A story of British Home Children in 20 objects .... no. 2 ... Grace Ruth Sillett, from Susan Hillman Brazeau

Grace Ruth Sillett, born June 19, 1892, in Bungay, Suffolk, England, was one of 8 children of Harry Charlish Sillett and his wife, Margaret Ann (Mallett).  In 1898, Harry died of cancer, leaving Margaret financially destitute. 

Grace Ruth Sillett

Grace Ruth Sillett, born June 19, 1892, in Bungay, Suffolk, England, was one of 8 children of Harry Charlish Sillett and his wife, Margaret Ann (Mallett).  In 1898, Harry died of cancer, leaving Margaret financially destitute. 

Although she received assistance from the church, Margaret was unable to care for her children.  Refusing the workhouse, she permitted four of her daughters to be removed from her care.  

Grace, the only daughter sent to Dr. Barnardo’s, was admitted on May 7, 1900, age 7 years, 10 months. She was described as 3 feet, 5 inches; 44 pounds, shy, quiet and polite. She had brown hair, brown eyes, and a dark complexion. Months later, she went to live with a couple in Thorndon, Suffolk for two years. 

In 1902, Grace set sail for Canada on the Colonian. Days after arriving at Hazelbrae Receiving Home in Peterborough, Ontario. she went to Brighton, Ontario, where she resided for the next 12 years with 4 different families. 

When she was 14, Grace asked if she had family in England and Barnardo’s helped her make contact with her mother. In 1965, after 65 years of separation, Grace returned to England and reunited with siblings.

Submitted by granddaughter, Susan (Hillman) Brazeau

Location; Suffolk and Canada

Picture; Grace’s Admission photo to Barnardo’s

A story of British Home Children in just 20 objects nu 1 ..........a report on a Home Child

A report on a home child, 1915

A story of British Home Children in just 20 objects which are in no particular order, have been selected purely at random and will reflect one of many different stories.

Anyone who wants to nominate their own is free to do so, just add a description in no more than 200 words and send it to me.

This is a report on my great uncle, shortly after he was placed by the Middlemore Home with S.V. Griffiths who farmed in New Brunswick.

Such reports were supposed to be completed on each child and sent back to  the charity or Poor Law Union which sent the young person.

This did not always happen and concerns were raised by the socialist Guardians on the board of the Chorlton Poor Law that no reports had been sent back to Manchester on children in their care.

In the case of my great uncle two such reports have survived, neither of which is complimentary about his behaviour, but given his background before he left for Canada I doubt we should be surprised.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

What was lost is found .....

Now a little bit of my childhood has just come to light.

I say mine but it is actually a collective bit of the history of me and my sisters, and it is all the more exciting because I had thought the manuscripts that mum wrote during the 1950's and 60's had been lost.

During that period she wrote a series of one act plays which were specifically aimed at women’s groups and given the nature of such groups had more parts for women than men.

This I suspect added to the skill she brought to the task.

I never read them which, was more to do with that simple fact that at 11, plays, reading and books were for other people.

But now as I engage in writing myself I have often wanted to read mum’s work.  We have a few short pieces she wrote in the 1940's and an unfinished novel of life in south east London.  But that is it.

I have on occasion searched the British Library but was never sure which name she used and as I had none of the titles the quest never got anywhere.

But now our Theresa has found one of the published plays and our Gillian has another and what was lost is found.

Later in the month we will all meet up here in Manchester and Theresa has promised to bring the play.

The discovery of course prompts many memories.  I vividly remember the Olivetti typewriter she used which was metallic light blue in colour and was slim and stylish, and nothing like those giant office models which were all black and gold and took over the table.

And the table she used had been bought specially for the job, and sat in the front room of the old house in Lausanne Road with draws filled with paper; typewrite ribbons, boxes of carbon sheets and those special erasers.

We thought nothing of what mum did and just took it for granted as the thing that all mums do between the washing, cooking and the myriad of other household chores.

And yet now I am in awe of someone who looked after the five of us which was made all the more onerous as dad was away for great chunks of the year.

Reading the fragments that have survived I can hear mum in those manuscripts from over half a century ago.

There is a light wit to much of it, underscored with a darker more melancholy side and both of these were mum.

All of which just leaves me with that simple observation that all of us have stories to tell and deserve the opportunity to share them.

In the past that was difficult, requiring the time and confidence and then the perseverance to slog out approaching publishers who of course would take a cut of whatever money was to be made.

But now social media offers an audience for not only stories but photographs, many of which are as good as those in the galleries, and offers people a chance to showcase their work in a way never before possible.

Knowing mum I rather think she would have embraced those new forms of communication and perhaps once we have all read the lost plays we will offer them up.

We shall see.

Location; London

Picture; cover of In the Mood, date unknown, from the collection of Theresa Simpson Hall and mum and the girls, 1959 from  the collection of Andrew Simpson

Visions of that better world........ reflecting on what I owe to my parents and grandparents

Uncle George and friends, 1918

I am part of that generation which was born directly after the Second World War and is now coming to retirement which gives you a degree of perspective.

For my children both those world wars are just history as remote in a way as the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Battle of Waterloo or the death of Nelson at Trafalgar.

Now there is nothing odd about that.  The eldest was born in 1984 and the youngest in ‘92 by which time the young men and women who had endured the Blitz, fought their way across Europe and the Far East were themselves preparing to receive their State pensions.

But for me those conflicts were still real events.

Nor could it be otherwise.

The tenth anniversary of the end of the last world war coincided with my sixth birthday and the reminders of that conflict were still very visible from bomb sites to surplus military equipment which could be bought for next to nothing.

Mother and friend, 1941, Lincolnshire

And that earlier world war was still all round us.

The war memorials and the Cenotaph were little more than 30 years old when I celebrated that sixth birthday and those that had fought in the Great War were still relatively young men and women.

Many were yet to be grandparents, and most were still active and not yet thinking of retirement.

Indeed it is a salutary thought that back then in 1955 many were younger than I am now.

All of which draws me back to my child hood and how my parents and grandparents dealt with those war time experiences.

By and large they didn’t talk about them in fact were reluctant to do so and when pushed made some flippant remark which hid deeper and perhaps darker experiences.

And for that I am grateful.  I grew up in a household of rising

Father with a hospital unit, 1941, North Shields

material expectations set against a period of prosperity not known to my parents or grandparents.

Their lives in the first half of the twentieth century had been pitted against that long period of economic stagnation culminating with the Great Depression which had been sandwiched between those two world war.

Uncle Roger and mother, 1939

But like most parents of the late 40s and 50s they made every effort to make our lives secure, comfortable and above all ones which were lived out with a sense of the progress made and yet to be made.

True there was the shadow of the bomb and some nasty little wars but they were kept at bay.  And I know that all parents through all time have tried to do their best for their children, but for me those generations who went through the two world wars did their bit not only to fight but to win the peace.

And that for me is well worth remembering.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost adverts ….Stephens ink 1959

I rather think you will have to have been born in the first half of the last century to remember Stephens ink.

And along with the ink, will be fountain pens, inkwells, and those school pens which were no more than a knib, attached to a handle, and had to be frequently dipped in the inkwell.

Which in turn will bring back floods of memories of the ink monitor, and ink stains on books and clothes, and of course ink pellets, which were made from chewed up bits of paper soaked in ink and flirted across the room with the help of a ruler.

Few at school aspired to a fountain pen, which was a neat contraption, allowing you suck the in up into a small tube.  

These were later replaced with ink cartridges, and did away with that powerful smell of ink which even now stays with me.

A world replaced by of biros and Word processed documents.

Location; the 1950s

Picture; Super Stephen, 1959, from the Eagle Comic, May 30, 1959, Vol. 10 No.22

The stories behind the picture ................... Manchester in the 1870s

Now you know just by looking at the photograph that there is a story here.

And the more you look it is apparent that there will be as many stories as there are people staring back at us.

It starts with those young boys, all in uniform and many holding musical instruments and goes on to the adults.

Their tall hats and beards suggest a date sometime in the 1870s.

Of course we do have to be careful because often the appearance of a person, from their clothes to the style of their hair may reflect the fashions of an early age from which the individual has not moved on from.

Finally there is the banner which is difficult toread but there is enough to suggest a message carrying a high moral tone.

So it might be logical to suppose that this is the youth wing of a religious group and that might takes us to the Salvation Army or the Boys Brigade or any one of a number of others.

The Salvation Army is a candidate in that it was formed in 1865 and just possibly so is the Boy’s Brigade which was established in 1883.

