The day Mr Jackson captured the kerfuffle on Hardman Street in 1913

We are in Didsbury in 1913 and Mr Jackson has been recording the ebb and flow of people and traffic up and down Hardman Street.

At first glance I thought we were dealing with a sequence of potographs taken on the same day and despite the presence of two carts and what might be the same people they are more likely to have been taken on different days.

That said the two together capture perfectly a morning in Didsbury in 1913.

Hardman Street connected Wilmslow Road with William Street, and both  pictures are looking east down towards William Street away in the distance.

The butcher’s shop cannot have long been open when the pictures were taken because the shutters are still down and some of the people look as if they are on their way to work.

In the second something is amiss, and whatever it is has brought the customers and the shop keeper out of the shop.

The obvious answer may be something to do with the coal wagon and the handcart as they passed each other.

The attention of the delivery boy to our left and the man on our right are both drawn to that coal man who has stopped and looks directly at the camera.

There were coal yards at the bottom of Hardman Street and at the top opposite our shop so I guess street congestion was a fairly common event.

I am tempted to suggest a chain of events but that would be to drift into idle speculation and nothing good comes of that.

Pictures; Hardman Street in 1913 by J. Jackson, m21852 & m21851 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass