Now I wonder if anyone remembers Nightingales the electrical shop which traded from 436 Wilbraham Road.
Like most of the strip of shops along the stretch from Keppel to Albany no 436 is now a fast food out let but back in the middle decades of the last century Nightingale’s sold all things electrical and by 1960 had an impressive range of televisions, transistor radios, fridges and washing machines in its window.
Now I know it was there by 1938 and still there in 1960 by a chance find and three photographs from the Manchester Digital collection.
The chance find was an old 78 RPM record of the Boston Promenade Orchestra performing the Ritual Fire Dance and the Conclusion to Bolero conducted by Arthur Fiedler.
And the catalogue number dated the record to 1938 while the perfectly preserved dust cover offered up the Nightingale name and the address of both the Chorlton shop and another at 58 Wilmslow Road in Withington.
At which point I can claim little credit for the find or much of the subsequent research.
It was Andy Robertson’s son who came across the record and Andy who went looking in Manchester's digital collection, leaving me the easy job of hunting down the record in the HMV catalogue.
In time I am sure there will be people who offer up all sorts of memories of the shop, what they bought there and perhaps a beginning and end date to the business.
For now I shall just reflect that it wasn’t too long ago that high streets and more humble parades of shops could boast a full range of shopping experiences from the wool shop, electrical business along with DIY, hardware and the odd travel agents.
So there you have it a bit of our consumer past on Wilbraham Road, with just one last observation that it had gone by 1969.
Additional research by Andy Robertson
Pictures; record and dustcover, circa 1938 from the collection of Andy Robertson and Nightingale’s on Wilbraham Road, 1960, A E Landers, m18308 & m18307, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
Now I know it was there by 1938 and still there in 1960 by a chance find and three photographs from the Manchester Digital collection.
The chance find was an old 78 RPM record of the Boston Promenade Orchestra performing the Ritual Fire Dance and the Conclusion to Bolero conducted by Arthur Fiedler.
At which point I can claim little credit for the find or much of the subsequent research.
It was Andy Robertson’s son who came across the record and Andy who went looking in Manchester's digital collection, leaving me the easy job of hunting down the record in the HMV catalogue.
In time I am sure there will be people who offer up all sorts of memories of the shop, what they bought there and perhaps a beginning and end date to the business.
So there you have it a bit of our consumer past on Wilbraham Road, with just one last observation that it had gone by 1969.
Additional research by Andy Robertson
Pictures; record and dustcover, circa 1938 from the collection of Andy Robertson and Nightingale’s on Wilbraham Road, 1960, A E Landers, m18308 & m18307, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
There was a record shop on that strip in the 1970s, was it the same shop?
ReplyDeleteI have some gramophone records dated 1944 from Nightingales
ReplyDeleteAnd next door that lovely cake shop, Lowes, loved the vanilla slices and the meringues.
ReplyDelete