A book, and a thank you ......... Didsbury Through Time

Now for no other reason than I can, here is one of those smashing comments on a book I wrote.

The book, 2013

The book was the first I did in collaboration with local Manchester artist Peter Topping, and was commissioned by Amberley Publishing for their series "Through Time".

The format is a well travelled one, and consisted of taking 90 old and 90 new images of a place and writing a short comment focusing on "the changes over time".

Ours was Didsbury, and while Peter sourced the images from old picture postcards I wrote the text.

But nether of us wanted to follow the format exactly.

So Peter included some of his paintings of places in Didsbury which contrasted with older photographs of the same place.

And mindful that Didsbury has a well known and respected historian along with a series of historians who wrote accounts of the area in the 1960s and 1970s, I chose to write about the people in the pictures.  

In some cases these were those mentioned on the reverse of the cards, and others were people who lived behind the doors of the houses in the pictures.

It led to a sub title for many of our subsequent books which was simply "The Stories Behind The Doors".

The book proved very popular when it was published in 2013, and last week I got this message from John.

School Lane, circa 1900

"Dear Mr Simpson,

Having received a copy of your book from my son John, may I say a heartfelt 'Thank you' for a wonderful, memory evoking publication of Didsbury - as I write with tears in my eyes out of sheer gratitude and appreciation of your wonderful publication, you have helped an 80 year old woman in frail health be transported back to my childhood, your descriptions and dialogue are so splendid I feel

I am actually back in my beloved Didsbury and I smell those oh so familiar smells of the village and see the faces of  many shop keepers and personalities who lived around the area. 

Thank you once again, I am eternally grateful to you".

Leaving me just to add, that since the publication of Didsbury Through Time we have returned to the area and written Manchester Pubs The Stories Behind the Doors Didsbury and another on the places of worship in West Didsbury and Chorlton-cum-Hardy.**

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; cover of Didsbury Through Time, 2013, and School Lane circa 1900 from the book

*Didsbury Through Time, Peter Topping and Andrew Simpson, Amberley Publishing, 2013

**Manchester Pubs The Stories Behind the Doors Didsbury & Chorlton-cum-Hardy Churches, Chapels, Temples A Synagogue And A Mosque are available from us at http://www.pubbooks.co.uk/