The Knitting years .... number 5 .........."Doing my bit"

The new series on the history of what we wore, Knitting Patterns, 1930-1970

Now these I like.  They come from a series entitled With Charm...... Patterns with Style and for me perfectly capture a sense of the last world war.

Toy factories had closed down and been redirected to make war materials and with everything in short supply, the use of left over wool to make children’s Christmas presents made sense..

That war like the one before it was all pervasive, from saying goodbye to a loved one, waiting for the sound of the air raid siren or just balancing the demands of the family’s needs against the limitations of rationing.

And one of observation that has always stayed with me is that simple one that “almost everyone you met was in uniform”.

I am now not quite sure where I first came across it and I suspect it was in the excellent short essay Post War by Diana Athill, which is a particularly good reason to re-read it.*

It covers the years after the Second World War when Ms Athill was in her late 20s and challenges that widely held view that the late 1940s and early 50s were drab.

On the contrary they were an exciting period full of new possibilities but above all a time of peace after six years of a hard war.

And so reflecting on the twin celebrations of VE and VJ Day she writes that these were not just celebrations of victory but more of peace and the chance to get on with lives interrupted by the conflict.

My own parents rarely talked of the war but for them and for others of their generation however necessary they thought the war might have been it put their lives on hold.

Sylvia in Ashton under Lyne once confided that those six years had robbed her of her adolescence.

But the essay is about far more than just the war and ranges over the exciting new ideas in fashion, home design and leisure, culminating with one of the early package tours to Corfu with Club Mediterranean, taking in the brilliant sunlight, the scenery and the smells of fresh herbs and lemons.

All this would be a fascinating enough but she also focuses on the changing political climate which ushered in not only the National Health Service but saw Britain divest itself of many of its former colonies and attempt to redress the inequalities of the past.

These then were “lovely years to live through.”*

And I suspect those knitting patterns lingered on into that lovely peace and as rationing continued it remained a case of how ever optimistic the future seemed, the present was still about make and mend.

Location; 1939-45

Pictures; knitting patterns 1939-45 from the collection of Jillian Simpson

*Athill Diana, Post War, from a collection of essays in Alive, Alive, Oh!, 2015

Beech Road …… waiting for customers

Seven am on Beech Road can be a quiet place.

Echelles the newsagents has been open for more than an hour, while the Co-op is ready for its first customers.

By eight they will have been joined by Ludo’s, but for the rest it will be the nine o’clock watershed or later before they are ready for business. 

Leaving me, the odd cat, and a paper girl to occupy Beech Road.

Added to which the place is a lot brighter than it would have been just a few decades ago, when economy minded shop keepers would not have bothered to turn on the lights before the customers were about.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Early morning Beech Road, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The Knitting years .... number 4 getting personal

The new series on the history of what we wore, Knitting Patterns.

Now if this isn't the pattern our Jillian used to knit that jumper for me in 1970 with reindeer's it is as close as you can get.

The original was in brown with with red and yellow and proved such a success that she made a second in blue.

I showed it to our sons who were very envious ........... not bad for a distance of 4 decades

Picture; knitting patterns, 1930-1970 from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith

It’s all in the detail ………

Barlow Moor Road.

It’s a lesson in how to adorn an ordinary building.

True the additions may have been mass produced, but they still look good.

Now I can't yet be sure if Mr Edwin Foden was responsible for building the house, but he was a "Chemist and dentist" in occupation from 1891, having been listed on High Lane the year before.

He reamins there until sometime before 1903 when it passed to a Madam Newton Gell, "Milliner" and from 1911 a E.H. Wray, & Co, "Furnture dealers".

Location; Chorlton

Picture; It’s all in the detail, Chorlton, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Going to the "flicks" ...... Ashton-Under-Lyne

 Now they say you should never go back to somewhere you were very happy.  

So apart from brief visits I haven't returned to Ashton-Under-Lyne which I left 46 years ago.

To be fair I was only there for a few years, and my departure had culminated with the end of a relationship, but I always travel with the bottle half full. 

And that means the sun always shone over the foof tops, and we never saw a bad film at the Odeon on Old Street.

