Changing Didsbury …….. the bits we miss

 Now, we are all familiar with those old images of Didsbury stretching back into the last century and beyond, and the fun is comparing them with the same spot today.

Pub and restaurant, 2022,

It is something that publishers and historians go in for in a big way with titles like Then and Now, Old and New, and Times Go By.

All of which is fine but doesn’t always capture the last few decades.

After all when you have lived through those times it is easy to become blasé about what has changed around you.

And that is the subject of a short series predicated on the idea that we quickly forget the name of the bar or restaurant which occupied the site of that new Italian and which played a big part in our lives only a few years before.

It was Peter’s idea who on passing the Ye Old Cock reflected on the small restaurant next door.

I can remember it as an up market steak restaurant, and ate there when it was an off shoot of Dimitri’s around 2012.

But never really worked out why it changed its name to Olive and Vine but still advertised itself as Dimitri’s.

And last time I passed it was Jajoo, Indian Street Food.

Leaving me just to remember that back in 2008 it had been The Didsbury Village Restaurant.

Of course you can indulge yourself and slip ever backward, peeling away the decades.

But 20 or so years is perhaps enough.

The pub, 1954

And that makes a nice contrast to the Old Cock which has been a pub for a long time and I mean a long time.

It was already quite ancient when it hosted the Wakes events back in 1825.

So back to Peter who thought the series might not just focus on changes across the last few decades to two buildings, but also point out how one had stayed the same and the other had changed a lot.

Which is true of the Old Cock and its small neighbour. 

The pub has always had that name, and always offered up "beer and cheer" while its friend has had different names, and served different cuisines..... and the really oldies will remember when it wasn't a restaurant.

Olive & Vine in the summer

All of which is fine but does rather ignore that annoying little fact that the pub underwent a massive interior transformation, which saw all the intimate little rooms vanish to be replaced by a large open space.

But I shall ignore that development.  After all why let a bit of reality get in the way of a story, and just conclude that according to Peter  "The pub has always had that name, except for a brief moment in the early 1900s, when the ‘e’ in ‘Olde’ was dropped, while its neighbour  was the Welcome Cafe in 1928"

And then as sometimes happens, just after the story went live, Dimitri Griliopoulos, the owner of Dimitri's in town and Olive and Vine, replied with "Very sad to have given up Dimitris in Didsbury. 

8 months closed due to Covid was a big nail in a coffin, after 8 years hoping to make a financial success. 

The name Olive and Vine was to show that it was a slightly different style to Dimitris in town. 

Last time I passed it looked like the new owners also had trouble keeping going. 

Appeared closed ,

PS I worked at the Steak & Kebab restaurant there in the 1980s."

Along with the comment came some fine pictures which I just had to use.

Olive & Vine in the snow

So the postscript takes us full circle to Peter's original idea of presenting and informing the residents of Didsbury with a bit of the townships recent past

Location; Didsbury

Painting; Ye Olde Cock Inn and Jajoo @ 2022, Paintings from Pictures*

Picture; The Old Cock, 1954, from Didsbury Through Time, Peter Toping, & Andrew Simpson, 2013, and Olive and Vine, undated courtesy of  Dimitri Griliopoulos

*Dimitri's, https://www.dimitris.co.uk/