A day in Knaresborough

The day we did  Knaresborough in Yorkshire.

It was the only really sunny day at this end of the back of August and we grabbed the moment.

Now what attracted it to me was not the connection with Mother Shipton who lived in a cave suggested the future and provided the place with a neat tourist attraction, but the market square, castle and railway viaduct.

The market was all that you might expect of a small market town.  There were some picturesque shops and houses by the town cross, including three red telephone boxes which you don’t see back in the city so much and a place to park at reasonable prices.

Hard by was the castle dating from the 13th century taking in commanding views of the river below and the surrounding countryside.

I am drawn to castles.  This one despite being pretty much ruined was the sort I like.  It was small enough to get a sense of what it would have been like to live there.  So from each corner you take in its different features and get something of how closed in its occupants must have felt.

And then there are the views which back in the middle ages made it such an important place.  Anyone on sentry duty would have been for miles and in particular any traffic along the River Nidd which rises in on the Dales at Great Whernside and flows on down to join the River Ouse which in turn flows through York.

Today the Nidd has high water marks of anything between 1.3 metres and 2.36 along its route to the Ouse and while I have no idea how this compares with 700 hundred years ago I guess the river was an important line of communication up from York and so needed to be watched.

But for me the view is compounded by the railway viaduct.  It is a spectacular piece of engineering and like all such constructions seems to hang effortlessly over the valley.

It was finished in 1851 when farmers Higginbotham and Bailey were farming the land which is now the Rec.

So something of a nice connection and something for everyone. Now the castle has been there for hundreds of years the viaduct for just over 160 years and I rather hope the telephone boxes last for a few more decades.

Pictures; Knaresborough, 2015, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Down a coal mine in the January of 1952

I have only ever been down a coal mine once.

It was the summer of 1972 and my future father in law who was the Chief Mechanical Engineer at Seaham Colliery made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Although a long way down, out under the North Sea and crawling through old tunnels to the coal face I was unconvinced that this had been a good idea.

But all their family were miners and even if I had chosen teaching as a career I just knew this was one decision that had already been made for me.

I survived and if truth were known rather enjoyed it, which I suspect would not have been the case if this was what I did every working day.

It is a memory that had long since been buried with the marriage and Seaham Colliery which along which closed in 1994.

But it resurfaced when I came across one of my old Eagle comics from 1952, which featured “a modern British coal mine.”

The article was one of those wonderful cut away drawings popular since the 1930s.

It could have been a ship, an aircraft, a motor car or in this case a coal mine.

The insides were laid bare and important features numbered and referenced back to an explanatory panel.

They were popular at the time capturing as they did an interest in all things technical.

Now of course they are a useful source of information about how the world worked back in the 1950s and 60s.

Picture; from the Eagle, January 11, 1952 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Taking back the streets ………………

It was the Saturday, before the May Bank Holiday and the sun came out.

So what better way to celebrate the return to near normal.

We had planned just a quick saunter on to Edge Street to take a few pictures for a story.

But the crowds were out, more than I remember for a normal May Saturday, and we decided to stay.

With no particular plans we ended up eating at La Collina on Tariff Street, which advertises itself as “Laid -back Tuscan-style coffee and drinks in the Northern Quarter”, which was just what it said it was.

And from there we wandered across the city to Edge Street, falling across Stevenson Square which was packed and looked the best it has done for a century and a bit.

Everywhere you went streets had been blocked off and tables and diners filled the void.

And along the way, there was a chap doing press up on the street.

All of which I think confirmed that simple observation that we are taking back the streets.

Location; the Norther Quarter

Pictures; Taking back the streets, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Other people’s pictures ...... Rome ..... no.3 .... looking for a bargain

Now I remain fascinated by other people’s pictures.

It is partly because the pictures are often of places, I have never been, but also because it is an insight into how other people see the world.

So, here just a year or so after they were taken are some from our Saul.

