Walking the City …….. in April

The city’s skyline continues to be transformed, with what were once the tallest buildings we had overtaken by those that climb to the clouds.

Location; Knott Mill

Picture; April skyline, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

OK everyone ….. the Arts Festival is open ....

 Last night opened the 20^th Chorlton Arts Festival, and on hand was a Lord, an MP, a former National Poet of Scotland a heap of artists, writers and Chorlton residents.

And yes, it is twenty years ago almost to the day that a teacher, city councillor and a vicar sat down with a bottle of wine and explored the possibilities of an annual festival of the arts here in Chorlton.

Since then the festival has welcomed hundreds of artists, musicians, and writers who have performed in a varied set of  venues, and encompassed the famous, not so famous and lots of local talent.

So it was fitting that Lord Bradley of Withington who was one of the first patrons, was there last night, along with the present MP, Jeff Smith and Jackie Kay who was the National Poet of Scotland from 2016 till 2021, and lives locally.

But above all the night was about all of us who will at some point over the next month, dip into an “Arts” event or try to pack in as many as is possible.

It was a smashing evening, and one that will be remembered as a fitting launch to the 20^th festival, leaving me just to thank the organisers and volunteers who made the evening such a success, and who will be there throughout the month of activities, ensuring all goes well.

You can access the full programme of events online, or pick up a paper copy from Chorlton Library, as well as a host of shops, bars and restaurants.

And looking at the list of things to watch, listen to and participate in, it has to be the best festival yet.

At which point the very observant will spot the error in one of the photographs, and no it wasn't deliberate, I wish it had been ...... which confirms that simple truth that I ain't no artist.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; launch night of the 20^th Chorlton Arts Festival, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Chorlton Arts Festival, https://chorltonartsfestival.org/

Of "melons full of fire" and much more .........

Rome, 2007

Now we all know that Metternich comment that "Italy' is a geographical expression” which he said more than once to different statesman, but it was also echoed by the Italian, Cesar Balbo.

 Balbo supported Risorgimento and observed that Italy was “a multiracial community composed of successive waves of immigrants; [with] one of the most mixed bloodlines, one of the most eclectic civilization and cultures there has ever been.”**

All of which makes perfect sense, given that Italy is divided geographically between east and west and economically by north and south.

This may come as surprise to those brought up with stories of Roman history and the notion of a unified empire stretching from the wet wasteland of Hadrian’s Wall to the hot desert of Judea, and the dark forests of northern Germany down to the sands of North Africa.

Florence, 2010

But back then the Empire was a diffuse place of peoples, and languages, as well as religions and economies.

Go back to the time before Caesar crossed the Rubicon or forward to the centuries starting with the fall of the western Empire and you have that patchwork where the inhabitants of what we now call Italy spoke differently and never thought of themselves as Italian.

As someone with an Italian family I can testify that it is still there today.
Simone and Rosa left Naples in 1960, first for Cambridge and then a decade or so later back to Italy and that powerhouse of industry and wealth which is the north.

They settled in Varese which is an hour or so from Milan.  Simone and Rosa went to work in local factories, and while they spoke standard Italian outside the home, at the end of the day, they reverted to Neapolitan.

The Trevi Fountain, Rome, 2007

The children grew up with both, but were keenly aware of their southern heritage, made all the more obvious by the way they were singled out at school for being from the south and the family nicknames which were all Neapolitan.

My favourite was one of the uncles who was simply called “melons full of fire” which pretty much sums him up.

That north south divide is there in the politics of the country with some members of the Northern League advocating separation from the south and some even arguing for the deportation of southerners.

And it is reflected in films like Benvenuti al Sud, which translates as Welcome to the South, and follows the hapless adventures of a postman from Lombardy who discovers his hoped for transfer to Milan has been postponed and instead he has to move to  a provincial village near Naples.**

It is a play on the misconceptions northerners have for the south, is very funny, and carried more than a few truths.

None of this, as I say surprises me, but part of my post hospital reading has been the Pursuit of Italy by David Gilmour which according to the notes on the back is “an acclaimed and captivating history of Italy, from Virgil to Verdi and onto today” and “shows that Italy’s glory comes not from a unifies national identity but from its regions, with their distinctive art, cuisine civic cultures and traditions”.**

And while it is scholarly and thoughtful it is also witty and easy to read which makes it a good read for long days in front of the fire with just the occasional twinge.

One to read.