But neither fit the picture.  In the case of the Boys Brigade while the organisation was formed in 1883 in Glasgow it would be a full decade before it took root across the country and I know this is not a group of  Salvation Army, because we are in the back yard of a building belonging to the Manchester & Salford Boys’ and Girl’s Refuges which was established in 1870.

Their original purpose was to rescue destitute children from the streets of Manchester and Salford but expanded into a much wider organisation which owned homes, undertook the vocational training of young people and campaigned for better working conditions for those children engaged in a range of exploited labour.

Alongside these activities the charity was also active in the prosecution of parents who were abusive or neglectful, and offered help to others who through bereavement, ill health or unemployment found it difficult to support their children.

Finally like many other children’s charities they migrated some of those in their care to Canada.

In the case of the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges this part of their work lasted just 34 years from 1872 till 1914 in two short periods from 1872-75 and 1883-1914.

The organisation still exists although it is now the Together Trust,  and is based in Cheadle and it is still engaged in the primary role of helping young people.

For me as a historian leaving aside all their good work it is their archive that fascinates me, which includes the records of those who went through the charity including admission books, letters and profiles and photographs.

And as you would expect the archivist of the Trust is very careful about confidentiality and the rights of individuals to their anonymity even a century and bit on from when they were admitted.

That said she regularly features some of the material in the Trust’s blog.*

And that brings me back neatly to our picture which dates from the 1873 and was taken in the back yard of the charity’s building in Strangeways.
Now this I know because I asked the archivist who for good measure supplied the message on the banner which reads Boy's Refuges, Industrial Home, Francis Street, Strangeways.

The rest as they say is for another time.

Picture; resources at the Together Trust, courtesy of the Together Trust,  http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-together-trust.html

*Getting down and dusty, the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

Poster corner ……… advertising on the Rec

Now the railings of the Rec offer up several uses.

And one of those is to advertise Chorlton events, from the Arts Festival, to the annual visit of the Fun Fair.

Along the way I have spotted small posters for missing animals, the occasional pop-up jumble sale, and a long time ago the banner celebrating all things Chorlton.

So, for months now, we have gazed out at the Arts Festival, which has been joined by a giant poster for the Children’s Fun Fair in that other park.

It went up sometime on Wednesday, and pretty much obscures views across the Rec to the swings.

So, not one of the most discreet adverts, and I wonder what will be next?

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; posters on the Rec, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When campaigning for peace …… just becomes an empty gesture …on a historic Chorlton landmark

So …. here is a mindless bit of empty protest.

I have no problem with the sentiments, but what does a piece of graffiti on a well known historic Chorlton building achieve?

The blue fingered warrior for peace, would be better employed joining CND, or a political party, or just engaging the local population in a dialogue, but I suspect that will involve a degree of thinking out a more convincing set of arguments.

All that will happen now is that the Council will have to clean it off.

And the makers of blue spray paint will have advanced their profits.

Still our blue fingered warrior for peace can rest easy knowing that they are a million miles behind Dr. King, Bruce Kent of CND, and the countless millions around the world who have faced down military regimes, and totalitarian governments in the cause of peace, and often have suffered the consequences.

Perhaps emboldened by their act of defiance, they could step things up, and send a picture postcard to Mr. Putin, and a suitably different picture postcard to the Chinese Government calling out its Human rights record.

The possibilities are endless.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; the empty gesture, 2021 

Shakespeare's Sonnets .... one for today ... on the wireless ... at 9am

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the collection of poems published in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe: Shakespeare’s Sonnets, “never before imprinted”. 

Yet, while some of Shakespeare's other poems and many of his plays were often reprinted in his lifetime, the Sonnets were not a publishing success. 

They had to make their own way, outside the main canon of Shakespeare’s work: wonderful, troubling, patchy, inspiring and baffling, and they have appealed in different ways to different times. 

Most are addressed to a man, something often overlooked and occasionally concealed; one early and notorious edition even changed some of the pronouns.

With, Hannah Crawforth, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at King’s College London, Don Paterson, Poet and Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews, and Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson"

Picture;  Shake-Speare's Sonnets, quarto published by Thomas Thorpe, London, 1609,

*Shakespeare's Sonnets, In Our Time, Radio 4, In Our Time, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x6tr

What should we make of Sir Nicholas Mosley who built Hough End Hall, made a fortune and was judged as “covetous and illiberal"?