Location; Rome

Pictures; Rome, 2020, from the collection of Saul Simpson

One of the bits of history ...... they never taught me ... the Interregnum .... on the wireless today

Now much of the history I was taught at Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern revolved around the doings of Kings and Queens.

And if I think back it was more Kings, with just a handful of Queens, who pretty much just got walk on parts.

So, the period when we did with out a King, became a Republic, and called ourselves a Commonwealth were left out, of the great sweep of English history.

All of which means I shall be listening to the Interregnum, today on the wireless, in which "Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the period between the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the unexpected restoration of his son Charles II in 1660, known as The Interregnum. 

It was marked in England by an elusive pursuit of stability, with serious consequences in Scotland and notorious ones in Ireland. 

When Parliament executed Charles it had also killed Scotland and Ireland’s king, without their consent; Scotland immediately declared Charles II king of Britain, and Ireland too favoured Charles. 

In the interests of political and financial security, Parliament's forces, led by Oliver Cromwell, soon invaded Ireland and then turned to defeating Scotland. However, the improvised power structures in England did not last and Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658 was followed by the threat of anarchy. 

In England, Charles II had some success in overturning the changes of the 1650s but there were lasting consequences for Scotland and the notorious changes in Ireland were entrenched.

With Clare Jackson, Senior Tutor at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, Micheál Ó Siochrú, Professor in Modern History at Trinity College Dublin, and, Laura Stewart, Professor in Early Modern History at the University of York

Producer: Simon Tillotson"

Picture; Oliver Cromwell c. 1649 by Robert Walker. National Portrait Gallery, London, and The New Model Army, from Pictorial History, 1955

*The Interregnum, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wcxn, 

Railway stations I have known ...... no. 2 Roma Termini

Now I am the first to admit that these pictures do not do justice to the main railway station in Rome.

But there you are, they are mine and we are stuck with them.

We didn’t actually either arrive or leave by train but used the station to eat, which may seem daft but the chain of restaurants called Ciao were second to none, serving up a variety of fresh and interesting food and were always well patronised.

Sadly the chain is no more and a place where you could eat excellent food at a decent prices across Italy is no more.

The railway station is big.  It replaced an earlier one built in 1868, and opened in 1950.  It has 33 platforms, 150 million passengers pass through each year and there are daily international services to Munich, Geneva and Vienna.

And there are lots of shops.

All in all it’s got the lot.

Location; Rome






Picture; Roma Termini, 2009, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking in the city ……. no.3 …… business as usual

On a wet day in August …..on Police Street

Location; Manchester

Picture; business as usual, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Railway stations I have known ...... no. 1 the Gare du Nord

Now I collect railways stations like others collect bus numbers, although that said I have less in the collection than I would like and quite a few date back decades.

The Gare du Nord was the first railway station outside Britain that I visited, unless you count the one at Calais which we used to catch the Paris train.

I have no real memory of the Gare du Nord, except the night we ended up at a restaurant almost opposite.

The food was good, but like all areas beside a mainline railway station the surrounding streets were down at heal and there was an edgy atmosphere.

The station opened in 1861 and is apparently the busiest railway station in Europe and the 24th busiest in the world.

And that is about all I am going to say on the subject.

Location; Paris

Picture; The Gare du Nord, 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking the streets of London in 1933

History books come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and some were never intended to be  record of the past.

But the passage of 90 years has turned my copy of Bacon’s Map of London and Suburbs, into just that.

Now I say mine, but strictly speaking it was Dad’s and although there is no printer’s date I think it must have been produced in 1933, because while there are a few dates spread across book, there are none after 1933.

As well as the map, there the “Stranger’s Guide to London", which along with all the main tourist attractions includes a section of London’s markets and how the city was governed and run.

And that of course opens up a heap of historical details which back in 1933 were just how it was done.

So, “Electric Lighting is carried out roughly, half by private companies and half by Borough Council undertakings”, there were five Gas companies and eight Metropolitan water companies, and “as from July 1933the London Passenger Transport Board assumed control; of nearly all the passenger transport undertakings within in a radius of 30 miles from Charing Cross”.

Added to which during the previous year these “transport undertakings  carried the following number of passengers; railways 430,000,000, omnibuses 1, 960, 000,000, tramways 1,030, 000,000, trolleybuses, 27,000,000, coaches, 16,000,000”.

I know that Tussaud’s Exhibition had only just reopened after being burnt down in a fire in 1929, and that admission to the Armouries, Jewel House and the Bloody Tower at the Tower of London cost 6d., but were free on Saturdays, which was still the case just sixteen years later when I started going at the tender age of 10.

Sadly, for those of us who grew up in Eltham, the big coloured fold out map stops at Lee Green, but covers the east of south east London, including Peckham and New Cross when we lived when I was still very young.

Still the map and guidebook are in remarkable good condition, although at some point dad repaired the edges of the map with Scotch tape, and it has detached itself from the book.

Other than that, it is still a joy to read and a little bit of home, which a full thirty years ago came north to Manchester.

Location; London, 1933

Pictures; cover and pages from Bacon’s Map of London and Suburbs, 1933, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When the lad from Chorlton ...... made a Neapolitan pizza ..... in a Polish pizza oven

 We often joke that our Saul learned how to make pizza in one of those small Neapolitan pizzeria’s  you come across down a side street off a busy main road.

They are the places only  frequented by a loyal local clientele and a few tourists in the know.

We have eaten at more than a few over the years and have never been disappointed.

All of which takes me back to Saul’s pizzas which stand equal to many of those we have had, and despite my best efforts mine have never come close to his.

We were talking just the other day and out of that conversation came the news that he had bought a pizza oven.

Now, Saul lives in an apartment in the heart of Warsaw, and there is no way that even a small wood burning pizza oven would fit or pass a safety check from the local municipal authorities.

So, instead he bought an electric four-minute oven which judging by the results looks pretty neat.

Eric from Swansea will no doubt tut, but we can’t all have the luxury of a purpose-built pizza oven and a ready supply of wood.

Leaving me just to reflect on the internationalism of food which some Brexiteers would rather deny.

For here is our Saul who was born in Chorlton making pizza in a Polish pizza oven admired by the Italian side of the family who were from Naples.

Location; Warsaw

Pictures; the magic pizza oven and the pizzas, 2021, from the collection of Saul Simpson

Walking the city …….no. 6 more windows

I have been taking pictures of these windows for 40 years.

Enough said

Location; Manchester

Picture; King Street, 2020 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When the story of a murder reveals an earlier tragedy and a family that made good

Now the murder of PC Cock in 1876, and the subsequent arrest and conviction of one of the Habron brothers is well known and was recently the subject of a new book.*

Brookfield House, Chorlton,  circa 1900, home to the Deakin family in 1881

And more so because of the timely confession of the real murderer who was a criminal with a long track record of burglaries and violence.

PC Cock was interred in the churchyard by Chorlton Green where there is still a memorial to him, the real murderer  was hung and Mr Habron after his release fell out of history.

What intrigued me and set me off on one, was a request from Brian Robertson who runs an excellent facebook site. **

Brian was interested in Francis Deakin who employed Frank and William Habron.

Brookfield House, 2015

The Deakin family were well known to me.

They had been market gardeners way back into the 19th century and in the middle decades they lived in Martledge which was one of the three hamlets of Chorlton –cum-Hardy.

In the 1840s they farmed 3½ acres when Mr Deakin’s father was murdered in a beer shop in Chorlton in 1847. ***

The family received much sympathy and financial help not least because Mrs Habron was left with a large family of young children.

The family appear to have survived the tragedy and prospered. By 1881 Francis Deakin was farming 36 acres and employing 16 men and 3 boys and lived at Brookfield which still survives and is the house in Chorlton Park opposite Hough End Hall. ****

In that same year Mr Deakin farmed land near Hough End hall and so I suspect it might well be that the land was around Brookfield House in what is now the park.

The land around Brookfield House, 1854

But in 1876 at the time of PC Cook’s murder the rate books have him down as farming near the old Church which must be somewhere near Chorlton Green close to the Bowling Green pub on what was Lloyd land and also on High Lane just past Stockton Road and maybe all that was left of Row Acre which was a sizable plot of land which was farmed by various Egerton tenants and originally stretched from roughly Cross Road down to Acres Road between Beech Road and High Lane.

The OS for 1894 shows that it had shrunk to a stretch from what is now Chequers Road to Cross Road.

Interestingly there is a reference to Francis speculating in building plots in the 1880s and the rate books show that he owned at least one property in Chorlton.

Brookfield House, 2014

For me what makes the story just that bit more interesting is that it revealed more about the Deakin family, provided me with another resident for Brookfield House and offered a possible place for where the Habron brother’s worked.

That said Brian added that   “there seems to be some confusion over where the land that the Deakin’s worked was though. One newspaper report clearly suggests that access to it was from a triangular piece of land opposite the spot where PC Cook was murdered.”

This might put it over the border and alas at present I don’t have access to the rate books covering that area.

But it is entirely consistent with land holdings in Chorlton during the 19th century, with many farmers and market gardeners renting plots over the whole township and beyond into Withington and Stretford.

So there you have it.

Pictures; Brookfield House circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection, and in 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the area around the house in 1854 from 1854 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk

* The Murder of Chorlton’s ‘Little Bobby’ ………… Who killed Constable Cock? by Angela Buckley* https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/the-murder-of-chorltons-little-bobby.html

** Greater Manchester History, Architecture, Faces and Places

***The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012

****Looking for the story of Brookfield House on the edge of Chorlton Park, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/looking-for-story-of-brookfield-house.html

“Smile Dammit Smile!!! Chorlton” ..............

Saturday did what Peter promised, and for few brief hours the rain didn't fall from the sky and instead the sun came out making everyone a little happier.

Added to which there was Peter's book, “Smile Dammit Smile!!! Chorlton”, which Peter introduced at the book launch outside Chorlton Bookshop

It is, to misquote that Woody Allen film, All the Chorlton News you wanted to read but didn’t know where to look.  It is silly, irreverent and at times quite topical.

So here in no particular order are, “Bodies Found in Southern Cemetery”, “Books Discovered in Chorlton Bookshop” and “Dead Shark Found in Chorlton Diving Club Pool”.

My favourite to date is “Mysterious Container Found on Doorstep”,  which breaks the news that “In the early hours of the morning a man was seen lurking around doorsteps depositing glass containers with a white liquid inside”.

The inspiration for Peter’s flight of fancy was “Billy’s Weekly Liar".

This  was a broadsheet sold in Blackpool from 1922 till the death of its creator, William Curtis in the late 1960s.

Mr. Curtis was the owner of Billy’s Joke Shop in Preston, where Peter grew up.

And rereading Billy’s Weekly Liar still has the power to bring a smile , which was in fact the motto of the paper …… “Smile Dammit Smile”,  and it would be hard not to, with stories, like “Unconscious skeleton found on beach”, “A football scout from a Midland Club is interested in Dan Druff from Ayr” and “Brighton Prom stolen By Ladder Gang”.

All of which led Peter to compile his “counter factual Chorlton news stories” into a book, which he called Smile Dammit Smile!!! Chorlton.

The book  is available from http://www.pubbooks.co.uk/ or Chorlton Book shop, 506 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9AW 0161 881 6374.

And yesterday with the sun well and truly out from the grey clouds, passers by engaged Peter in conversation and went away smiling which of course was the point of the book.

Walking in the city ……. no.5 …… more window shopping

On a wet day in August …..

Location; Deansgate

Picture; window shopping, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Walking the city ……no.5 busy days

Yesterday the sun shone.

Today ......... it rained

Location; Manchester








Picture; busy days, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

All the Chorlton news that is silly and fun to read ...... the book launch today at Chorlton Bookshop

It's official .... the sun will shine today, and Peter Topping will smile at the launch of his new book, "Smile Dammit Smile!!! Chorlton", a collection of stories from Chorlton Weaklie News. 

