Now this is another of those pictures of the 81 Corporation bus, which George Cieslik, has given me permission to use.
We are on Barlow Moor Road, sometime in the early 1960s, and it perfectly captures a world I remember very well.
There is a distinct period feel to the picture, which is partly that it is in black and white, and because of the now old-fashioned looking clothes people are wearing and the equally dated appearance of the bus and cars.
All of which is to state the obvious, but there is more.
Over to the right is the old Palaise De Luxe cinema, which had opened in 1914, changed its name to the Palace in 1946, and closed in 1957, with Jack Palance in "The Lonely Man" and Fernando Lamas in "Lost Treasure of the Amazon"*
It is a cinema I often write about, and I know plenty of people who remember it with fondness.
It became a Tesco supermarket and later was a Hanbury’s before becoming a Co-op, and now has an uncertain future as the Co-op has decided not to renew its lease.
But its post cinema life was even more varied because in the early 1960s it was the service centre for Radio Rentals, which was a chapter in the cinema’s history which until recently I was not aware.
And I have a confession, which is that I got the date the picture house opened wrong.
I had always assumed it dated from 1915, but it appears it first threw open its doors in the May of 1914. Such is the continuing unfolding of scholarship!
Leaving me just to note the old-fashioned bus stop with its route display, listing 11 bus numbers and carrying the logo of the Manchester Corporation, the original cast iron and glass shop canopy, and over in the distance the bus office.
Finally there are those tall cast iron poles which feature on both side of the road, and which at first I thought were the old support pillars which carried the cables powering the trams which had finally vanished in 1949.
But I rather think these would have been dismantled and what we have here are disused street lamps.
To which I leave that last thought to be shot down by an expert.
Location; Barlow Moor Road
Picture; the 81 on Barlow Moor Road, circa early 1960s, from the collection of George Cieslik
*Palace Cinema, Kevin Roe, cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/33844
There is a distinct period feel to the picture, which is partly that it is in black and white, and because of the now old-fashioned looking clothes people are wearing and the equally dated appearance of the bus and cars.
All of which is to state the obvious, but there is more.
Over to the right is the old Palaise De Luxe cinema, which had opened in 1914, changed its name to the Palace in 1946, and closed in 1957, with Jack Palance in "The Lonely Man" and Fernando Lamas in "Lost Treasure of the Amazon"*
It became a Tesco supermarket and later was a Hanbury’s before becoming a Co-op, and now has an uncertain future as the Co-op has decided not to renew its lease.
But its post cinema life was even more varied because in the early 1960s it was the service centre for Radio Rentals, which was a chapter in the cinema’s history which until recently I was not aware.
And I have a confession, which is that I got the date the picture house opened wrong.
Leaving me just to note the old-fashioned bus stop with its route display, listing 11 bus numbers and carrying the logo of the Manchester Corporation, the original cast iron and glass shop canopy, and over in the distance the bus office.
Finally there are those tall cast iron poles which feature on both side of the road, and which at first I thought were the old support pillars which carried the cables powering the trams which had finally vanished in 1949.
But I rather think these would have been dismantled and what we have here are disused street lamps.
To which I leave that last thought to be shot down by an expert.
Location; Barlow Moor Road
Picture; the 81 on Barlow Moor Road, circa early 1960s, from the collection of George Cieslik
*Palace Cinema, Kevin Roe, cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/33844
This is so familiar to me. The 81 bus opposite ‘the bug hut’ as we called the cinema, cheap and cheerful but a venue we attended once a week. It wasn’t as ‘posh’ as the nearby Essoldo Cinema but great for A film when finances were tight. Loved it.
ReplyDelete