Location; Italy

Pictures; Rome, 2007 and Florence, 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*"The word 'Italy' is a geographical expression, a description which is useful shorthand, but has none of the political significance the efforts of the revolutionary ideologues try to put on it, and which is full of dangers for the very existence of the states which make up the peninsula." In a letter to Austrian ambassador to France of April 1847

**quoted by David Gilmour, The Pursuit of Italy, 2011, page 26

*** Benvenuti al Sud, 2010

The message on the wall ....... the ghost sign on Lake Maggiore

Now I will work on the translation or the bits I can read but for now I shall just leave it at that.

The fading sign was on the harbour wall at Intra on Lake Maggiore.

Location; Intra, Lake Maggiore, Italy



Picture; ghost sign at Intra, 2018, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

That record shop in Camberwell, ten welfare hints for your 78s ......... and a charity

You won’t find the shop on Camberwell Road, that sold Django Reinhardt’s Parfum.*

I have no idea exactly when W. Holley & Son traded from 285 Camberwell Road, or when their shop was demolished or perhaps even destroyed.

Today if I have got this right, the site is occupied by one of those large blocks of Council flats called Lamb House.

But I must confess I am well out of my comfort zone.  As a kid in the 1950s, I seldom strayed to Camberwell from Peckham, and by 1964 had washed up in Well Hall, with no inclination to go back and explore the place.

The only clue I have is that Django Reinhardt recorded Parfum in Paris in April 1937, so perhaps that sort of fixes a date for the shop of W. Holley & Son.  The best way of finding out is trawl the directories, but sadly I don’t have access for those which will include Camberwell, and Manchester is a long way from south east London.

But there is a connection between here and Camberwell, and that is the record collection of which this 78 rpm was part of.

Happily, the collection is quite large, and all the records are still in their dust sleeves.  Their owner had an eclectic taste, with the range running from Django Reinhardt, to South Pacific, Sloppy Joe by Ted Heath and his Music, to Doris Day singing What Ever Will Be.

Nor were all the records bought in London, one came from Walkden in Salford, but most were from Manchester, and were sold by the big department stores, including Kendal Milne on Deansgate and Lewis’s.

What is particularly fascinating is the information printed on the record sleeves.  So, Lewis’s were announced that they “sell everything for everybody to wear and most things for personal use and for the home”.  

And “for ordinary purchases Lewis’s deliver free by their vans, by post, or to the nearest railway station”, and "paid the postage irrespective of the amount of your purchase”.

My favourite sleeve carries an advert for Songster Needles, which also came with a set of helpful hints of which there were ten, and purchasers were urged to “Ask your dealer for the full set, and use only Songster needles for purity and safety”.

In an age of “music streaming” there is something quite attractive about collecting as well as Holding your choice of music, along with reading the sleeve and record label.

All of which just leaves me to thank my friend Neil Simpson who found the collection while working as a volunteer for Wesley Community Furniture*, which provides “household goods to people in need. 

To that end, the Wesley provides the transport and labour to collect donations from people throughout Greater Manchester & N Cheshire. 

These donations are brought to the shop units where they are sorted, assessed for condition, repaired where possible, renovated when feasible and displayed for sale.

Clients either come off the street or are referred by agencies and are helped to choose from stock purchases which can then be delivered to their homes. Collections are free of charge (delivery with small charge).

Referred clients are offered our job lot/home start packages which consist of the basics people need for independent living for less than it would cost if the items were bought individually”.

So, there you have it ……….. a little bit of our music past, from Camberwell to Manchester, from Django Reinhardt to Doris Day, via Wesley Community Furniture.

Location; pretty much everywhere

Pictures; record sleeves, 2020, photographed by Neil Simpson

*Parfum, Django Reinhardt, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fijm2NNfyeE

** Wesley Community Furniture, http://wesleycommunityfurniture.co.uk/?fbclid=IwAR2d8XSmHHiZmE05nNx0Rr4R3DgRLfaoRmcmNfYpEWIfT0hFEbRz-rnWrVI

Suffering for your beliefs ......Early Christian Martyrdom ... today on the wireless

Now I am looking forward to listening to this edition of In Our Time.

The Martyrdom of Saint Blandina, 1886

Partly because of the subject matter and also because of the insights it might offer up about anyone who is strong enough to suffer for their beliefs.

*Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the accounts by Eusebius of Caesarea (c260-339 AD) and others of the killings of Christians in the first three centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus. Eusebius was writing in a time of peace, after The Great Persecution that had started with Emperor Diocletian in 303 AD and lasted around eight years. 