Meet him and his book and some surprises today at Chorlton Bookshop Wilbraham Road from 10 till 4.

"These mainly Chorlton based tall stories, with snippets of sometimes exaggerated testimony, and tales of disproportionate catastrophes and misfortunes, will appeal to the sense of humour instilled in the minds of every Chorltonian”.

And these include, in no particular order are, “Bodies Found in Southern Cemetery”, “Books Discovered in Chorlton Bookshop” and “Dead Shark Found in Chorlton Diving Club Pool”.

Peter assures me that there will be no plastic sharks, cardboard imitation gravestones, or samples from Barlow Moor’s Treacle Farm, but would not discount a demonstration of his “Wireless Gas” which “will increase the portability of gas appliance and works by transmitting gas particles via radio signals”*

The science is beyond me, but is described in some detail on page 68 of his book, and looks most convincing, but then until I was 6 I continued to think that the figures on the TV existed in the back of the box.

*Wireless Gas Comes to Chorlton”, “Smile Dammit Smile!!! Chorlton”, Peter Topping, 2020, page 69

Brought to you by Gas & Lighting Company of Alpha Centauri.  We are  the closest star system and closest planetary system to Earth's Solar System at 4.37 light-years.

Walking in the city ……. no.4 …… down an alley

On a wet day in August ….. on Police Street.

Back with a favourite spot.*

Location; Manchester

Picture; down an alley, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 4 St Anne's Alley; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Lost%20Manchester%20streets

Preston born Chorltonian waits 70 years to launch book

Now as a headline, Preston born Chorltonian waits 70 years to launch book, does what it says, because Peter Topping was born in Preston, has passed his 70th birthday in Chorlton, and is about to launch his book this Saturday at Chorlton Bookshop.

But like any good headline it is only part of the story.

Peter in partnership with Andrew Simpson has already published and launched seven books, which were introduced to the world in a variety of places, including a pub, the Library and Ken Foster’s Cycle shop on Barlow Moor Road.

So, I wouldn’t expect anything else than for Peter to choose a bookshop to launch his book.

Over the last year and a bit, I have written heaps about "Smile Dammit Smile!!! Chorlton", which was published last year in the midst of first national lockdown and suffered from the second lockdown which saw Greater Manchester remain closed down.

But all of that is over, and Peter would like to invite everyone to the launch of “Smile Dammit Smile!!! Chorlton”, on Saturday, May 22nd between 10 am and 4 pm at Chorlton Bookshop, 506 Wilbraham Rd, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9AW

The event is free and as the publicity note announce “At last he has the chance to launch a book that has taken 70 years and Covid to create!!!

These mainly Chorlton based tall stories, with snippets of sometimes exaggerated testimony, and tales of disproportionate catastrophes and misfortunes, will appeal to the sense of humour instilled in the minds of every Chorltonian”.

And these include, in no particular order are, “Bodies Found in Southern Cemetery”, “Books Discovered in Chorlton Bookshop” and “Dead Shark Found in Chorlton Diving Club Pool”.

Peter assures me that there will be no plastic sharks, cardboard imitation gravestones, or samples from Barlow Moor’s Treacle Farm, but would not discount a demonstration of his “Wireless Gas” which “will increase the portability of gas appliance and works by transmitting gas particles via radio signals”*

The science is beyond me, but is described in some detail on page 68 of his book, and looks most convincing, but then until I was 6 I continued to think that the figures on the TV existed in the back of the box.

*Wireless Gas Comes to Chorlton”, “Smile Dammit Smile!!! Chorlton”, Peter Topping, 2020, page 69

Fun in the garden centre ……………

It was the week that garden centres reopened with of course suitable social distancing, masks, and the expectation that we were turning another corner.

The place was full, and while the restaurant remained closed, no one seemed to bother.

Instead, there was lots of interest in the plants on offer, and more than a few people walked away with heaps of green things, from small bedding specimens to tall and stately climbing ones along with baby bushes which had the promise of taking over the garden.