I have to say it looks a tad sad today, when Andy snapped the old picture house last week.

And as ever I am indebited to that wonderful site cinemaTREASURE for this short history contributed by Ian Grundy.

It opened in 1922 as the Majestic and "was part of the Provincial Cinematograph Theatres(PCT) circuit, with 1,233 seats in stalls and balcony and a splendid facade faced in white faience tiles on two sides of the building on its prominent town centre corner site of Old Street and Delamere Street, the cinema was a great success.

It had an oak panelled foyer which had beautiful coloured tapestry’s on the walls. 

The interior was in a Georgian style and it was equipped with a pipe organ and a seperate tea room and cafe which were located on the upper floor".*

It passed, with all the other PCT houses to Gaumont British Theatres in 1929, and was renamed the Gaumont.  In 1936 it was was renovatednd after being acquired by the Rank Organisation, was re-named the Odeon in  1962. 

Just 19 years later it was  sold to an independent operator who renamed it the Metro Cinema 

"With capacity now down to 946 seats, the Metro Cinema continued as a single screen operation until the middle of 2003, sometime after a multi-plex had opened in the town. In 2008 (with seats and screen intact) the building was unused except for the long foyer area, linking the front and back elevations of the Metro, which was a Slotworld Amusement Arcade. By 2011, the entire building had been stripped out and stood empty and unused".

Location; Ashton-Under-Lyne

Pictures; Metro Cinema, 2022, from the collection of Andy Robertson

* Metro Cinema, Old Street A-U-L OL67RS, Ian Grundy, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/23553 

The Knitting years .... number 3 the casual look

The new series on the history of what we wore, Knitting Patterns

Location; pretty much everywhere

Picture; knitting patterns, 1930-1970 from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith

The Knitting years .... number 2 "Save Coupons" ........ from the Economy Series

The new series on the history of what we wore, Knitting Patterns.

Now the clue is in the word coupon when pretty much everything was rationed, which will put our Juliet Cap and Gloves to sometime during the last world war or just after.

Location; pretty much everywhere

Picture; knitting patterns, 1930-1970 from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith

The dinosaur dropping through the door …… a lost clue to the past

Now I have to say that I thought the old-fashioned telephone directory had gone the way of the dinosaur, the dodo and the quaint custom of leaving a calling card to announce a future visit.

But not so, because today one such book of BT telephone subscribers dropped through our letter box with a clunk.

Back in the 1960s in Eltham we would receive four covering the whole of Greater London, and as late as the 1980s there would be two through the door for all of Manchester.

And then they stopped, and at much the same time I no longer phoned Directory Enquiries to find a number.

Instead the internet offered up a free and quick alternative, which also helped locate an address or post code, which was most useful when writing Christmas cards.

That said it only works if the person is a BT subscriber, which I suppose is why I longer appear in the newly arrived book or in the online directory.  We switched as part of a bigger switch to another provider over two decades ago.

But it never occurred to me that after 30 years our place in the list of all them wot had telephones would cease to be available to be perused.  At the time the entry read A. R. B. Simpson which I always thought was a tad pretentious but was how Kay thought it should read.

Not that this is a trivial or flippant story because the telephone directory is one of those very vital sources which help trace people from the past.

A Kabbaz, 1911

Of course, it only works from the 19th century and even into the next is limited by the small number of people who had a phone. But the upside is that as the lists were published annually you can track a person across the years, checking for changes to where they lived.

Added to which their appearance in the directory at the very dawn of the telephone, does offer up some interesting clues about their wealth, status, or just a progressive frame of mind.

 The first British book was issued in 1880 by the Telephone Company, and contained 248 names and addresses of individuals and businesses in London and that as they say was just the start.

K A Kabbaz, 1911

All self-respecting local studies centres should have old editions and the entire collection for the whole of the country dating back to 1880 can be accessed online.

So I know that Joe Scott who lived in our house from 1915 when it was built had a phone by the 1920s, while others in Chorlton who I have been following had theirs by 1901.

All of which challenges my title and makes me think I should retract the word dinosaur from the title.

Sadly we will no longer be able to be found.

Pictures; “BT’s 2022-23 Phone Book”, and entries fo the Kabbaz Brothers, 21 Cooper Street, from Manchester, Salford and Suburban Directory, 1911, Part two, page 487, The National Telephone Company, 1901

The Rochdale Canal 1974

I have always been drawn to canals and also to railways, but canals have that added attraction of water which most of us fine compelling.

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But what really attracts me are not  the water way holidays with those old converted narrow boats or the modern zippy but ugly little cabin cruisers, it is the way a canal takes you right back to that working industrial Britain of the late 18th and 19th century Britain.

Back then they were not genteel extensions of the rolling countryside but busy places where hard people competed, working long hours in all sorts of weathers carrying everything from coal to fine bone china.

Now I not against the modern transformation of our waterways for without the holiday and pleasure cruises I doubt that the canals would still be with us.  All that hard work, dedication and financial sacrifice by the canal enthusiasts who dug out the mud, restored the lock gates and reopened these lost waterways is balanced now by the tourist and boat owner.

So I was so pleased to receive a set of photographs of the Rochdale Canal in 1974 from Eileen Blake. She used them for an A level course and they are the very stuff of what makes a canal fascinating to me.

They are of that section which connects the Duke’s Canal at Castlefield with the Dale Street Basin.

This was the Manchester terminus for the Rochdale and from there it is possible to head out east of the city on the Ashton Canal.

Here then are a selection of Eileen’s pictures with more to follow and later something of my stories of walking this part of the canal.

Pictures; from the collection of Eileen Blake ©

50 places to park your bike …. no 1 …. the Rec railings

An occasional series exploring places to park a bike.

No 1 beside the Rec on Beech Road

Location; Chorlton

Picture;  50 places to park your bike …. no 1 …. the Rec railings, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One day ….. two coffee cups …… and a view of Withy Grove

Now, if there has been one certainty for as long as I can remember its that Withy Grove Stores continues to fascinate people.

It is on the corner of Withy Grove and Dantzig Street.  I have pictures dating from the 1980s of the store, and rather think I may have wandered around it looking for a filing cabinet, a decade earlier. *

In time I will trawl back through the directories to see just when it opened, but that said I bet someone will be able to offer up a date.

In the meantime, I have Hilary Hartigan to thank for sending over four pictures of the place and the surrounding area taken in 2016.  

I instantly recognized where she had been when she took the images, which was in the coffee section of the Arndale Waterstones.  And to confirm it , Hilary has commented, “Yes, I left the coffee cups in to place it. My interest was the buildings at the front, how much longer would they survive?”

It is a question which will hang in the air, waiting no doubt for Derek the Developer, but I hope they do.

But what also fascinated me was the building opposite which from 2020 goes under the name "Nails", but for nine years from 2011 was “Delicious ….Pizzas Kebabs Burgers Fried Chicken”, and before that "T Stensby and Co, Gunmakers, established in 1870".

Now while I am ambivalent about guns and gun ownership, it is interesting to reflect that there was a gun shop in the city centre as late as 2008.

The same street directories running back from 1969 into the 19th century will help shed light on its history.

But for now, I will leave it at that, thank Hilary for sharing her pictures, and as she said trust that others will offer up pictures and memories of this bit of town.

Location; Withy Grove

Pictures, Withy Grove from the Arndale, 2016, from the collection of Hilary Hartigan

*Withy Grove, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Withy%20Grove

Happy birthday Hadrian's Wall .........

1,900 years old this year.*

The Wall as interpreted in 1955

Hadrian's wall just east of Cawfields quarry 2005

Location; norther England

Pictures; The Wall as interpreted in 1955, Hadrian's wall just east of Cawfields quarry, Northumberland in October 2005, I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain

*Back on Hadrian's Wall rediscovering a love of all things Roman, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2014/10/back-on-hadrians-wall-rediscovering.html

The dark and messy goings on in Imperial Rome ....... back on my telly after 46 years

Now I am the first to admit that television dramas are not the most reliable way to learn history, for all the obvious reasons and recently said so.*

But done well they can offer up something, and with the passage of time become historical pieces, showing us how thought about a period in the past.

So last night I started on the box set of I Claudius which our Polly got me for Christmas.  The television series was first broadcast by the BBC in 1976.**

It tells the story of the first five Roman Emperors from Augustus through to Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.

And wanders across a murky period of political murders, family warfare, heaps of casual sexual peccadillos, as well as incest.

At its heart is the study of one family's manipulation of people and politics to establish an Imperial dynasty.

It was based on two novels by Robert Graves, the first of which carried the same title as the TV series and the second which was called Claudius the God. 

I Claudius was published in 1934, and its sequel the following year and both were a success.  The story lines are fictional but are based on events and description which are drawn from historical accounts by the Roman historians, Suetonius and Tacitus.

I must have been just 16 when I came across Tacitus whose surviving accounts included a biography of Agricola his father in law who was the Roman general, as well accounts of campaigns in Britain and Germany and the politic of Rome.

Suetonius I came  to later, and his book The Twelve Caesars is as my Wikipedia tells me,  “is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire.

The work, written in AD 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, was the most popular work of Suetonius, at that time Hadrian's personal secretary, and is the largest among his surviving writings. It was dedicated to a friend, the Praetorian prefect Gaius Septicius Clarus.

The Twelve Caesars was considered very significant in antiquity and remains a primary source on Roman history.

The book discusses the significant and critical period of the Principate from the end of the Republic to the reign of Domitian; comparisons are often made with Tacitus, whose surviving works document a similar period”.***

I will have read it around 1976 and the fun was to match this source with the two books and of course the telly series.

And now 46 years on I have to say that the television series has stood the test of time.  

True, some of the sets look a bit clunky but like many a Shakespeare play the magic is in the words, stories, and of course the acting.

There was a first-rate cast, some of whom were distinguished actors, while others were just setting out.and with a script written by an accomplished writer, it all came together.

And that is that.

Location Rome, and the Empire

Pictures; replica of a statue of the Emperor Augustus, Rome, and bits of ancient Rome much knocked about, 2009, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* La sposa, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/01/travelling-italian-history-with-la-sposa.html

**I Claudius - Complete BBC Series (5 Disc Box Set) [1976] [DVD]

***The Twelve Caesars, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Caesars

Bandstands ……no.5 Jubilee Gardens ……..Middleton

Now it’s been a while since a bandstand featured on the blog, which is a shame given that they are one of those wonderful inventions.

They owed much to the 19th century’s fascination with the Orient. 

The basic design may have been copied from “the raised –platform kiosks seen in Turkey and across the Ottoman empire” but was overlaid with influences from Indian palaces and temples.*

The French had shown one of these Turkish stands off at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1855 and what followed was a succession of developments over here with the first unveiled at the Royal Horticultural Show in South Kensington and later moved out to parks in Southwark and Peckham where I came across them as a young boy in the 1950s.

By then many were in a state of disrepair, victims of years of neglect and changing fashions.

But not so any more.

Location; Middleton

Picture; the bandstand Jubilee Gardens, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson.

*A Walk in the Park, Travis Elborough 2016, pages 155-56

Henry V ….. early morning coffee .... and things to come ....

One day, one camera and an early morning walk through Chorlton

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Milk from a local farm delivered by horse and cart to Edge Lane

It is not the best of pictures and the date is unclear, so I will start with what we can be certain of.

It is Edge Lane and the road on the right in the distance is Kingshill Road.  We are sometime in the first decade of the 20th century and the boy is delivering milk.

There were still plenty of farms in Chorlton and some like the Higginbotham’s on the green proudly advertised “Families supplied with PURE NEW MILK twice daily from our own cows.”* Twice daily deliveries were offered by all the Creameries and dairy farmers of the area, and it is not hard to see why because with only a cold pantry to keep food fresh no one would stockpile milk.