Hough End Hall has one of those long and rich histories which pretty much has all you would want from a building dating back to 1596.*

The Hall from a print circa 1849

It was built by Sir Nicholas Mosley who made his fortune in London and was gambled away by one  of his descendants a century and bit later.

Its first owner had been at the heart of national politics during the reign of the first Elizabeth, another of the Mosley’s saw the hall and estates temporally confiscated by Parliament during the Civil War, after which the place settled down and fell out of the great events of State finally ending up as humble farm house for two centuries.

Now I have never been over bothered with looking into the story of Sir Nicholas Mosley.

Like most people I contented myself with the knowledge that he made that fortune In London, was rewarded by Queen Elizabeth I for his service to London and his country with a knighthood and  “a handsomely-carved oak bedstead, together with some other articles of furniture, for the new house which he had recently erected at Hough End, on the site of the old mansion which his ancestors had inhabited.”**

And in the fullness of time retired to his magnificent home where he died aged 85 in 1612.

But as I delved into the history of the Hall for the book* I became drawn to the man.

mural monument of Sir Nicholas, 1612

His own biographer wrote that his character “has been variously represented; his enemies reproaching him as covetous and illiberal, whilst his friends eulogised his skill, industry and hospitality.”

What is certain is that he left money in his will for a school in Chorlton and may have been involved in other “good works.”

That said I am intrigued by the view of him as “covetous and illiberal” which may have been more to do with a ruthless determination to do well.

After all he was nearly 50 when he left Manchester for London and within twelve years was elected an alderman for one of the City wards, became a sheriff in 1590 and Lord Mayor nine years later.

Likewise his business prospered and on the back of this growing wealth he acquired the manors of Manchester, Withington, Cheetham and Cheetwood and went on to maximise the income from these lands asserting old rights and increasing fines.

“In 1602 the burgesses of Manchester claimed that Mosley had worked ‘to alter, overthrowe and change all the auncient priviledges, usages and customs” such as common pasturage in 100 acres of Collyhurst, which had hitertoo benefited the burgesses and the town as a place of recreation, shooting, mustering troops and the placing of cabins for plague victims.”***

Hough End Hall 1853

Of course he was not alone  in maximising his income, plenty of Elizabethan landlords were doing the same and the practice of enclosures and taking away the rights to common land stretched back into the early 16th century.

Sir Thomas More in his book on Utopia published in 1516 had commented that because sheep farming was far more profitable than arable farming
“ the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men, the abbots not contented with the old rents which their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture, destroying houses and towns, reserving only the churches, and enclose grounds that they may lodge their sheep in them.”****

All of which is a fine new slant on that magnificent hall at Hough End, which just leaves me with the charitable and optimistic words of his descendant Sir Oliver Mosley who in 1849 concluded that determining Si Nicholas’s character
“at this distant period very difficult to decide...... His abilities and success as a merchant have been universally admitted, and perhaps the great gains which accompanied his worldly pursuits might too much engross his attention; but we will charitably hope that many opportunities afforded him, during a long life, for repentance, were not neglected.”*****

I hope so but as yet I fear the jury is still out.

Pictures; Hough End Hall, 1849, and Sir Nichloas Mosley’s mural monument, 1612 in Didsbury parish church from Family Memoirs, Mosley, Sir Oswald, the Hall in 1853 from Booker, Rev John, A history of the ancient Chapels of Didsbury and Chorlton, 1857, Cheetham Society cover for the book Hough End Hall to be published in late 2014

* Hough End Hall the Story, Simpson Andrew, Topping, Peter Topping, 2012

** Mosley, Sir Oswald, Family Memoirs, 1849, Printed for Private Circulation, page 6

*** Bowd, Stephen, John Dee and Christopher Saxton’s Survey of Manchester,(1596), Northern History, XLII:2, September 2005

****More, Sir Thomas, Utopia, 1516
*****ibid Mosley, Sir Oswald

The one we have all forgotten ...... in the Square in 1978

I say the one we have all forgotten, but for many it will be a scene they have never experienced.

We are in St Ann’s Square looking towards Exchange Street with St Mary’s Gate beyond on a warm sunny day in 1978.