And while we wandered the aisles, I was attracted to a series of animal figures lurking in the undergrowth, which I instantly took to.

There were lots of them.

They came in different shapes and sizes, and all were brightly coloured.

If I could I would have bought the lot, transporting them home and creating  a menagerie of metal animals spread out across the garden with some tucked away in half hidden places and others proudly standing as centre pieces.

But then, we only have a pocket of a garden, which is already dominated by four fruit trees, a large overgrown patch of grass which was to be joined by Tina’s purchases.

So reluctantly with more than a few backward stares I left them amongst the foliage, confident in the knowledge that some of them would eventually adorn back gardens across south Manchester.

And since that visit the plants have come along, joining those we bought online.

All of which leaves just to reveal that the very first time I bought online from Parkers the said plants didn’t arrive by return of order.  

I toyed with sending a stern email, but was saved by the realization that being plants they would be dispatched at the appropriate time for planting, confirming my total ignorance of gardening, and why I suppose I was attracted to the metal animals and not the flowers.

Location; J Parkers, Flixton

Pictures; having fun in the garden centre, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*J Parkers, https://www.jparkers.co.uk/about Flixton Garden Centre, Carrington Road, Flixton,, Manchester, M41 6HT.

Thank you Wayne in Colorado, Arlene in Brisbane, Ravi in Calcutta and Susan from Aldershot

Everything you ever wanted to know about the history of everywhere, was launched four years ago on Facebook as a place to catch up on all the days blog stories.*

Manchester, 2017

The title owed something to a Woody Allen film, and it has ticked away happily, read by family, friends, and next doors cat.

London, 1979

But recently it has attracted a surge of new members which pretty much come from all the continents, save the one where the penguins live, although I don’t rule out the possibility of a visiting Norwegian scientist dabbling in stories as diverse as the Black Death, the poems of Catullus, pictures of Rome and Warsaw, and the discoveries to be made in a garden centre.

Most of the new members come from North America, and many of those are spread out across the USA.

Just what has sparked the interest of so many will of course be debated long into the night by experts of social media, bored undergraduates, and Eric from Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Flixton, 2021

There is no doubting the range of stories or the scholarship that has gone into many of them, added to which there is that element of the bizarre which pitches, an exploration of the mean streets of that “shock city of the Industrial Revolution”** which was Manchester in the 1850s to the best place to eat pizza in Naples, follows the story of British Home Children migrated to Canada in the 19th century with discussions on the growing level of antisemitism, and just how should we deal with the relics of our Imperialist past, and heaps of silly stories.

Location; everywhere

Pictures; walking through Manchester, 2017, Walking the River, London, 1978, Fun amongst the Flowers, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Fun amongst the Flowers, 2021

*Chorlton History, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/

**Victorian Cities, Asa Briggs, 1963

Woodbines ...... the News of the World .... and a wet day on Great Ducie Street ......nostalgia doesn't get any better

We are on Great Ducie Street on a wet day in 1960.

And for those who want more detail this is the corner with Brewery Street and just out of sight is New Bridge Street and beyond that is Exchange Station.

It took me a few minutes to reorientate myself because today this stretch in both directions down to Exchange and back up to Francis Street has vanished.

Instead of densely packed houses, shops, and pubs, the site has been occupied by a car park until last year when the eager eyes of the developer acquired the spot.

Which takes me back to the picture.

For anyone who grew up in the first half of the last century this will be a familiar scene.

It starts with the terraced housing, the tiny corner shops and the half-remembered adverts, some of which are for products which are now part of history.

Within walking distance was the usual mix of warehouses, a printing works and of course the brewery, which on certain days would offer residents that pungent yeasty smell.

Location Great Ducie Street,

Picture; A wet Manchester day on Great Ducie Street, 1960-3110, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?

Walking in the city ……. no.2 …… city shapes

On a wet day in August …..on Southgate

Location; Manchester
















Picture; city shapes, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson