It took a little while to locate just exactly where we are on Stretford Road back in 1963, but I now know the shop on the corner is at the junction with Upper Medlock Street.
And if you were to head down Upper Medlock Street you would cross, Dale Street where the car is parked by the road sign and then Bonsall Street.
Back then it was part of a tight network of streets and terraced housing, all of which was swept away in the wholesale regeneration of the area in the 1960s and again more recently.
So much so that I suspect a time traveller from 1963 would be totally confused and at a loss to find that street corner.
Happily, Stretford Road and Bonsall Street survived and offer up a means of anchoring where the pictures were taken.
So, with that sorted the rest of the story will be about that shop and the advertising hoarding.
Lord’s Wholesale and Retail shop was one of those places that pretty much offered everything in the way of clothing, from Donkey Jackets, moleskin trousers , to rubber boots and riding breeches, reminding me of that sign “If we ain’t got it, you can’t get it”.
I do have to wonder what demand there would be for riding breeches in Hulme, although given this was still the age of the sailing ship there might well be people wanting a cabin trunk.
That said there was a full range of things anyone might want to kit themselves out for work.
And having done work for the day, the advertising hoarding on the corner of Dale Street, gives flavour of what was showing at the cinema. Judging by what the Crescent and the Grosvenor were showing that week, my choice would have been Samson and Delilah with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamar.
But the Grosvenor only held just over 900 seats, while the Crescent had a thousand, added to which Cossack Street was closer than All Saints.*
That said in 1963 I was just 14, and I rather think Night of the Blood Beast, showing on Tuesday, Peeping Tom and Demons of the Swamp, which followed on Wednesday and Thursday would have won over on Victor Mature, but all three, along with The Bad One and Teenage Frankenstein would have been X rated, to which I would have been barred.
But I would have drawn the line at Subway in the Sky, which was showing on Saturday.
The film centered on an American soldier in West Berlin who goes on the run after being falsely accused of trafficking drugs. He hides in his wife’s flat where he meets a cabaret singer who helps him prove his innocence.
And after a melodrama like that, there could only be a recourse to some fried bread, and Ovaltine, given that at 14 the joys of Wilson Ales were some years in the future.
At which point I should draw to a conclusion were it not for that beer advert, which has got me a tad confused.
As a south east Londoner, newly arrived in the city in 1969, I picked up the divide between north and south which came not by way of my accent or the dominance of the Home Counties in so many things but simply the shape of the beer glass.
My friends pointed out that those dimpled pint pots were a southern affectation and they would always demand a straight glass.
Such was the chasm between me and them.
Leaving me just to record that the church at the end of row of shops was the Catholic Apostolic Church.
Location’ Stretford Road
Pictures; Stretford Road, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY
*Kinematograph Yearbook 1947
Back then it was part of a tight network of streets and terraced housing, all of which was swept away in the wholesale regeneration of the area in the 1960s and again more recently.
So much so that I suspect a time traveller from 1963 would be totally confused and at a loss to find that street corner.
Happily, Stretford Road and Bonsall Street survived and offer up a means of anchoring where the pictures were taken.
Lord’s Wholesale and Retail shop was one of those places that pretty much offered everything in the way of clothing, from Donkey Jackets, moleskin trousers , to rubber boots and riding breeches, reminding me of that sign “If we ain’t got it, you can’t get it”.
I do have to wonder what demand there would be for riding breeches in Hulme, although given this was still the age of the sailing ship there might well be people wanting a cabin trunk.
That said there was a full range of things anyone might want to kit themselves out for work.
But the Grosvenor only held just over 900 seats, while the Crescent had a thousand, added to which Cossack Street was closer than All Saints.*
That said in 1963 I was just 14, and I rather think Night of the Blood Beast, showing on Tuesday, Peeping Tom and Demons of the Swamp, which followed on Wednesday and Thursday would have won over on Victor Mature, but all three, along with The Bad One and Teenage Frankenstein would have been X rated, to which I would have been barred.
But I would have drawn the line at Subway in the Sky, which was showing on Saturday.
The film centered on an American soldier in West Berlin who goes on the run after being falsely accused of trafficking drugs. He hides in his wife’s flat where he meets a cabaret singer who helps him prove his innocence.
At which point I should draw to a conclusion were it not for that beer advert, which has got me a tad confused.
As a south east Londoner, newly arrived in the city in 1969, I picked up the divide between north and south which came not by way of my accent or the dominance of the Home Counties in so many things but simply the shape of the beer glass.
Such was the chasm between me and them.
Leaving me just to record that the church at the end of row of shops was the Catholic Apostolic Church.
Location’ Stretford Road
Pictures; Stretford Road, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY
*Kinematograph Yearbook 1947
gosh I remember them shops, etc
ReplyDeleteFascinating article. My mum who is now 89 lived on Dale Street as a child but the family were bombed out in the war and eventually rehoused in a new house in Sharston Wythenshawe.
ReplyDeleteAside I found the beer glass tale of interest. My drinking years in Mcr commenced in the late 70s and dimpled pots were the norm. Straight glasses were considered southern, think of Get Carter, and the request for a "thin glass".