When you look through the collections of pictures of old Manchester, you seldom find many of the interiors of buildings.
I can think of plenty of reasons why that might be so, but the result is to deprive of us a huge slice of our past.
And so, I was very pleased when my old friend Ann shared a picture she drew in the 1960s, while at Art College.
It is of the inside of her aunt’s shop in Hulme, and it takes me straight back to similar shops I remember from my youth.
These were the corner shops, which seemed to stay open all hours, and were prepared to flout the Sunday trading laws. I can still remember being sworn to secrecy one Sunday morning when I left the local grocery shop with some product which had been double wrapped to disguise what it was.
Stuff was piled high and bunches of bananas might share a space, with a several tins of salmon, and a pile of newspapers, while somewhere near the front of the counter would be those open boxes of loose biscuits, which always presented a challenge to see how many you could grab while the shop assistant wasn’t looking.
Added to which there was that smell, which was a mix of the competing foods on display and the bare wooden floorboards.
Location; Hulme
Picture; Ann’s auntie’s shop in Hulme. Early 1960s, from the collection of Ann Love
And so, I was very pleased when my old friend Ann shared a picture she drew in the 1960s, while at Art College.
It is of the inside of her aunt’s shop in Hulme, and it takes me straight back to similar shops I remember from my youth.
These were the corner shops, which seemed to stay open all hours, and were prepared to flout the Sunday trading laws. I can still remember being sworn to secrecy one Sunday morning when I left the local grocery shop with some product which had been double wrapped to disguise what it was.
Added to which there was that smell, which was a mix of the competing foods on display and the bare wooden floorboards.
Location; Hulme
Picture; Ann’s auntie’s shop in Hulme. Early 1960s, from the collection of Ann Love
As you say, every street corner, it seemed, had a shop, certainly in Ancoats and other city centre areas. At the top of "our" street (Coalbrook St., oh the romantic names they gave us to live in, mind you with the river at the bottom, walled off from the 40' drop, it would now be called Rippling Dale, or some such nonsense) was Mrs.Gibbs. Broken windows and fluttering grey nets, plain blackened floorboards and barely enough goods on the shelves to qualify as a shop. It must have been better in earlier years, but her years as a shopkeeper were drawing to a close. Entering was like the black hole of Calcutta (as our parents called it). A stale dank smell. I dont remember actually buying anything other than when we had learned a trick of cutting the money off coupons from soap boxes and convincing the old girl that they could be exchanged for cash(My morals and ethics are far superior nowadays). Still at the time it was of course our route to sweets. Other corners had Edwards Butchers, the inevitable Off-Licence, (Ramsbotham or Higginbottham, names which seem to have passed out of common sight, selling amongst their alcoholic wares, 5-0-Clock shadow (maybe seven-o=clock shadow razor blades, a bakers, newsagents. Further along Hillkirk St. you came to Wentworh St. where lay a veritable shopping arcade, of its time. Greengrocer (its fruity wares stacked in pyramids in the window),potatoes in bins like an elevated coal bunker, two kinds only and not a plastic bag in site. Shovelled out using the scale scoop with a clank as counterweights were added and a spud added or removed to get the weight. Next door was a hardware shop, with its traditional smell of paraffin, wood, oil rusting metal and damp hessian sacks. Nails and screws by the oz. in a paper bag. I still have a brace and bit of my dads purchased from there, the original cordless drill. Moving on, Mr Hardings (always in a collar and tie, sports jacket) Sweet Shop with its spotless windows and enticing jars of unaffordable sweets, the penny tray was our normal limit, 4 Black Jacks, or Fruit Salad for a Penny, Penny Spanish (Hard as nails Liquorice stick, Liquorice Root, Colt foot Candy, Rainbow Drops served in tricorn paper bags (Puffed Rice, coloured with lord knows what). The list available was endless. Outside with our treats and sitting on the shop window ledge, idly picking at the rotting wood, much to his annoyance no doubt. For the parents, strips of Asprin (Aspro) about 5 or so in a laminated bubbled pink paper strip, clear on the front. Imagine sending a kid to the sweetshop now for such, social services would be knocking on your door. The Cobblers, with a rack of shoes with their numbered tickets pinned, waiting for collection having been repaired with new soles and heels, maybe "segs" added to their heels for longer life. "Shoes not claimed within 4 weeks of collection date will be disposed of" warned the sign. I forget what else was there, or even if I have the right sequence, but no matter. Go to the Local image library and there are some cracking picks of these streets.
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