A history of 281 Barlow Moor Road .... by Chris & Keith Robson

 For nearly 60 years Robson’s Cycle Stores stood on Barlow Moor Road, opposite Manchester Crematorium and Southern Cemetery.

It was built in approximately 1933 and was owned by my paternal grandmother Sarah Robson. Originally it also sold gramophone records as this picture from the 1930’s shows.

I believe the boy in the background may be my father Clifford, aged about 11.

So why did my grandmother Sarah run a bike shop? 

Well, her father was George “Pa” Cowley who owned a Motor Engineers business in old Trafford supplying “spares and repairs” for cars and motor bikes. 

He was a renowned motor bike and sidecar rider, competing in the Isle of Man TT and events in the North of England. 

His children, especially his daughters, were also keen motor cyclists as this family photo from 1922 shows.

My grandmother Sarah is second from the left. His youngest daughter, Dot, became a speedway rider and in 1928, aged 17, she beat her father in a challenge race at Belle Vue speedway track.

My grandmother’s elder brother, Ted, owned a cycle repair shop in Hulme and we think that she worked for her father and her brother before buying 281 in about 1934 after she separated from her husband. 

My father Cliff would have been about 8 at the time. He later went to Manchester Grammar School and met my mother Mu, who went to Whalley Range High School, on the school bus.

Mu had been born in Bramley, Leeds but moved to Chorlton aged 3, when her father, a printer at the Daily Mail in Leeds, obtained a promotion to the Manchester office. She went to Chorlton Park Primary and Junior School.

Mu, aged 9, is in the third row from the top, fourth from the left, with the white buttons.

Cliff studied Chemistry at Manchester University during the latter years of WWII, degree courses were only 2 years with no long holidays. 

Mum studied Modern Languages there from 1945 graduating in 1948. 

In 1947 my dad had a terrible motorcycle accident, colliding with a lorry, and spent 6 months in hospital. 

At this time Mu’s father got a promotion to the Scottish Daily Mail in Edinburgh, and she had moved into the shop to complete her degree in Manchester. Mu learned to drive, borrowing Gran’s car, by visiting dad in Macclesfield Hospital, no driving test being necessary.

Cliff finally came home; he had a severe limp and one leg about an inch shorter than the other. He couldn’t bend his knee, although after he fell downstairs in the 70’s he found it greatly improved and he could play a bit of tennis! 

For various reasons he decided to give up his Chemistry career and take over the shop. Mu and Cliff were married in 1948 at St Clement’s Church in Chorlton.

My grandmother Sarah is on Mum’s right as we look, in the dark outfit with the sash across her waist.

The shop was open every day, closing on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons. For a time, Cliff was secretary of the Adorior Cycling Club and we would often go to see the races on Sundays.

Here is the shop in 1959. We no longer sold records, although I remember there being a few left in the attic. My brother Keith and I had the bedroom to the left and behind the Robson’s for Raleigh sign.

 In 1961 Keith and I watched from our bedroom window as Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was driven in an open top car along Barlow Moor Road on his way to the offices of the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers.

There were 6 shops altogether in the block – Williams Newsagents, Lomas Butchers, Robson’s, Muriel’s Hairdressers (not my mother, a coincidence), Breeze Bakers, and Jones Greengrocers and Fishmongers. 

On the other side of Jones’s was a block of 2 shops, built later I think, a wool shop and a general grocer, whose owners’ names I have forgotten, but hopefully someone will know. 

In the late 60’s we bought the hairdressers at 283, extending the shop into the first half and building a garage in the second half. Before that we had rented a garage at the petrol station near the Essoldo Cinema. 

This made it easier to do the Christmas Eve bicycle deliveries, taking children’s bikes to their houses after they had gone to bed.

When my father died in 1989, we sold the shop to a firm of accountants. I ran past it last year to see what had changed.

There is now a door on the passage, but if you look above it you can still see the same rectangular advertising hoarding from 85 years ago.

My mother passed away last summer, aged 92. Both she and my dad were cremated at the Manchester Crematorium, directly opposite the shop.

Chris Robson, with thanks to my brother Keith for much of the information and pictures, except 277-283 Barlow Moor Road, 1959, R.E. Stanley, m17553, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass