Ours was a young community.... stories of Public Health

I think it must be the oldest picture of Chorlton children in the collection and I guess it was taken at the old school on the green. 

Even so when it was taken child mortality had improved and these youngsters could expect to survive into adulthood. 

But fifty or so years earlier it would have been a different story.  Despite the fact that ours was a young community with children out numbering all other age groups they were vulnerable to many different illnesses.  Amongst the very young in the warm weather they were prey to diarrhoeal infections and in late winter and early spring from respiratory ailments while school children could die from diphtheria and scarlet fever.  Added this all of them might be prone to mumps, skin diseases, sore throats chicken pox, coughs, colds, bronchitis and influenza.  So during the first half of the 19^th century of the 27 children under the age of two who died during this period 18 succumbed in the warm or hot months.

You first get a sense of this by trawling the census returns and looking for the missing children who didn’t make from the 1841 to the next ten years later and then there are the parish burial records which detail young lives caught short.

But it is the parish gravestones which more than any document brings you face to face with the awful sadness of child mortality.  William Chessyre was a month old when he was buried in 1831, Mary Bell Whitelegg and John Gresty just 3 months and William Cardrew Birley son of the Reverend William Birley and his wife Maria only five months.  Some families were unluckier than others.  The Holland’s lost three of their children between 1840 and 1841 and James Gresty buried his two young sons and his wife in just a year. *

Such events were common enough in both rural and urban settings and were partly at least due to the quality of drinking water which in our case was getting worse as the 19^th century wore on, so that by the 1880s most of our wells had according to one observer either dried up or were contaminated. 

Opposite; % of child burials in the parish church by age from 1800-1850

But in 1864 the first pipe bringing in mains water from Manchester was laid and a decade later the sewage works had been opened south of the village on the Mersey.  Not that this was all progress.

There were complaints about the state of both Chorlton and Longford Brooks which according to one newspaper were akin to open sewers and well into the 1880s there were hot spots of measles in the township.

All of which I suppose goes a little way to burst that rural rosy picture that some historians fall back on as the way things were in the country.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; school children from the Lloyd collection, undated, gravestone, from the Parish church yard, 2011, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Mr. Bird and his amazing new product ………

Now I think we take advertising posters for granted, and really only get interested when the poster or the advertising campaign draws us in, which of course is what its all about.

Over the years we will all have our favourite, from the Milky Bar Kid, to Esso Blue and Cadbury’s Flake.

All of which leads me to this one which dates from 1904 and a brand which sits with most of us.

According to one source, “Bird's Custard was first formulated and first cooked by Alfred Bird in 1837 at his chemist shop in Birmingham. 

He developed the recipe because his wife was allergic to eggs, the key ingredient used to thicken traditional custard. 

The Birds continued to serve real custard to dinner guests, until one evening when the egg-free custard was served instead, either by accident or design. 

The dessert was so well received by the other diners that Alfred Bird put the recipe into wider production… [and] by 1844, was promoting custard powder nationally. By 1895, the company was producing blancmange powder, jelly powder, and egg substitute. In World War I, Bird's Custard was supplied to the British armed forces.”*

And I suspect its success was due to that simple fact that it was cheap, and required no eggs, which in homes with little money and no means of keeping food from "going of", Mr. Bird's product was perfect.

Leaving me just to make a note to go and find Miss M J Bennet of 14 Percy Street, which was just a short walk from the very fashionable Bedford Square.  I wonder if she was a servant, which might make the picture postcard poster a joke or a suggestion on how to make life easier in the kitche.

We shall see.

Picture; Poster for Bird’s Custard, 1904, marketed by Tuck & Sons in the series Celebrated Posters, reproduced courtesy of Tuck DB, Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/

 *Bird’s Custard, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird%27s_Custard

A train set and a brave new world

Now they were made of tin, often had features painted on and by later standards were pretty simple, but the train sets of the 1950s were and remain pure pieces of magic.

Ours stretched over a converted table tennis table and dad had run all the wires for the signals and points underneath and with something like three circular tracks,  branch lines off as well as rail sidings it was impressive.

We or I should say dad had built it up over a few years and the sheer size of the layout, the locomotives and carriages, fright trucks, stations and trackside furniture made it something that even now I look back with pleasure.

I am guessing that the first bits of the train sets were laid out around my seventh birthday which would make it just a decade after the end of the last world war when rationing was still a strong memory and the scars of the nightly air raids were still all around us.

But the evidence of a growing prosperity which was trickling down even to our family was there for all to see.

Around the same time we got our first television and Dad was driving coaches on main land Europe for those who wanted the sort of holiday that they could not have aspired to in pre war Britain.

There was full employment a National Health Service, free at the point of need and the beginning of an ambitious programme to rebuild our schools.

Of course there was also the hardening of the Cold War, a series of colonial conflicts and much that still made Britain seem a stuffy place compared to a decade later and yet looking back now there was a lot that was new, innovative and exciting.

I didn’t see it at the time but I rather think my parents felt that confidence that the post war prosperity was here to stay and the Means Test, and the lines of the unemployed were over.

Dad had moved to London in the late 1920s and mum twenty years later and both would have benefited from an economy which was on the move recovering far more quickly from the Depression than the North East and the Midlands where they had grown up.

And by the 1950s a train set, a television, and before the end of that decade a washing machine and fridge were all things we took for granted in our house.

All of which makes that train set a marker for how Britain was changing

By the 1970s into the 80s  for some that prosperity and automatic access to consumerism would start to be eroded, but that was a long way from me as I ran the Duchess of Montrose with its red and yellow carriages around the old table tennis table.

Pictures; courtesy of Ken Jaggers, http://www.jaggers-heritage.com/

The art of posting things ……………

I suppose given the time of year it was inevitable that these two bits of postal history should surface.

They were posted yesterday by my old posty friend David Harrop, who has a vast collection of memorabilia on all things postal.

So far David has been a tad enigmatic about the two but, we agreed that they possibly date from the 1940s or 1950s.

What ever they date I like them.  

The first reminds me of the commercial art that you could see when I was growing up in the 1950s.

They were bold, bright and confident with a message which was straight forward.

I am sure David will come back with more when the “grey cells” slip into action but for now that is it.

Other than to say while I am fairly sure the first is British I am minded to think the second is either from the United States or perhaps Canada.

We shall see.

And Mr. Harrop did indeed come back with the explanation that these were not two different cards, but the same with the posty post box on the outside and the birthday message inside.  Making it less an advert for the Post Office and more just an inventive birthday card.

Glad that is cleared up.

Location; Mr. Harrop’s collection

Pictures; courtesy of David Harrop, dates unknown

The Great Stink ........ when London was very smelly ...... on the wireless today

Now this is one I am going to listen to later this morning.

The silent highwayman, 1858

Of course all our cities, towns and villages were equally smelly.

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the stench from the River Thames in the hot summer of 1858 and how it appalled and terrified Londoners living and working beside it, including those in the new Houses of Parliament which were still under construction. 

There had been an outbreak of cholera a few years before in which tens of thousands had died, and a popular theory held that foul smells were linked to diseases. 

The source of the problem was that London's sewage, once carted off to fertilise fields had recently, thanks to the modern flushing systems, started to flow into the river and, thanks to the ebb and flow of the tides, was staying there and warming in the summer sun. 

The engineer Joseph Bazalgette was given the task to build huge new sewers to intercept the waste, a vast network, so changing the look of London and helping ensure there were no further cholera outbreaks from contaminated water.