Many died under Diocletian, and their names are not preserved, but those whose deaths are told by Eusebius became especially celebrated and their stories became influential. 

Through his writings, Eusebius shaped perceptions of what it meant to be a martyr in those years, and what it meant to be a Christian.

With, Candida Moss, Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham, Kate Cooper, Professor of History at Royal Holloway, University of London, James Corke-Webster, Senior Lecturer in Classics, History and Liberal Arts at King’s College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson"*

Picture; The Martyrdom of Saint Blandina (1886) at the Church of Saint-Blandine de Lyon, France, Author Delfin Le Dauphin, Licensing, I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: w:en:Creative Commons. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

*Early Christian Martyrdom, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blandina

Texting in the Square …….

An occasional series featuring pictures from a walk through the City.

Location; St Peter's Square, Manchester

Picture; Texting in the Square, St Peter's Square, Manchester, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

It’s back ……. that local arts festival in Chorlton ……

Now it’s twenty years ago almost to the day when a teacher, a city councillor, and a vicar sat down with a bottle of wine and explored the possibilities of an annual festival of the arts here in Chorlton.

And the rest has been heaps of performances by the famous, not so famous as well as lots of local artists, writers, and musicians across Chorlton in venues as varied as pubs, parks, church halls and the odd garden.

Many of the events are free, and stretch out over the month of May, happening in the day, in the evening and some for the whole of the festival.

All of which brings me to the programme, which is available online and in shops, bars, restaurants and Chorlton Library.

This year the organizers have excelled themselves with the breath and variety of what is on offer, with the added bonus of a short history of the festival over the  last twenty years.

And the emphasis remains one of show casing local talent with a few old favourites.

To these can be added the patrons, which include Lip Service,  Jackie Kay, who was the National Poet of Scotland, Badly Drawn Boy, the comedian Jason Manford and Stephen Raw “the artist from London who told all his friends he would be back in just six months, and over 40 years later is still in Chorlton”.

So lots to look forward to from April 29th to May 29th, with events to fit everyone’s interest, and that added extra of a bit of history.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; from the Programme of the 20th Jubilee Festival of the Chorlton Arts Festival

*Chorlton Arts Festival, https://chorltonartsfestival.org/

Walking our past with the help of those who lived it

Now if you missed walking Chorlton’s past in sound today you can still capture the moment.

David Govier and colleague, 2022

The event was produced by Hayley Suviste* who was commissioned by the North West Sound Heritage.** 

And draws on the Manchester Studies Oral History Collection to recreate a little of Chorlton’s past using a series of interviews recorded in the 1970s from local residents who were born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Those memories are part of a wider collection from the Manchester Studies Oral History Collection which are now located at Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre.***

The walk begins at the old village green, goes up Beech Road to the Rec and then back down Crossland Road, mixing the memories from a century and a bit ago with images from the period.

Chorlton Green, 1979

The real power of course is being able to stand in the very places the memories are themselves rooted and by extension almost touch our history.

Hayley embellished these interviews with field recordings and environmental archival recordings from the BBC Sound Effects Library to bring these interviews to life – from the smithy on Beech Road to skating on the meadows and singing Christmas carols on the green.

Chorlton Green, circa 1900

And she told me, "You can access the walk here, either on the web browser of your mobile’s web browser (if doing the sound walk in person) or on your computer’s web browser (if exploring the sound walk virtually).****

You don’t need to download any software to go on the walk – any browser on your phone will open it up and play content based on your location. 

There is a suggested route for the sound walk (A to B); however, feel free to explore as you wish. We advise using headphones and walking at a gentle and leisurely pace, listening to the audio in each section, and moving on to the next section when the audio stops. 

To go on the tour remotely, go to the Chorlton sound walk, click Open, click Go when it’s loaded, click on the icon of the person at the bottom left, and then drag and drop the icon that appears at point A on the map into whichever blue area you would like to go. The clip will start to play over an image and a bit of text about the recording*.

The full-length interviews are available at Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre". 

Beech Road, circa 1900

So that is pretty much it, leaving me to thank Hayley who made the sound walk and David Govier and the team from the sound project who provided the interviews and idea.

Location; Old Chorlton

Pictures; David Govier and colleagues on the Green, the Green in 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the Green and Beech Road, circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection.

