is a nice twist that a Birmingham event, was publicized by a Canadian BHC site, and has come home with it being posted on our own British Home …… the story from Britain. ***


Location Birmingham


* Middlemore Atlantic Society

**Balsall Heath Local History Society, http://balsallheathhistory.co.uk/

*** British Home  …… the story from Britain

That interesting wall on Gould Street ........ Lost and abandoned walls no 2

Now it all started when Ted responded to a story with the question “do you do requests Mr Simpson? 

Here's an interesting wall on Gould Street, by Angel Meadows,” and included a picture.

And the rest was as they say a matter of detective work on a wet and grey Saturday afternoon.

But before I got there Nick had come up with a map and a picture of a building which seemed to be the candidate.

By 1972 it was home to a company called Wither’s and stood on Irk Street awaiting demolition. It had similar windows on the ground floor to Ted’s wall and because Irk Street ran parallel to Gould Street it seems the candidate.

According to Nick’s map the site was a Sunday School and the directories for 1903 through to 1911 list it as the Gould Street Sunday School.

All of which fits but just throws up a little bit of a puzzle, because Ted’s wall had not been on Gould Street but on Back Irk Street which was renamed sometime after 1894 becoming just a continuation of Gould Street.

Back Irk Street appears on the census returns for 1881 and maybe there later, but is not listed by 1911 which may be explained by a name change or equally by the simple fact that it was too small and too mean to warrant an inclusion.

I suspect there will be more to come on this one.

Location; Manchester

Initial research; Nick Rushton

Pictures; Ted’s wall courtesy of Ted and that building on Irk Street, 1972, m20523, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

What Andy found on Monsall Street

Now the casual visitor to Miles Platting might well walk past this wall on Monsall Street and give it no thought.

The curious however might well ponder on the bricked up entrance and those medieval looking windows.

And the serious investigator will go away and search out what was once on the site.

This of course is what Andy Robertson did yesterday.

Having taken the tram out to Monsall and encountering the said wall he photographed it and went home to see what he could find.

It turns out that this is all that is left of St Edmunds Church which was opened in 1896 and closed in 1994.

There after the church was sold.
And just after the story was posted, Maria Killeen added that

"I went there as a child , got married there and had all my children christened and make their holy communions there. 

Add caption

It was beautiful inside and when I was little there were quiet a few priests and a canon there , this ended up just the one priest as time went on who was really grumpy and not everyone's cup of tea lol but he was always fine with me. 

The church was built on mines and it was only a matter of time before it had to be demolished, there were massive cracks all around the church because of the movement and as a kid I used to be frightened to death the church would collapse whilst I was in it . 

Is it because it was a church the base has been left ? Often wondered"

Now that I don't know but I am guessing someone will.

Location; Miles Platting

Pictures; Monsall Street 2017 from the collection of Andy Robertson, and in 1968, T Brooks, m6952, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

October 31 1918 ...... the day Admiral Jellicoe visited Manchester and a heap of stories

Now I had no idea that Admiral Jellico visited Manchester in 1918.

Inspecting Naval cadets in Albert Square, October 31 1918

Of course I shouldn’t have been surprised that a leading member of the armed forces should have called in.

That said the Manchester Guardian did rather sniffily report that “Manchester has had too little chance to welcome the heads of the navy during the war.”*

And went on to take a side swipe at his and the rest of the naval chief’s failure “to foresee the use to which the submarine might be put.”

But elsewhere the paper also reported on the details of the visit, where he “fulfilled several public engagements .

In the morning he formally opened Brought House, Broughton Park, and a home for disabled sailors and soldiers.  

In Albert Square, after being entertained to luncheon at the Town Hall, he inspected a guard of honour consisting of 67 ratings of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. 

Lord Jellicoe then attended and spoke at a performance at the Manchester Hippodrome in aid of the Million Shillings Fund at the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society.”**

And it is that visit to Albert Square and the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society which caught my eye last week in Central Ref.  I was digging ever deeper into the archives of the Together Trust when I came across a box full of material on this Society***

On the steps of the Town Hall

The society owed its origins to the formation of the Port of London Society, formed to minister to the religious needs of seamen and twenty-five years later merged with the Sailors’ Society to form the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society which promoted the moral and religious improvements of sailors’.****

And almost a century on Lord Jellicoe was there to support the Manchester and Salford branch whose offices were in the Houldsworth Hall on Deansgate.

Just why the material turned up in the Trust’s archives has yet to be revealed, but I guess the link may have been that they were both charities and corresponded.

The Society

Either way it has offered up a new avenue of research, from the intriguing Million Shillings Fund to his speech at Hpouldsworth Hall.