Back then you negotiated your way around parked cars, and waiting taxis while in the distance was that parade of shops which stretched down from the old Marks and Spencer’s with its bending canopy.

Today that building has gone, as have the parked cars and taxis and from our vantage point there is a clear view across New Cathedral Street which was cut when the area was redeveloped after the bomb.

Location; St Ann’s Square

Picture; St Ann’s Square, 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Saturday in Didsbury

Location; Didsbury

Picture; To let, Wilmslow Road, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When in Didsbury? ..........

So, when in Didsbury, why would you want to take a journey out to Chorlton, Fallowfield or beyond?

Location; Didsbury

Picture; why would you want to take the a journey out of Didsbury? 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

As others saw us ……… Chorlton-cum-Hardy ….. 1903

An occasional series which offers up just a snapshot of what we were like.

Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1903

Kemps's Croner & Wilbraham Road, circa 1900

This one dates from 1903, and comes from Slater’s Directory of Manchester & Salford.

Directories covering Manchester and Salford, date from the 18th century, and originally listed just the most prominent citizens and mains streets. 

During the course of the next two centuries, these directories became ever more detailed, listing residents alphabetically, along with all but the smallest of streets as well as a full list of all the businesses in the twin cities and a section devoted to local government, educational establishments and places of worship.

Unlike the census returns, directories were complied annually, which makes it possible to track an individual across the city.

A little bit more of Chorlton-cum-Hardy in 1903

Added to this, the Directories carried adverts, ranging from small ones to those which took up a full page, and a short description of each part of Manchester and Salford.

Which is a convenient point to stop and leave you with Slater’s description of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; extract from Slater’s Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1903, and Kemp’s Corner, circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection

Volunteers wanted …… Saturday in Didsbury

 Location, Didsbury

Picture; Volunteers wanted …… Saturday in Didsbury, June 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When not following the science is easier than thinking things through

Who says everyone carefully weighs up the evidence, before making a judgement?

Location; Stockport

Pictures; the unthinking response to the science, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford visited Chorlton ….. our own palace of varieties ….… part two

Now the ambitious plans for Chorlton’s own music hall began well.

The theatre, circa 1910

The Chorlton Pavilion was opened sometime around 1906, continued with the addition of a ‘Winter Garden’ four years later, and underwent further alterations in 1912.

From the out set, it appeared to draw in the locals, with the Stage reporting that “For the opening week Miss Florence Baine’s company with Miss. Lancashire, Limited, have been secured and on a Monday a house packed in all parts gave a demonstrative welcome to the popular farce, Miss Madge Grey as the blunt Lancashire lass, Miss Ellen Thompson, kept the house in roars of laughter, and was a great favorite.  Miss Maria Lorenzi made an effective Eva Lancashire”. *

Theatre and Winter Gardens, circa 1910

But despite all that promise something didn’t quite go right, and in July 1914, the Manchester Guardian carried the notice that the building was up for sale, including “the WOODEN ERECTION, with corrugated roof, forming the theatre; Pay Huts, about 200 Upholstered Tip-up Seats, 28 Forms with backs; Scenery, Limelight’s, Fire Extinguisher Apparatus , the whole of the Electric Light Fittings, Carpets, Curtains, Mats Rugs and other Effects.”*

It seems that by then the Pavilion had already moved away from a palace of varieties and entered the new shiny world of films.

This I know because in 1913 it was listed as the “Chorlton Pavilion Theatre, Wilbraham Road, seating 800, and owned by Chorlton Pavilion Theatre Co Ltd”. ***

Still from the Battle of Waterloo, 1913

It might of course also continue as a live theatre, and the Chorlton Pavilion Theatre Co Ltd, may have been a subsidiary of Chorlton Entertainments Ltd who had opened the building in 1910.

Or they may have been separate companies.  At present I haven’t been able to locate a history of either.

What I do know is that our own Chorlton Operatic Society used the building for performances of their production Dorothy in the April of 1914.

Still from the film, Sixty Years a Queen, 1913

Sadly, two years later the building was up for sale again during the summer of 1916 and despite several attempts the sale was withdrawn in the September of that year.

The rest as they say is unclear.  At some stage it was part of the cinema chain owned by H.D. Morehouse, but I don’t know when that was.

It maybe that the alterations in 1912 were to adapt it to cinema use.