*Hayley Suviste, www.hayleysuviste.co.uk

** Manchester Studies Oral History Collection, https://northwestsoundheritage.org/2019/10/14/the-manchester-studies-oral-history-collection/

*** Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre, https://www.tameside.gov.uk/LibrariesandLeisure/LocalStudiesandArchives/Local-Studies-and-Archives-Centre

****Chorlton Oral History Sound Walk, https://sonicmaps.xyz/player/?p=772

A little bit of Eltham from Ontario in Canada

Now, a fascinating collection of photographs of Eltham fell through the letter box today, and what a journey it has had to arrive here in Manchester.

Cover of Village Eltham, undated

It was sent by my friend Barbara who like me left Eltham a long time ago and while I washed up in the North, she kept on going and lives in Canada close to heaps of my Canadian cousins.

Not only do we share Eltham but we both went to Crown Woods and she knew one of my great aunt’s sons who was well known locally in her part of Ontario.

We found each other via social media and despite its detractors Face Book and those other platforms can be a positive force in making new contacts, as well as allowing people to share their writing, and photographs with a wider world.

And make no mistake the writing and pictures which appear can be as excellent as anything produced by a professional.

All of which leads me back to the book which consists of 36 photographs from the early 20th century.

Some will be familiar, but many are new to me, and I suspect will be to others.  Most were I think produced by commercial photographers who will have sold some to residents as well as picture post card companies.

Often the photographer would have walked down particular streets and captured a selection of the houses, only to go back and offer up a copy to the occupants of each house.

This collection goes under the title of Village Eltham and were compiled by Gus White, Ian Murdock and Paula Richardson in 1984 and published by G & Pi Publications Eltham.*

I went looking for the company so that I could get permission to reproduce some of the images, but so far I haven’t been successful.

But then I guess someone in Eltham will know the three individuals or were involved with the publisher and if I am lucky will help me get in touch with them.

Until then mindful of copyright I shall just reproduce one image which ticks lots of boxes.

The carousel and the hutments, undated

It is number 36, “Entertainment at the Hutments”, and the caption runs “This horse drawn carousel was hand-cranked by the operator providing welcomed amusement for the children living in the huts. 

The Eltham hutments on the slopes of Shooters Hill were built during the First World War for the Woolwich Arsenal workers and removed in the 1930s”.

Few people will now know of the temporary accommodation which was built along with an estate of houses which became known as the Progress Estate.

And here the story takes a personal turn because we lived in one of those houses and all of us have fond memories of the place where we grew up and owned for 3 decades.

Added to this one of the huts featured in my book on Manchester and the Great War, and the story of George Davison from Manchester who in the March of 1918 made his will shortly before embarking for the Western Front.*

It was witnessed by H M Drinkhall and V L Dade and was hand written in a single sheet of note paper and is simple and the point. “This is the last will and testament of me George Gurnel Davison of Birch Vale Cottage, Roomily, Cheshire.

I give devise and bequeath to my dear wife Mary Ellen all my property whatsoever and wheresoever and I appoint her sole Executor of this my will.”

The will, 1918

By the time he made the will he had served with the Royal Artillery for four years and spent time in London and Ireland but now with the German offensive in full swing he was about to go to France, and as we know would be killed just three months later.

In one of his letters to his wife he had mentioned the Drinkhall family and how they were looking forward to her coming back to stay.

And that set me off looking for them, and in that I was helped by my friend Tricia, who located them to one of the hutments on what is now the site of the old Well Hall Odeon, which is just a few minutes’ walk from our old house.

So having made that connection between me, our house, H Drinkhall and a Manchester soldier I will close with that “horse drawn carousel” which was exactly like one I encountered on a Greek island in 1994, and another a decade later in a small remote Italian village.  

Both were operated by muscle power, and both were owned by a family of iterant travellers who pitched up for a few nights in a small village offering entertainment to the local children before moving on.

All of which just leaves me to make an appeal for anyone who knows or knew the three authors, so that I can share more of the images.

Location; Eltham

Pictures, cover and horse drawn carousel from Village Eltham, Will, 1918, of George Davison, from the collection of David Harrop

*Eltham Village,  Gus White, Ian Murdock and Paula Richardson in 1984 and published by G & Pi Publications Eltham

**A will ……. the Eltham Hutments and a soldier of the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-will-eltham-hutments-and-soldier-of.html

What they tried to sell us in 1850 part three

I just wonder if some of the raspberries used by Gadsby & CO "At Albert Bridge" were sourced  from here in Chorlton.

Many of our farmers and market gardeners grew fruit for sale in the Manchester Markets, and when the contents of Red Gates farm was auctioned in the November of 1855 the advert stressed the

“Sale of Very Rich Meadow Hay, Wheat, Oats, Potatoes, Swede Turnips, Mangle Wurzel, Raspberry, Currant Trees, &c.”

It was

"The Whole of the Very Excellent Produce of Fruit Trees comprising of 45 tons of very good well got hay, about 120 thraves  Of wheat, about 170 thraves of oats, about 100 loads of potatoes  about 25 tons of swede turnips, about 20 tons of mangol wurzels, a large quantity of raspberry and currant trees and a quantity of rhubarb plants.  Sale to commence at one o’clock."  Further particulars may be had by applying to the Auctioneer, Patricoft; or 18 Cooper street, Manchester”

So the advert from Slater’s Directory of Manchester & Salford intrigues me, but I guess we will never actually know.  The auction was occasioned by the departure of the farmer, William Whitelegg who had been farming at Red Gates from at least 1841 and probably much earlier.

The story of the farm crops up quite a lot in the blog and lasted into the 20th century before becoming the site of the library in 1914.

I have also wondered the fate of William M’Ferran the “Practical Chronometer & Lever Watchmaker at 7 Victoria Street Four Doors from the Exchange Manchester.”  Now I could trawl the trade directories and hunt the census records but I think I will let William M’Ferran rest.  Suffice to say his price list is an wonderful introduction into world of Practical Chronometers with his “Lady’s Gold Pattern Lever, gold dial, beautifully engraved back” at £11 and the “Elegant London Made Ladies and Gentlemen’s GOLD CHAINS” weighing four sovereigns and selling at £4."  In contrast to a police constable’s weekly wage of £1 a week or a teacher’s annual salary of £55.

Now I have no doubt that Mr William Whitelegg had his own chronometer which might just have been paid for in part by his raspberry and currant trees.

Picture; from Slater’s Directory of Manchester and Salford 1850

Walk Chorlton's past in sound ..... today between 3-5.30 on Chorlton Green with Hayley Suviste

  North West Sound Heritage has commissioned me to create a sound walk around Chorlton Green and Beech Road, using interviews from The Manchester Studies Unit’s extensive oral history project from the 1970s. 

Doing nothing outside the Lych Gate on the Green, 1907

Older adults (born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) were interviewed about their time growing up, living, and working in Chorlton between 1900 and 1950.

I have arranged these interview clips onto an interactive map of Chorlton Green and Beech Road. 

As you walk around the area, interviews will play based on your location – so as you explore the Beech Road area, you will uncover stories about the exact street you are on. 

I have embellished these interviews with field recordings and environmental archival recordings from the BBC Sound Effects Library to bring these interviews to life – from the smithy on Beech Road to skating on the meadows and singing Christmas carols on the green.

On Tuesday 26th April, North West Sound Archive will be set up on the Chorlton Green from 3-5.30 pm to assist people in setting the walk on their mobile devices and gathering thoughts and feedback from those who have tested out the sound walk. 

The sound walk along the Green and Beech Road

They will be gifting anyone who tests the sound walk an obsolete sound archive CD – find out more info here. 

You can access the walk here, either on the web browser of your mobile’s web browser (if doing the sound walk in person) or on your computer’s web browser (if exploring the sound walk virtually). 

You don’t need to download any software to go on the walk – any browser on your phone will open it up and play content based on your location. 

There is a suggested route for the sound walk (A to B); however, feel free to explore as you wish. We advise using headphones and walking at a gentle and leisurely pace, listening to the audio in each section, and moving on to the next section when the audio stops. 

Looking south from the green, 1907

If you can’t make it to Chorlton, you can listen to the tour from a desktop computer at home. 

To go on the tour remotely, go to the Chorlton sound walk, click Open, click Go when it’s loaded, click on the icon of the person at the bottom left, and then drag and drop the icon that appears at point A on the map into whichever blue area you would like to go. The clip will start to play over an image and a bit of text about the recording.

The full-length interviews are available at Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre. 

Find out more about the Manchester Studies Oral History Collection.

You can find out more about my sound artwork here: www.hayleysuviste.co.uk. 

Location; Chorlton Green

Picture; The Lych Gate, circa 1907, from the Lloyd Collection

Painting Nunhead ........ Nu 1 a pub and a shedful of memories of walking to school in 1961

Now when you are just 11 and on the way to school pubs don’t feature very heavily and the Old Nuns’s Head was no exception.

It is on Nunhead Green and I will have passed it pretty much every day on my way to the Annexe on Old James Street which housed the over spill for Samuel Pepys.

