The mysteries and the unpromising ….. alleys I have known

Now when you are ten taking a step off the main road and down an alley is always an adventure.

Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton, 2022

It is the thrill of not knowing what is at the end or what stories you might later spin out from the visit.

In most cases the adventure ends shortly after it started, with nothing more that a litter strewn dead end.

But at other times you are rewarded with something,  like the time me, Jimmy O’Donnell, and John Cox took a leap into the alley and found a tired, dingy curio shop selling the things that the 1950s consumer society judged old fashioned and tat.

Not that we went in, the place was shut, and the dirty windows were protected by iron mesh.

Passageway to Mortgramit Square, Woolwich, 2013

Still, it was a find of sorts, and we dined out for the rest of the day on the objects for sale, which included an old wireless, a shabby stuffed weasel, and some boxes of pre-war cigarettes.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries alleys often led to closed courts of mean houses where sunlight and fresh air rarely penetrated, and only the foolhardy or local resident would venture.

Not so the one off Barlow Moor Road which runs down the former Co-op shop twisting and turning before it gives up on Keppel Road, but the passage way to Mortgramit Square in Woolwich has more promise, but that as they say is for another time.

Location; Chorlton and Woolwich

Pictures, the alley, Chorlton, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the passageway to Mortgramit Square, Woolwich, 2013,  from the collection of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick