Now, the fun and the history is in the detail, and so I was very pleased, when Chris Robson sent over some pictures of the family shop at 281 Barlow Moor Road along with an account of when he lived there.
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| The shop |
And I know there will be many people who will remember the shop and Chris’s parents.
So, never wanting to lift other people’s stories, here is what Chris sent over yesterday.
“My Great grandfather was George Cowley.
He owned a Motorcycle Spares business on Stretford Road, Hulme, now demolished. He was a famous motorcycle sidecar racer, competing in the Isle of Man.*
He had 6 children, his eldest son George Jnr also competed in the IOM. His daughter Dot also was a motorcyclist, I enclose 2 pictures of them which we think are from 1928. We suspect my Grandmother, Sarah, took over the business when he retired. She had married a Newcastle man, Jack Robson, but he had gone back to Newcastle after my father was born in 1925 and I never met him.
In the Manchester Telephone books the last entry for Pa Cowley's business, G & R Cowley, Motor Cycle Accessories, 465 Stretford Road (now demolished) was in 1932. The first entry for Robson's Cycle Stores, 281 Barlow Moor Road is in 1935. My guess is that Gran was working in her father's business until he retired then bought the shop in 1933/34 but not in time to get in the 1934 directory.
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| Mum at Chorlton Park. She is in the second row, 4th from the left |
The shop was built before the estate we think, my dad Cliff used to tell stories of knocking the walls down so that they could get through to play on the fields behind.
My father did a degree in Chemistry at Manchester University during the middle stages of WWII, my mother Mu who was two years younger and had been evacuated in 1940, also completed a degree at Manchester in modern languages.
The degrees were done in under 2 years as there were no long holidays due to the war.
They had met sharing the school bus and started dating.
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| Mum and dad's wedding, 1947 |
He walked with a limp, his left leg being an inch shorter than the right.
He'd lost his job and started to work in the shop as he could sit down most of the time.
They married in 1947.
His mother gave them the shop, taking the house they were going to live in instead. They lived there until my dad died in 1990.
They had bought the hairdressers at 283 to extend the shop and get a garage in the late 60’s.
He was secretary for the Adorior CC, and as a young boy I remember going to the races with him.
In 1961 I watched Yuri Gagarin pass by in a car from my bedroom window, to the left of the Robson's for Raleigh sign, when he visited Manchester after orbiting the Earth.
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| Adorior CC and car |
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| The shops, 1959 |
I also found a photo of Jones’s greengrocers from the same time.
The shop would open 7 days a week, closing only on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons.
Later on we stopped opening on Sundays when the racing cyclist passing trade reduced, less people worked on Saturdays and they could visit at other times.
The shops in the 1959 photograph from Left to Right (some not in picture to right) were Williams (Newsagent), Lomas (Butcher), Robson (Cycles), Muriel (hairdressers) Breeze’s (bakers and other food) Jones (greengrocers) ? (wool and knitting) ? (grocers and other) – I’m sure you can fill in the blanks.
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| S. Jones, 1959 |
Note that the advertising frame to the left of my bedroom and above the passage (now a doorway) is still there from 1934. My mother died in August 2020, aged 93.
Which just leaves me to thank Chris
Location; Chorlton
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| The shop, 2020 |
*https://www.iomttraces.com/racing/results?agent=mnh-agent-1269767
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