Location; Manchester, 1918










Picture; postcard from the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society, 1918

*Admiral Jellicoe in Manchester, Manchester Guardian, November 1, 1918

**The Watching and Waiting of the Fleet, A Manchester Visit, Manchester Guardian, November 1, 1918

***A new book on the Together Trust, 
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20the%20Together%20Trust

****Sailors’ Society, https://www.sailors-society.org/

Down on Manchester Road with our poshest cinema

Now you know you were being treated when the cinema was the Savoy, or as it later became known the Gaumont on Manchester Road.

The Picture House, 1920, later the Savoy and Gaumont

I had always thought this was the case, after it was larger and more impressive looking that its two rivals which were the Pavilion on Wilbraham Road and the Palais De Luxe on Barlow Moor Road.

And by 1928 it’s only challenger in Chorlton was the Palais which was smaller and older.

All I wanted was confirmation of the Gaumont’s premier position, and it came today from the Kinematograph Yearbook for 1928.

The Savoy, 1928

I now have four in the collection, starting with the one for 1914, and running through to 1928, 1929 and 1947.

There will be more, but for now I have just the four, and it is the 1928 book which dishes up the evidence that it felt confident in charging 8d to 1s. 6d, for admission while the Palais came in at 6d to 1s. 3d.

The Palais De Luxe, 1928

So, on the nights you might want to impress someone special, that “specialness” was reflected in what you were prepared to pay.

Of course, the choice of film might still have something to do with it, but I reckon that that all important first date or anniversary would tip the balance in favour of the Savoy.

The Palais De Lux, 1925

Later in the 1930s, came the last of our cinemas, up by the park, and it outlasted the Savoy by a few decades.

All of which makes it an exciting idea that there are those who want to buy up the former cinema and transform it into a community hub.

Now that would be fun.

Location; Chorlton,

Pictures; the Picture House, 1920, later renamed the Savoy and later still the Gaumont, from the Lloyd Collection, listing details from the 1928, Kinematograph Yearbook, and the Palais De Luxe cinema, circa 1928, Charles Ireland, GD10-07-04-6-13-01 Courtesy of East Dunbartonshire Archives

In Piccadilly Gardens in the summer of 1970

Now this will bring back memories.

And in the way of things there isn’t much more to say.

You either miss it and mourn its passing or have embraced the new Gardens with the concrete slab and expanse of sterile grass which despite all efforts never seems to be that green or that full.

As a public place I have to say the new Piccadilly is not one of our finest open spaces and the Wheel does little to enhance it.

But then I guess there were those back in the 1920s and 30s who muttered at what had been done to the old hospital site.

There is nothing wrong with change but sadly in the case of the Gardens something  more intimate and gentle has been lost in favour of a  brutal and plain expanse.

Location, Manchester

Picture; Piccadilly circa 1970 from the collection of Sally Dervan

The grimy ones ........ our River

Now here is another of those short series taken from the family archive.

All were taken around 1979 and offer up scenes of the River which we knew but most tourists seldom saw.

Location; the River


Pictures; the River, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ....... nu 54 an almost familiar view of Chapel Street

What else is there to say?

Location; Chapel Street










Picture; Chapel Street in the 1960s from the collection of John Casey

Two pictures and four years of war .................

We are on Oxford Street sometime on November 11 1918 amongst the crowds celebrating the end of the Great War.

Many standing there will have their own personal story of the war and for some the euphoria of Armistice Day will be tinged with the loss of someone close to them.

But on that Monday just over a century ago there is no doubting the relief that it was all over, a feeling echoed again just twenty-seven years later on the evening of VE Day and summed up by the diary entry of a young woman who wrote “tonight everyone I know will be safe.”*

The day was well documented as was August 4th four years earlier and contrary to the received account of the declaration of war the mood was not one of universal acclamation.

Across the country in the run up to the war there had been opposition expressed in letters from church organisations, newspaper editorials and motions passed at trade union conferences, and on the streets there was not always that spontaneous outburst for a war with Germany.

Robert Roberts remembered that in Salford “there was no great burst of patriotic fervour.  Little groups of men and women together stood talking earnestly on the shop or at the street corner, stunned a little by the enormity of events.”

And yet once the war had begun recruitment centres across the country were overwhelmed by volunteers, so much so that here in Manchester many wanting to join the Colours were turned away and in the first months of the war the City raised a full eight battalions of volunteers complementing the battalions of reservists who had already been sent to the Front.

And that neatly brings us to the second picture which is dated August 4th 1914 and was taken in Brook Street in Macclesfield with a group of men from the Cheshire Yeomanry.

Together they span the Great War and I am grateful to David Harrop from whose collection theyare from.

Pictures, Armistice Day in Manchester November 11 1918 and August 4 1914 with the Cheshire Yeomanry at Macclesfield, courtesy of David Harrop

*Of course the war in the East against Japan would go on till the August and it would be many more months before my family learned of the death of my uncle who had died in a POW camp in 1943.

Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........ nu 53 Chapel Street

Now I know Chapel Street is nether lost nor forgotten but over the next few days here are a few photographs that were taken on a June day this year.

And like all good pictures and stories I leave the rest to you.

Location; Salford

Picture; Chapel Street, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A business card, a café and another Chorlton story

Now, over the years Bob Jones has shared some fascinating photographs from his collection, and the other day, these two popped into the inbox.

Bob’s dad ran the pet shop on Beech Road, which is now Franny and Filer but was once a beer shop, while Bob worked in the butcher’s shop directly opposite.

I knew his wife had worked at Stevenson’s the hairdressers on Wilbraham Road, but not that his dad had set up J.B. Luxury Cars … “Weddings Our Specialty”.

It was a joint venture with Robert Burgess who ran Bob’s Café at 137 Beech Road and looking at the picture of the car and driver, they were a class outfit.

I don’t have a date for either the business card, or the picture, but next time I ma in Central Ref, I will trawl the directories to fix the date which I suspect will be the early 1950s.

And that set me going on just what other businesses had occupied the two shops.

In the case of no. 70, it had been the Traveler’s Rest from the early 1830s into the beginning of the 20th century, when it was occupied by variety of different businesses, from an upholsterer, to pet shop, bakery and artist studio.

Across the road, there has been more continuity.  In the early part of the last century it was a tobacconist and sweet shop and I can track it through a Mr. William Cheetham from at least 1903, to Mrs. Dorothy Kraus in 1911, and a Mrs. Bertha Hooley in 1939.

After which there is a gap, which again will have to rectified by researching the directories.

In the 1950s, it was Bob’s Café, and in 1969 Benny’s snack bar.  More recently it was Miami Pizza and Chorlton Green Brasserie.

Just leaving me to make an appeal for the missing years, from 1969, into this century.


It is a gap even more frustrating because I will have passed it regularly through those decades, and can’t remember what it was, and sadly have no pictures.

Still someone will.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; from the collection of Bob Jones

In praise of St Peter’s Square ............

How easy it is to forget what a place used to be like.

I am a fan of the new St Peter’s Square, partly because I like trams, but more because its transformation has created a large open space, which offers up good views of the Ref, and the Town Hall Extension, but is also just a pleasant place to sit.

So often town squares in Britain are wide windswept stretches of nothing, where litter gathers and pretty soon the weeds sprout up through the paving stones.

Not so St Peter’s Square, which remains a pleasant place.

And while there will be the detractors who preferred it when the Cenotaph stood opposite Central Ref, I remember it as a drab and uninviting spot, not enhanced by Elizabeth House which stood behind the small gardens.

Of course my memories only go back to 1969, but there will be no one who now remembers when the church stood on the old Cenotaph site, or the old tired looking buildings which Elizabeth House replaced.

Location; Manchester

Pictures, at the Metro stop, St Peter’s Square, 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and St Peter’s Square, circa 1937, courtesy of David Harrop

Calling on the past with a package of Manchester stories

I was wearing my light weight raincoat..... I was neat, clean, had my note pad and  two pens and I looked the part.  I was what I should be a dedicated researcher and proud of it.  I was calling on Ron in Central Ref with the promise of some priceless history.

Well as an introduction to a story I think Raymond Chandler did it better in 1939, but then I wasn’t about to unravel some rather unpleasant crimes and equally unsavoury characters.*

Instead I was on a mission to collect some picture postcards from Ron who wanted them to go to a new home.

Now in Raymond Chandler’s novel the prize was four million dollars but I rather think Ron’s picture postcards will do for me.

They are after all a double prize for any historian, offering a picture of a place at some moment in time long before now, and because more often than not there is a fascinating message on the back they offer up names, addresses and events.

All of which can be followed up.

So on an unremarkable postcard of Wilmslow Road, young Bertha Geary had written to her friend “we heard the flying man,” who turned out to be a French pilot taking part in the 1911 Daily Mail All Round Britain Air Race” and because she included her own address I found her.

She had been living on School Lane, was just 13 and that day had set off with her parents for a walk.

But for most of us it will be the picture on the front and for me it doesn’t have to be an image from a century ago.

This one of Piccadilly Gardens from 1970 is as intriguing as any from the more distant past and reminds me of that other much favoured quote “the past is a foreign country they do things differently there.”**

And for many this will be a scene which is so unfamiliar as to be a foreign place, and yet the photograph was taken in 1970 and the gardens only got their makeover very recently.

It is a treasure of an image and makes me wonder what Ron has for me.

Location, Manchester

Picture; Piccadilly circa 1970 from the collection of Sally Dervan

*”I was wearing my powder-blue suit... I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”  The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler, 1939

**“The past is a foreign country they do things differently there."  The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley, 1953