Wherever you leave your rubbish .............somewhere in Manchester .... 1966

I have no idea where we are, and whether this was one of those clearance areas, which during the 1950s through to the 70s transformed big chunks of the city.

Alternatively, it may just have been an open spot of land which was never developed.

Either way it offered up an opportunity to leave all sorts of rubbish, including the abandoned car.

I doubt that those responsible will have given much thought to the Litter Act, passed in 1958, which provided for a fine of £10 for anyone caught littering, or that the Act had been in part of a wider public concern about discarded rubbish.

A concern which found a voice four years earlier when the National Federation of Women’s Institutes passed a resolution to start a national anti-litter campaign, which was followed  in 1960 by the establishment of Keep Britain Tidy, and its adoption nine years later of the logo.*

All of which just leaves me to go back to the picture.

There is a fair amount of dumped stuff, which led me to wonder if the quality, the nature, and even the quality of rubbish left is any diffrent from ours today, and what clues might there be to how we lived back then in the "swinging sixties".

The first observation is that there isn't that much, but what there is seems fascinating.

I doubt many people today will have seen a tea chest, while metal bed frames complete with springs are almost confined to museums.

That said there is plenty of cardboard and plastic sheeting, some empty food tins and a solitary glass bottle.

But what dates the rubbish is the abandoned Christmas tree, which fits the moment to sometime in January.

And if I wanted to be very nerdy I could look up the weather reports for January 1966, for reports of snow falling across Manchester, the evidence of which is still there in patches on the ground.

Sadly the detail on the newspapers and magazines left by the gutter are too unclear.

So, that is it, and while I would love to offer a prize for the first person to identify the location, or the make of the car, I rather think that is not in the spirit of the free exchange of historical knowledge.

Location; somewhere in Manchester

Picture; Wherever you dump your rubbish, 1966 ,Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

*Keep Britain Tidy, https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/