All of which means that there will have to be many hours spent in Central Ref looking through the entertainment’s pages of the local newspapers for references to the cinema.

I thought it had closed in the 1930s but according Edward Hollingworth, it had gone by 1924 to make way for the garage and petrol station owned by Edward’s father who had lost a leg aged just 20 in the Great War.

Along with the petrol station there were a set of lock up garages running along the railway fronting Buckingham Road and both the lockups and the petrol station had been built by Edward’s grandfather.

Still from the film Tess of the D'Ubervilles, 1913

The business was sold in 1951 but the original 1920s building was still there eleven years later and looking at that 1962 picture it is possible to pick out evidence of the old theatre which judging from more recent photographs was a very substantial building.

And that I thought was that, but as you do, just as I was finishing the research, I came across one last little story, concerning the Boys’ Highland Company who appeared at the Pavilion I the November of 1907.

The troupe consisted of 16-18 boys, who despite their name all came from the Nottingham area and during their period of engagement in Chorlton had stayed in B&Bs in the township.  Five had resided with a Mrs. Shaw in Cheltenham Road who reported the children for being “infested with vermin”.

 At the subsequent court case brought by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the troupe’s manager was found guilty of neglect and was fined £5 and costs. ****

Leaving me to ponder on what to say next.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; The Chorlton Pavilion and Winter Gardens, circa 1910, from the Lloyd Collection, remaining pictures from films showing in 1913, from The Kinematograph Year Book, Program Diary and Directory for 1914

*The Stage, March 31, 1910

**Chorlton Entertainments Ltd, Manchester Guardian, July 14, 1910

***The Kinematograph Year Book, Program Diary and Directory for 1914

****A Boys’ Band Singular Charge of Child Neglect, Manchester Guardian, November 13, 1907

Shock revelations about London's poor ......the state of the capital in 1889 ..... on the wireless

Now, the story of the poor in London in the late 19th century is well known.

And that is in part due to the work of Charles Booth, who is the subject of another in the series on In Our Time, on Radio 4.

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Booth's survey, The Life and Labour of the People in London, published in 17 volumes from 1889 to 1903. Booth (1840-1916), a Liverpudlian shipping line owner, surveyed every household in London to see if it was true, as claimed, that as many as a quarter lived in poverty. 

He found that it was closer to a third, and that many of these were either children with no means of support or older people no longer well enough to work. 

He went on to campaign for an old age pension, and broadened the impact of his findings by publishing enhanced Ordnance Survey maps with the streets coloured according to the wealth of those who lived there.

With, Emma Griffin, Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia, Sarah Wise, Adjunct Professor at the University of California, and, Lawrence Goldman, Emeritus Fellow in History at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson"

Location; London

Pictures; from an earlier work on London's poor ...... the Kitchen Fox Court Gray’s-Inn- Lane and the London Costermonger, from London Labour & the London Poor 1851

Booth's Life and Labour Survey, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wsxf

Travels with the Kickety Brook ………..

 If there is one thing all the guides agree on, it's if you walk the Kickety Brook out beyond Chorlton  you should wear wellies.

 

“Access is off Hawthorn Lane, or Chester Road, Stretford. Popular with walkers, cyclists and horse riders alike. Be sure to wear boots or wellingtons if you are on foot. 

The path goes through a good mix of habitats for spotting a wide range of wildlife”.*

 I first came across the brook while researching the weir by the Mersey, which had been built to protect the Duke’s Canal in the 18^th century and rebuilt in the 1840s after it had been damaged by flood water from the river.

 With that spectacular disregard for the environment the engineers constructing the Bridgewater Canal had commandeered the Kickety Brook to act as a channel for possible flood water from the weir, thereby reducing the surge of water and protecting the canal.

Over a decade ago I walked the short section of the Brook with my old botanist pal, David Bishop, following its path down under the motorway.

 And this week Andy Robertson walked the same walk and took a series of pictures which testify to the advice on suitable foot wear.

 I remember that back in the 1970s the stretch of land in front of the weir often appeared to be dried out but more recently there has been a significant pool of water stretching back from the stone wall.

That said the last time the weir saw action was back in 1915 which I guess would have meant that the Kickety Brook took the overflow off the fields in front of the canal.

Since then the Brook has been tampered with again and the bit under the motorway has been forced into a concrete channel.

