Down at Parrs Wood Parade in 1931........... pondering on that park and the litter

It is the detail in this 1930s postcard which I like. 

On a wet summer’s day the Corporation bus has just set down a group of passengers and above them the sign announces that the East Didsbury Station is still part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway.

It would be another eighteen years before the LMS became part of the new nationalized British Railways.

In the distance the small grassed park still retains its ornamental gates and underneath the glass and cast iron canopy of the Parrs Wood Arcade are adverts for Players Navy Cut and Wills Golden Flake tobacco and cigarettes, Hovis Bread and the Dispatch newspaper.

And I was drawn back to the postcard by a discussion with the artist Liz Scantlebury who like me was intrigued by those small ornamental gates

We were both intrigued by their date and I now know the park was laid our in 1928.

And finally for those who lament the passing of a cleaner and tidier Britain I suggest you ignore the discarded lamp shade left under the bridge.

All of which just leaves me to fall back on a piece of outrageous self promotion and mention the first book on the history of Didsbury, which I wrote with  Manchester artist Peter Topping which was published in 2013.

It should not of course be confused with our Didsbury book on the pubs of the area, also available and a jolly good read.

Location; Didsbury












Picture; Parrs Wood Parade, Didsbury, circa 1931