When our history came as inexpensive and varied stories ……. a tribute to Neil & Sue Richardson

Now in an age when we can all access the past by surfing the net, which delivers television programmes, books, and countless photographs as well as a shedload of different original sources it is easy to forget that it was not always so.

Indeed, slide back to the early 1980s and anyone interested in history was pretty much limited to the works of professional historians, and a scatter of documents many of which were difficult to obtain.

And given the cost of books, most of us were still reading the events of the past courtesy of a lending library.

So full credit should be given to those small publishers who were producing books at affordable prices and equally important were willing to offer opportunities to local historians as well as “people with a story to tell” to write about their chosen interest.

Here in Manchester one of the foremost small publishers was Neil Richardson who lived in Radcliffe.

I never asked him how he got into the business, but I bet there will be someone who can provide his story.

Suffice to say that during the mid-1980s I started coming across soft back booklets on a range of subjects related to the history of Greater Manchester.  

Some were descriptions of growing up in places like Salford and Ancoats in the early decades of the last century, while others focused on the unwritten histories of the Pal’s Battalions which formed Kitchener’s Army during the Great War.

They were popular with the public because many told stories which were directly a part of ordinary life.

"Memories of Manchester" by Charles Naan described the streets and characters of Bradford and Beswick and later his time as a policeman on the beat across the City.

While Bob Potts wrote about the pubs of Hulme and Chorlton on Medlock at a time when they were vanishing as quickly as snow in the winter sun and in the process spent hours carefully researching each drinking place.

This I know because years later he kindly passed over his research to me, which was as comprehensive and historically detailed that I suspect it will never be repeated.

And that points to the simple fact that may of those who wrote for Neil Richardson did so with a wealth of knowledge supported by hours of interviewing people as well as wading through records held across the twin cities and beyond.

These included the Archive and Local History Library in Central Ref, as well as Salford Local History Library, Cheetham’s Library and the Greater Manchester County Office, and in the case of Eddie and Ruth Frow, their own vast collection of Labour history which is now the Working-Class History Library.

Much of that research broke new ground, like “Working Class Housing in 19th Century Manchester, The Example of John Street, Irk Town, 1826-1936” by Jacqueline Roberts published in 1999.  

It was an in-depth study of a few streets on the edge of Angel Meadow, and followed on from the collaborative work she had done recording buildings from the late eighteenth, and early nineteenth century. *

Few of the thousands which were thrown up in the decades of Manchester’s rapid expansion had survived and by the 1980s many of those were under threat of demolition.

As was the way of life of the many who lived in inner city areas Manchester which  were vanishing as their homes were cleared away and communities relocated in the new estates.

And one of my favourite accounts is still The Manchester Village by Frank Heaton who collected the memories of those who lived in the collection of streets running back from Deansgate towards the river and roughly bordered by Quay Street and the end of Castlefield, and subtitled “Deansgate Remembered”.

To which there is also  “Manchester’s Little Italy, Memories of the Italian Colony of Ancoats” by Anthony Rea.

To these Neil Richardson also added a selection of British and foreign descriptions of Manchester from the 1500s to 1865, several street directories, as well as plenty of other accounts drawn from across Greater Manchester.

By today's standards they may seem a little down market, with some images a little tired looking and  the print which reminds you of old computer printers.

But don't let that side track you, the history is fascinating is often written with passion, and thanks to Neil Richardson a whole lot of people got to tell their stories of places that have vanished.

And that I think is pretty neat.

Location; Greater Manchester

Pictures, covers of The Manchester Village by Frank Heaton, 1995, Radical Salford: Episodes in Labour History Edmund and Ruth Frow, 1984 and “Manchester’s Little Italy, Memories of the Italian Colony of Ancoats”, Anthony Rea, 1988

*The Early Manchester Dwellings Group