On Portugal Street ……..reflecting on Hugh Fay & Co ……. purveyors of all things grocery

It was one of those incidental photographs I found to illustrate an earlier story about Portugal Street which runs behind Oldham Road.

Portugal Street, 1962

The street was cut sometime before 1793 and I suspect has always been a place which few people ever clocked, and many of those that lived there wish they lived somewhere else.

And having posted the picture I moved on but Anthony Hewitt was curious, and commented on the building and with that I set off looking for its story.

The photograph is dated from 1962 and so I went to Tony and Andy who both hold copies of street directories from the period.

 The lists show that it was the premises of Hugh Fay & Co, grocers, with 25 branches spread out across the city.  Most were on the east and north of the city, but the empire extended into Wythenshawe, Burnage and Flixton, and out beyond the Manchester to Droylsden and Flixton.

Portugal Street, 2021

All of which means someone will remember them, and indeed Andy told me remembered them from when he first arrived in the city in the 1970s.

So there you are.

Look closely and the picture does revel the name of the company.  The 1960 photograph is of the rear and the front faced onto 240 Oldham Road.  There is still a property there although changes in street numbering places it at 140 Oldham Road, and it does look as if the front of the building has changed, and indeed from Portugal Street it would seem to have changed dramatically.

Leaving me just to think there is a lot more to the story.

Location; Portugal Street

Picture; Portugal Street, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson, Portugal Street facing north, 1962, T. Brooks, m10415a,  courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass