I have been thinking about Chorlton during the last war.
 |
| Private Stevens, date unknown |
It started after a request for information about the Home Guard in Chorlton, and was firmed up after my friend Ann posted pictures of her dad in Home Guard uniform along with a list of local members.
Over the years I have written about the impact of the Christmas Blitz on Chorlton, along with the Manchester Bomb maps, accounts by those who lived here at the time, and the celebrations on VE Day.*
Along the way another old friend, Allan Brown, shared pictures of a barrage balloon on the Rec and set me looking for the headquarters of the Home Guard, which he told me was where our own brass band rehearsed.
This was the Masonic Lodge on Edge Lane, but so far I haven’t been able to discover any thing more about the Home Guard’s time at the building.
And as it turns out there is a lack of information about how Chorlton passed the war years.
In the city’s local image collection there are a few bomb photographs and those classic ones of evacuees leaving Chorlton carrying their gas masks, suitcases and accompanied by their parents, while back in 2013, Chorlton History group featured some local veterans**
Added to which there has been the series of interviews undertaken by Michael Thompson for the Wargen project which led to his film War Memories.***
But so far there appears little about the day-to-day experiences of people here in the township.
With lock down coming to an end it will be possible to call into Central Ref and begin to trawl the local newspapers for any references to what was happening here.
 |
| A group of the local Home Guard, date unknown |
The online Manchester Guardian does have four hundred references to the period 1940-1945, and these are a mix of adverts, family announcements, with a few crime reports, which are all for petty crimes, including a black market scam and an alleged attempt to divert ARP money.
Most of the reports refer to small fines, for failing to turn up on time for Home Guard Parades, Fire Watch duty and a three month prison sentence for failing to comply with a “direction to take up farm work with the Cheshire War Agricultural Committee."
But there are also the hidden gems, like the meeting of the Anglo Soviet Friendship group, and the award of a medal to a nurse who attended a patient in a bombed out house.
And in a nod to a very topical matter, Manchester’s deputy medical officer of Health reported during the city’s campaign to immunize all children from diphtheria, Chorlton had the highest take up, recording a figure of 83%, adding that "his answer to anti-vivisectionists [was] that the anti-toxin was not derived in anyway from any animal, and that on a simple calculation based on the accurate statistics for 1942 showed that non-immunized children were nearly six times as likely to contract diphtheria than those who had been immunized , and nearly thirty times as likely to die”.****
Leaving me just to reflect on the impact of the war, here where we live.
 |
| Halstead Avenue VE Day, 1945 |
On September 26th, 1942 the Manchester Guardian carried the story that “all women of British nationality who were residing in Manchester on September 6th and between the ages of 20 and 45 years of age will be required to register this weekend for fire prevention duties".*****
And even more somber was the addition of an extra 33 “rest and feeding centres for the reception of homeless people”, which was announced on January 3rd, 1941, just weeks after the Manchester Blitz.******
Chorlton’s additional centres were the Methodist Church on High Lane and McClaren Baptist School on Sibson Road.
Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Pictures, Private Stevens, and a group of the Home Guard, date unknown, from the collection of Ann Love, and VE Day celebrators in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1945 from the Lloyd Collection
*Chorlton At War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20at%20war
**Chorlton War Veterans, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-story-of-artic-convoys-today-at.html
***Remembering the Second World War …… today …… at St Nininan’s, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/12/remembering-second-world-war-today-at.html
****Diphtheria: Manchester’s Campaign, the Manchester Guardian August 7th, 1943
*****Today’s Registration in Manchester, Manchester Guardian, September 26th, 1942
No comments:
Post a Comment