 But the Brook and nature do not easily recognise such a attempts to fiddle with it, and lumps of the artificial channel have suffered over time, while the surrounding vegetation threatens to soften and hide  the work of the motorway engineers.

After a bout of rain, stretches of the Kickety can still look like a respectable water course, but suddenly it becomes just a muddy, shallow and sluggish reminder of its former self.

 

It always amazes me how with in just a few yards the Brook can undergo such a transformation.

So I am grateful to Andy for capturing the different sides of Kickety in what was a warm early summer's day.

Just whether he chooses wellies, stout walking boots or trainers has yet to be revealed, but I hope he didn't get his feet wet in the process of revealing this stretch of water.

Leaving me to hope his pictures will spark a flood of memories from people who payed along it in their youth or who once explored it's route.

We shall see.

As the guide* suggests the brook can be approached down Hawthorn Lane, where it goes underneath the Cut Hole Aqueduct.

 But for those that prefer their stretches of water broader and deeper, the aqueduct gives access to the canal and the tow path from which the serious walker can head off in one direction towards town or out to Sale, Timperley and rural Cheshire.

And yes, on my trip with David, once we had passed under the motorway and left the noise of speeding traffic, the seemingly remoteness of the route presented us with other sounds, from the occasional bird, to the lazy buzz of bees, and the sights of the odd butterfly.

 Location; The Kickety Brook

 Pictures; the Kickety Brook, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Mersey Valley Kickety Brook, Stretford, Things to do in Manchester, https://www.visitmanchester.com/things-to-see-and-do/searchresults?sr=1&name=kickety+brook

Six ways to leave a story about Ancient Rome ……. Edward Gibbon on the wireless

Now, I am looking forward to listening to the story of Edward Gibbon from the series In Our Time on Radio 4.

A bit of Rome a bit knocked about

I missed it yesterday when it was broadcast and will catch up with it today.

Mr. Gibbon is of course best known for his account of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

To my shame I have yet to read the six volumes of how work which mother bought for me back in 1961.

To be fair I was 11, and despite being fascinated by the Romans I was daunted by the expanse of reading.

So I will start with the wireless programme. 

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of one of the great historians, best known for his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published 1776-89). 

According to Gibbon (1737-94), the idea for this work came to him on 15th of October 1764 as he sat musing amidst the ruins of Rome, while barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter. Decline and Fall covers thirteen centuries and is an enormous intellectual undertaking and, on publication, it became a phenomenal success across Europe.

Edward Gibbon, 1779

With David Womersley, The Thomas Wharton Professor of English Literature at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, Charlotte Roberts, Lecturer in English at University College London, and Karen O’Brien, Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson”

Pictures; a bit of Rome from after the Fall of the Empire, 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Portrait of Edward Gibbon, 1779, Joshua Reynolds

*Edward Gibbon, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x0v2

Forgotten Chorlton ................. nu 1 on Wibraham in the 1930

Now Wilbraham Road and Edge Lane were popular locations for commercial photographers not least because of the many posh properties which stretched out on either side of these two roads all the way up from Stretford into Chorlton.

The canny photographer would not only sell the images to the postcard companies but would also have called in at each house featured in a picture offering up a print for a price.

This one was taken by Harold Clarke who lived in Chorlton in the 1920s and 30s and had a photographic business.

And as you do I have come to be quite fascinated by him and have not only written about his work on the blog but discovered that Tony Goulding who is a regular contributor is related to Mr Clarke.*

So as they say a small world, and for those who know this corner of Wilbraham Road and High Lane/Edge Lane the fun will be trying to spot the changes.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Picture; Wilbraham Road, 1930 from the collection of Mark Fynn

*Harold Clarke, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Harold%20Clarke

**Mark Fynn, http://www.markfynn.com, 

When we still had a furniture shop and a free car park .... down by the Lloyds in 1990

Now I am on a roll again with pictures from our most recent past.

And so here is another of Andy Robertson’s taken I think in the early 1990s.

I will leave you to identify the shops which have gone, along with that little piece of history which was Chorlton’s lost car par, which I think was free, contained also a set of public lavatories, and once a very very long time ago had been a set of tennis courts beside the Lloyds.

Picture;  looking out towards Wilbraham Road, circa 1990, from the collection of Andy Robertson