There were other routes I could have taken from Lausanne Road but this was I think the most direct.

And when I was passing it the pub was coming up for its twenty-seventh birthday, although according to that excellent pub blog, London Pubology* there was a pub here in the 18th century when “the pub was known for games (it had a skittle alley), dancing and particularly for its tea gardens. 

These were a fashion of the era — tea had only been introduced to the country during the 17th century and had built up an immense popularity during the early parts of the 18th century to become effectively the national drink. 

The tea gardens were suburban relatives of the pleasure gardens (such as the famous one at Vauxhall), where high tea was served in the afternoon. 

To a certain extent, too, they were tainted with the same negative connotations, being the playgrounds of the frivolous leisured classes, encouraging licentious behaviour and gambling, and frequented by prostitutes. There is no indication in the sources that the tea gardens in Nunhead were anything less than respectable.”

In the mid 19th century it was run by Sarah Dyer and I rather think there might be a rich history here to trawl.

But of course all of that was unknown to me back in 1961.

Today one guide describes it as a “large, airy and child-friendly pub with a mish-mash of old furniture, serving modern British meals” and perhaps when I next get down to Nunhead I might call in.

I think Peter’s painting pretty much captures the place although straying from side to side is to be shocked at the new development which aren’t in keeping with the green or the old alms houses.

That said I bet there were a few back in 1934 when the pub was built who muttered darkly at “pretend Tudor buildings” and lamented the earlier one which just leaves me to go and search for an image of that older pub and reflect on all those trips along Evelina Road and Nunhead Lane half a life time ago.

Location; Nunhead, London

Painting; The Old Nun’s Head Nunhead Lane © 2015 Peter Topping from a photograph 

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*London Pubology, https://pubology.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/old-nuns-head/

Hidden …. forgotten ….. and neglected ….. a piece of our old technology

Now I remain fascinated by those odd bits of our old technology, and so is my friend Barbarella who came across this box.

She told me “It was above a train line, in Cheadle, just passed the Mersey and before the Garden Centre”.

And I think it is a Lucy box, which according to I Spy Lucy Boxes, "is a name applied to boxes, about 3 feet high, about 2 feet wide and about 18 inches deep, which are to be found on pavements throughout the city.*   

Such boxes were originally used in connection with the tram network and then with the trolley bus network; and as part of the general electricity supply network; and for telephone purposes…….. 

The name 'Lucy box' was applied to these boxes because the great majority of them, in the early days at least, were made by the Lucy Foundry in Oxford.**

The equipment in them was used to isolate a section of the tram or trolley bus route - that is, to stop electricity running through that section. 

It could also be used to make the route solid, that is, you could make the electric current bypass the isolating components in the box; this would enable you to work on the box while the trams or trolleys continued running”. 

Of course I might have got this terribly wrong, but then someone will tell me, which is the joy of the blog.

Location; Cheadle

Pictures, what Barbarella saw, 2022, from the collection of Barbarella Bonvento

*I Spy Lucy Boxes, http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/lucy/lucyboxes.htm

**W. Lucy & Co., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Lucy_%26_Co.

Chorlton Oral History Sound Walk ..... by Hayley Suviste

 North West Sound Heritage has commissioned me to create a sound walk around Chorlton Green and Beech Road, using interviews from The Manchester Studies Unit’s extensive oral history project from the 1970s. 

Doing nothing outside the Lych Gate on the Green, 1907

Older adults (born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) were interviewed about their time growing up, living, and working in Chorlton between 1900 and 1950.

I have arranged these interview clips onto an interactive map of Chorlton Green and Beech Road. 

As you walk around the area, interviews will play based on your location – so as you explore the Beech Road area, you will uncover stories about the exact street you are on. 

I have embellished these interviews with field recordings and environmental archival recordings from the BBC Sound Effects Library to bring these interviews to life – from the smithy on Beech Road to skating on the meadows and singing Christmas carols on the green.

On Tuesday 26th April, North West Sound Archive will be set up on the Chorlton Green from 3-5.30 pm to assist people in setting the walk on their mobile devices and gathering thoughts and feedback from those who have tested out the sound walk. 

The sound walk along the Green and Beech Road

They will be gifting anyone who tests the sound walk an obsolete sound archive CD – find out more info here. 

You can access the walk here, either on the web browser of your mobile’s web browser (if doing the sound walk in person) or on your computer’s web browser (if exploring the sound walk virtually). 

You don’t need to download any software to go on the walk – any browser on your phone will open it up and play content based on your location. 

There is a suggested route for the sound walk (A to B); however, feel free to explore as you wish. We advise using headphones and walking at a gentle and leisurely pace, listening to the audio in each section, and moving on to the next section when the audio stops. 

Looking south from the green, 1907

If you can’t make it to Chorlton, you can listen to the tour from a desktop computer at home. 

To go on the tour remotely, go to the Chorlton sound walk, click Open, click Go when it’s loaded, click on the icon of the person at the bottom left, and then drag and drop the icon that appears at point A on the map into whichever blue area you would like to go. The clip will start to play over an image and a bit of text about the recording.

The full-length interviews are available at Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre. 

Find out more about the Manchester Studies Oral History Collection.

You can find out more about my sound artwork here: www.hayleysuviste.co.uk. 

Location; Chorlton Green

Picture; The Lych Gate, circa 1907, from the Lloyd Collection

Painting New Cross ..... my swimming baths

Now the other day I was telling Peter how I learnt to swim at Laurie Grove and how I still carry a small scar on my chin from the Boys Baths.  

That scar was the result of being too clever and attempting to come out of the water onto the side, which in my case was a failure as I fell back into the water catching my chin on the ridged stone slabs which were supposed to help you from slipping.

And with that tale firmly lodged in Peter’s stories to tell in the pub he also decided to paint a picture of the place.

So here in the series of Painting New Cross is Laurie Grove which I know will strike a chord with many and add to the comments which have come with other stories on the place.

Painting; Laurie Grove Swimming Baths, © 2015 Peter Topping from a photograph by ©  Dr Neil Clifton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1786698

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Tall buildings and stairs …….

An occasional series featuring pictures from a walk through the City

Location; Manchester

Picture; Tall buildings and stairs, Circle Square, Manchester, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When the snow fell across New Cross and pretty much everywhere

It is odd what you remember especially on a wet and windy day looking out over Manchester.

The sun has vanished and the rain is falling like stair rods and I am thinking of the winter of 1962-63 and the “Great Freeze.”

The snow had begun falling on Boxing Day which almost qualified it as a White Christmas, stopped I think the following day and then began tumbling out of the sky on December 29th locking us into nearly four months of ice and snow with the thaw only beginning in March.

Now when you are thirteen you take such events in your stride and after snow ball fights became boring there was always the game of pulling a wooden bench up the hill at Pepys park and then descending down the slope.

All of which had the added thrill that we might get caught by the park keeper who probably had more sense and was keeping warm in his hut beside a paraffin stove.

Come to think of it I don’t recall ever being challenged by one of the keepers in their brown uniforms as we risked life and limb.

But nor do I remember visiting our local library because by 1962 libraries no longer featured as one of my places to visit and it would be another four years before they again tempted me in.


All of which is a lead into Peter’s painting of New Cross Library in the snow.

I had set him the challenge of painting the place using  a photograph kindly supplied by the Music Room London.

They now occupy the old library and offer a service "with 5 different rooms ideally suited for a wide array of creative applications."

Peter and I have collaborated on a series of books and projects including an 80 meter installation, so painting New Cross Library in the snow seemed the thing to do.

He told me he “was very pleased with the finished painting” and I have to agree.

So there you have it, just fifty six years after the snow fell across London here is a little bit of New Cross Road after another snow fall.

Location; New Cross, London

Painting; the old New Cross Library, now the Music Room London, , © 2015 Peter Topping
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*Music Room London, http://www.musicroomlondon.com/

Challenging the world of men ....1791 ......Olympe de Gouges ... on the wireles

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French playwright who, in 1791, wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen.* 

Portrait de Olympes de Gouges

This was Olympe de Gouges (1748-93) and she was responding to The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789, the start of the French Revolution which, by excluding women from these rights, had fallen far short of its apparent goals. 

Where the latter declared ‘men are born equal’, she asserted ‘women are born equal to men,’ adding, ‘since women are allowed to mount the scaffold, they should also be allowed to stand in parliament and defend their rights’. 

Two years later this playwright, novelist, activist and woman of letters did herself mount the scaffold, two weeks after Marie Antoinette, for the crime of being open to the idea of a constitutional monarchy and, for two hundred years, her reputation died with her, only to be revived with great vigour in the last 40 years.

With, Catriona Seth, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford, Katherine Astbury, Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick and, Sanja Perovic, Reader in 18th century French studies at King’s College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson"

Picture; Portrait de Olympes de Gouges, 18th century, Alexander Kucharsky, Private collection, Photographer Own work, Bonarov, 11 November 2018, I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: w:en: Creative Commons attribution share alike. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

*Olympe de Gouges, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0016hdj 

Looking for the ghosts amongst the parish gravestones ……..

 Now, anyone who has taken a stroll through the old parish graveyard of St Clement’s will agree that it is pleasant spot.

The old parish graveyard, 2012

It is sandwiched between the village green to the north and the Bowling Green to the south and offers up a selection of benches to sit and just enjoy the moment.

Added to which there is the history of the place, which starts with the footprint of the church and continues with a collection of gravestones, which record those who were buried here.

The church yard, circa 1870-1880

The earliest dates from 1748 and the last to 1916, and in between there are many whose names are familiar to me.  

Some were at the posh end of the community, but most were from families who made their living from the land, either as tenant farmers, agricultural labourers or in trades related to farming.

What might surprise the casual visitor is that those gravestones are just a fraction of the number which once crowded into the graveyard.

In total there were 345 such monuments, from the simple headstone to elaborate structures, and many held multiple internments.

Those 345 have yet to fade from living memory and are supported by a large number of photographs dating back into the late 19th century and as late as the 1970s.

Just how many people were buried here is difficult to say, and while an estimate can be made from the inscriptions on the gravestones, that will be a conservative estimate, given that some graves were reused over the centuries.

Samuel and Sarah Nixon, 2012

The documentary evidence for this reuse is there in the newspaper reports of the “Great Burial Scandal" which first became official in 1881, when a group of Ratepayers, petitioned the Home Office with their concerns.

Chief of which was that “it is now difficult to tell where there is any land left for new graves, [and because] so many internments have taken place there is not 2ft of earth between the coffin and the surface.”*

There were also lurid tales of existing gravestones being broken up and thrown into the midden of the Bowling Green Hotel to allow new ones to be erected and worse still of bones and skulls appearing and being transported away in wheelbarrows.

The graveyard, 1976

Much more was revealed at the official Government inquiry opened by the Home Office in the November of 1881. 

One witness spoke of “human bones .... knocking about the highway. Only that morning a jawbone with teeth in had been picked up.” 

There were also past sextons who reported the difficulty in finding space to place a coffin and the ever-present danger of unearthing past burials. William Caldwell described how he regularly “disturbed human remains in digging” and once before he “could get down to any depth I smashed into another grave, and I was flooded by liquor and human remains.” **

All of which is an introduction to the Register of Grave Inscriptions of St Clement’s Old Churchyard, Chorlton Green.***

Register of Grave Inscriptions, 1975

It is a slim document running to just twenty pages but contains details of all 345 gravestones.  Alas some are illegible, but there are enough to offer up a comprehensive picture of those that lived here from the mid-18th century through to the end of the following century.

And when combined with the smaller list from the Wesleyan Chapel along with the parish records of baptisms, marriages and burials it is possible to build a picture of the township.

It is a booklet I keep coming back to and one that can still shock me, like the inscription for the Swarbrick family that records that George and his wife Harriet, buried seven of their children between 1817 and 1836.  

The youngest Elizabeth died just two months after she was born, while William was seven years old.  Their parents had been born in the late 18th century and would live on till 1871 and 1874, although by then they were no longer living here.

There is more but that is for another day.

Suffice to say that the inscriptions were collected in the 1970s, in advance of the landscaping of the former graveyard, and sadly the loss of most of the historic gravestones.

Plan showing the original headstones, 1975

The bodies had already been removed in the 1930s.

But we do have a plan of where the original headstones which will allow us to to revisit the final resting places of so many of our residents. 

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; the graveyard, 2012, and headstone of Samuel and Sarah Nixon, 2012, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, the grave yard, circa 1870s-1880s, from the Lloyd Collection, in 1976 from the Journal, and cover and burial plan of Register of Grave Inscriptions of St Clement’s Old Churchyard, Chorlton Green

*The Great Burial Scandal, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-great-burial-scandal.html

 **From the Chorlton Ratepayer Association submission  to the Withington Local Board of Health January 12th 1881, and references from the Manchester Guardian 1881-86, Manchester City Council Town Clerks’ Papers Re Closed Burial Grounds 1930, reports in the dig by Angus Batemean

*** Register of Grave Inscriptions of St Clement’s Old Churchyard, Chorlton Green, RG 37/99 Archives and Local History Library, Manchester Central Reference Library