I suppose the romantic in me might well dwell on the idea of locally produced milk being delivered to local homes but there were very real health risks, not least from diseases like TB and diphtheria.  Medical opinion at the time was all well aware that milk could be contaminated in many different ways.
“the difficulty on the farm is to secure cleanliness in the milker, the atmosphere, the cooling plant and the churner.  The difficulty in the town dairy is largely in the dust laden atmosphere, which alone shows the need of bottling. The difficulties in the home are dirty jugs and other vessels and improper places the milk is exposed until it is required” and in the “crowds of filthy shops in which the milk is exposed side by side with firewood and candles.”**

It led to a debate on the way forward.  For some this meant the “nationalization” of the milk industry which more properly was the muncipilaztion of milk.  This meant different things to different people. So for some it came down to municipal milk farms, for others that “all milk pass municipal examiners” or that the council should buy the bulk of the milk “and after examining it, retail it to the consumers [which] would produce a permanent market and a reasonable profit for the producers and the examination would enable the municipal analysts to trace unsatisfactory sources of supply and to deal with them.”***

It was very simple, “Any practical objections which may be raised against the municipality controlling all dairy farms which send milk into the city or against municipal depots for distribution cannot have greater weight than the objections to a public water supply, and the unanswerable argument in favour of the schemes seems to be that a pure and abundant supply of milk for every child in the city practically without cost is as indispensable as our water supply.”

Which I suppose is pretty sound.  As it was here in Manchester according to the Medical Officer of Health  the Corporation had “exceptional powers for the inspection of cows and cowsheds within the city boundaries under the Manchester Dairies Order,” [and of the 10, 527 visits made to cowsheds in 1905] “the results were fairly satisfactory with comparatively few instances of diseased cows being discovered.”****

All of which would have reassured me if I had been living in Chorlton in 1907, just three years after we had voted to be part of the city and that system of inspection.

On the other hand, out there on Edge Lane, under the trees on a spring day with an open churn I might still feel a little apprehensive about what might settle on the milk.  Which I guess is why Professor James Long was advocating bottling the milk at source, with or without sterilization.

And just a decade after our milk lad stood on Edge Lane dispensing his milk from the churn, The Creameries at 8 Wilbraham Road & & Egerton Terrace, Albany Road was advertising “The Milky Way to Health” with the “Don’t take any chances with your child’s health.  Ensure the PURITY and CLEANLINESS of their MILK having it DELIVERED IN SEALED GLASS BOTTLES.”

Pictures; from the Lloyd collection and St John's Parish magazine 1928



*Chorlton-cum-Hardy Wesleyan Church Grand Bazaar booklet 1908
**James Long, Manchester Guardian, November 20th 1907
*** Manchester Guardian November 8th 1907
**** Report of Manchester’s Medical Officer of Health, Manchester Guardian, February 5th 1907

January window ………

Early morning on Beech Road.

Location; Beech Road

Picture; January window, The Lead Station, Chorlton, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

An apology to the Friends of Maryon Park ……….

Now despite growing up in Eltham, with Woolwich, Plumstead and Charlton just a bus ride away, I never visited Maryon Park.

And if I am totally honest I didn’t even know it existed, until I came across this picture postcard of the park.

I don’t have a date for the picture, and despite wandering up and down the surrounding streets using google street maps, I haven’t worked out the location from which the picture was taken. …But someone will and that is the fun of the blog.

In the meantime I shall fall back outrageously and lift a description of the park from Wikipedia, which quite correctly I credit.

“Charlton sandpits, which were originally part of an area known as Hanging Wood, were presented to the London County Council in 1891 by the Maryon-Wilson family, and one of the pits became Maryon Park. 

 

Another pit became Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley.

The park was originally wooded and, together with what is now Maryon Wilson Park, was known as Hanging Woods. 

This was a wild wooded area and formed an ideal retreat for highwaymen who robbed travellers on Shooters Hill and Blackheath. 

Though it is popularly supposed that the wood was used for hanging those who were caught, a more likely explanation for the name is the wood's location on steep slopes so that the trees appear to hang from the slope. 

Such woods are often referred to as 'hanging woods', the word 'hang' comes from the Old English 'hangra', a wooded slope.*

I could quote more but that would be stealing, so instead I will just include the link and point you towards another excellent site for information on the park, which comes from Charlton Parks Reminiscence Project which focuses on Charlton’s, “six distinctly different parks and open spaces, [which are] at the heart of their different neighbourhoods. This project looks at the history of each park, how they developed and stories relating their importance to local people over the past 100 years”.**

And I might well get more information about the bandstand which features in the picture.

As many will know, I am fascinated by bandstands and collect them.  It all began with the one I passed on my way to school in Pepys Park back in the 1960s,and I never miss an opportunity to seek one out.

So, if the bandstand is still there I hope someone will take a picture of it and send it across.

Location; Charlton

Picture; Maryon Park, Charlton, date unknown from the collection of Kristina Bedford

*Maryon Park, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryon_Park

** Maryon Park Charlton Parks Reminiscence Project, https://www.charltonparks.co.uk/the-parks/maryon-wilson-park/

The Deal Bandstand and memorial

Now I bet I am not the only one to associate bandstands with the 19th century, and that explosion of civic pride that saw the creation of municipal parks which came with carefully laid out flowerbeds, water features and of course a bandstand.

And when our Liz and Colin sent over some pictures of Deal I fell on their bandstand image.

What surprised me is that it dates only from 1989 and was erected in memory of eleven members of the Band of the Royal Marines School of Music who were killed at 8.25 am on Friday September 2nd 1989 by an IRA bomb.

The names of the eleven servicemen will be found on special plaques mounted on the bandstand itself”.*








Location; Deal

Picture, The Deal Memorial Bandstand, 2019, from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitzpatrick

* The Deal Memorial Bandstand, Information Board

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ... part 134 ….. sounds …. and echoes from the past

The continuing story  of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Raking the fire, 2019

Now I know it is stating the obvious that houses change over time, and one example of that must be the sounds that rumble around the place which are worth investigating because those noises help tell their own story of a house.

I was reminded of how they constitute echoes of the past this morning, when just before six I raked out the ash from the fireplace.  It is one of the daily chores which I do from early autumn through to late spring, and in a bad year pretty much through the summer.

And it will have been one of those early morning tasks which Joe or Mary Ann undertook, although I am guessing that the laying and setting going the fire may have waited till later in the day, given that the front room was unlikely to have been used much before the afternoon.

Not so my grandparent's house in Derby which was a two up two down, and much of the “living” was done in the front room all through the day.  This contrasted with our old house where much of the “living” was done in the kitchen and meant that dad racked out the stove first thing, adding fresh coal to bring it back to life and ensure that there was plenty of hot water.

And as the day progressed and the stove heated the water in the back boiler there was always the danger that it did the job too well, and a hissing sound warned that some of the very hot water had to be drawn off.

Listening to the wireless, 1945

As I write I remember that hissing sound, usually in the evenings which accompanied the sounds of the wireless, which was usually tuned into the Home Service of the BBC but alternated with the Light Programme.

My copy of the Manchester Evening News for Friday November 30th, 1945, offers up a variety of things to dip into on that winter’s evening, including a discussion between Michael Foot and Quintin Hogg on “Liberty” proceeded and followed by a selection of light opera, Christmas carols, the news and Today In Parliament on the Home Service and a mix of popular music and drama on the Light Programme.

And nothing much had changed a decade or so later, which was my introduction to a host of classic radio comedies.  So, while I was too young to remember the Goons, and I.T.M.A, there were the Glums, The Navy Lark, The Men from the Ministry, mixed with Hancock’s Half Hour much more.

These were the daily sounds which you could pretty much set your clock by, along with the clink of the milk bottles, and the thump of the newspaper landing on the mat.

Enoch Royle and son, coalmen, circa 1930s

To these can be added the fortnightly coal delivery which will have arrived on a horse and cart and came into the house via the coal hole.  

Ours is at the side of the house, but long ago was blocked up and while I make ritual noises that it would be fun to reopen it and have the coal stored in the coal cellar which is the smallest of the three rooms, I know it will never happen.

The romantic in me remembers the sound of the coal being emptied down the shute.  

It began with a slow rumble which became a loud crashing sound as it shot out of the bag and was followed by a quieter trickling sound as the coal settled, leaving just the powerful smell which permeated the lower house and lasted well into the morning.

Mother was less romantic about the stuff and as much as Tina likes the fire, she is adamant that this dirty, dusty and smelly stuff will never be permeated to once again enter the house through that coal hole.

Manchester Corporation cleansing van, 1938

Happily, Joe had ensured that his house would have a path running along the side of the building where the metal dustbin was located, avoiding the practice of taking it through the house from the back to the front on bin day.

Those bins were smaller than the giant plastic ones, and their emptying made a different sound to that of today’s wheelie bins.

The sound of these giant ones would be unfamiliar to Joe and Mary Ann, as would the sounds of the washing machine, dishwasher, and the mobile phone with its myriad of ring tones and promise of music downloads, along with access to social media and the talking route guide.

But they were both very prepared to embrace the new, so had a telephone by the mid-1920s, and  television set two decades later.

And if they didn’t hear the noise of an early washing machine it was more to do with their reliance on a laundry to collect, wash, dry and iron their clothes and bedding.

Not for Mary Ann the sound of wet washing being squeezed through a mangle or the bubbling sound of boiling water from a copper in the cellar, for while the space is there in the cellar for a copper, there is no evidence that one was ever installed.

Man and van with all you could want, date unknown

All of which just leaves the sounds that would have come from the road, ranging from the noise of horses pulling carts full of coal, groceries, or milk to the cries of various traders including the rag and bone man and the travelling knife sharpener.  

The knifeman always fascinated me.  Most of the ones I remember worked from a handcart with a large stone which was operated by pedal power and gave off sparks when the stone met the metal.

There will have been other street cries, including itinerant flower sellers but these are passing out of living memory, as will the sound of the marching bands which passed the house on Sundays, followed by church congregations, Scout and Girl Guide groups or members of the Boys Brigade.  

Procession of Witness, 1936

These vied with contingents of the Salvation Army, the Band of Hope, and our own Chorlton Brass Band which for a century and more took to the streets just for the joy of playing music.

Today the music comes courtesy of passing cars, some of which sounds like a man banging on the sides of a van, delivering noise but nothing more.  They have little in the way of charm and sit with the loud and insistent sirens of the emergency services which have replaced the gentle ringing of a bell.

And which I suspect Joe and Mary Ann would have preferred.

Location; Chorlton

Picture, cleaning out the ash, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Enoch Royle and his father on Albany Road, circa 1930s and Procession of Witness, 1936, from the Lloyd Collection, aCorporation cleansing van, 1938, from Your City, Manchester Municipal Officers’ Guild, 1938,   delivery van, date unknown from the collection of Tony Walker

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

Bandstands and wizards ........... and the headless one in Sale

I grew up during the decline of the bandstand.

Once they were the pride and joy of any respectable park, and a venue to listen to live music and meet your friends.

But in the years after the last world war, they became less popular, and this coincided with a lack of interest by cash strapped Councils in maintaining their parks.

Out went the carefully tended floral displays, and the stunning flower beds, along with  the resident park keepers who were part policemen, part friend, and who always kept an eye on the safety of unattended children.

And a creeping policy of low maintenance gardening and longer periods between cutting  grass, and following up on essential repairs, made some of our parks less than safe places.

All of which condemned the bandstand to a lingering death.

First, went the delicate and intricate iron work which not only supported the roof but gave a sense of Edwardian elegance to the structure. 

In the absence of regular painting, the iron rusted, looked unsightly and eventually became a safety hazard.

The logical next step, given that the bands no longer played, and the stand was just a brick plinth, which kids might fall off, was to demolish them.

I suppose they didn’t really fit that image of a new Britain where everyone sat on the grass listening to their transistor radios and chose to go off on Sunday’s for a drive into the countryside or even to the coast.

Some like the one in Fog Lane have vanished completely.  Some have been restored and others like the one that stood in Longford Park have been transported off to museums and cultural theme parks.

A few survived, minus their iron work and can still be seen which is where h Andy Robertson came across this one in Sale, yesterday.

But not content with just a bandstand he conjured up a  a wizard for good measure.

He christened it the “headless bandstand" but added “a wizard for good measure”.

And you can’t say fairer than that.

I shall add it to my growing collection of bandstands from around the world with a little bit of bandstand history.

Location; Worthington Park, Sale

Pictures; the bandstand and the wizard, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Bandstands, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=bandstands&max-results=20&by-date=true