With Rosemary Ashton, Emeritus Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London, Stephen Halliday, Author of ‘The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis’, and Paul Dobraszczyk, Lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London"

Picture;The silent highwayman : Death rows on the Thames, claiming the lives of victims who have not paid to have the river cleaned up, during the Great Stink. July 10th, 1858, Cartoon from Punch Magazine, Volume 35 Page 137; 10 July 1858

*The Great Stink, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001gjcm

In our village school on the green in the spring of 1847

Our village school on the green circa 1870

From, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, The Story*

In 1847 our village school was just two years old.  It was the second National School here in the township and replaced the first which had been established in 1817.

These were church schools and provided elementary education for the children of the poor.  They were the product of the National Society which had begun in 1811 and aimed to establish a national school in every parish delivering a curriculum based on the teaching of the church.

The new school had been built with grants from the National Society and the Committee of Council on Education   on land given by George Lloyd in 1843 “for the purpose of a school for the education of poor children inhabiting the said township of Chorlton cum Hardy......and for the residence of the master of the said school for the time being, such schoolmaster to be a member of the Established Church, and the school to be conducted upon principles consistent with the doctrines of the Established Church”

Ours was a fine brick building which could hold three hundred children which was just as well because we had 186 children between the ages of 4 and 15.  Most were at school, a few were educated at home, and fifteen were already at work.

The youngest at just ten was Catherine Kirby who was born in Ireland and worked as a house servant.

There were slightly more boys than girls and they did a mix of jobs ranging from errand boys to farm worker and domestic service and most were born here.

There may even have been more for when William Chesshyre interviewed their parents in the March of 1851 some children were described as farmer’s sons and daughters.  

They may have been at school or they may have already begun to work alongside their parents on the farm.    And as we shall see just because parents described their children as scholars was no guarantee they attended school or even if they did that they were there full time.

The national picture was one of children even younger than 10 being employed.  A labourer’s child could earn between 1s.6d and 2s. [7½p-10p] a week which was an important addition to an agricultural family’s income and in the words of one government report was “so great a relief to the parents as to render it almost hopeless that they can withstand the inducement and retain the child at school”  

But in some cases this child labour would have been seasonal.   In one Devon school up to a third of boys over the age of seven were absent helping with the harvest, while in another school during the spring upwards of thirty were assisted their parents sow the potato crop and then dig it up in the summer.  

It was just part of the rural cycle and which one contributor to the Poor Law Commissioners on the employment of women and children in agriculture in 1843 said would at least teach children “the habit of industry,”      which fitted in with the belief much held in the countryside that “the business of a farm labourer cannot be thoroughly acquired if work be not commenced before eleven or twelve.”

And yet it may be that most of our children were in school for at least some of the time because while parents did remove children out of season to help with other farm work or in the case of girls look after siblings, “in the greater number of agricultural parishes there are day schools, which a considerable number of children of both sexes of the labouring class attend.”  

*A new book on Chorlton, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton  

Picture; from the collection of Tony Walker

Another lesson in being more historical ……… and that graveyard mystery

I wish I had dated my old pictures more accurately.  

I took a lot in the late 1970s and early 80s and while I carefully saved the negatives, I was a tad careless in recording where and when they were taken.

They were all “smelly photography” by which I mean I developed the film and then by the magic of an enlarger and a tray of chemicals transformed the negatives into prints.

Which brings me to this much-loved image of the lych gate in the snow.

I posted it recently in the run up to Christmas, and causally added the date 1979.

But now I am not so sure, because the graveyard is pretty empty of the gravestones which were packed together and recorded over 300 burials from the mid-18th century.

Those memorials were still there in 1978 but clearly had vanished when I photographed the scene.

They were “lost” during the landscaping exercise which I have always placed in the early 1980s, and as if to confirm my thinking I came across another of my images dated 1980 showing the place before its renovation.

All of which is good because it means I can re-date my snow image but still raises questions of just when the landscaping happened, which in the absence of a date means a trawl of the local newspapers and an interrogation of old weather reports for snow in Chorlton.

For now I changed the date from 1979 to 1984, but that is only a guess.

Of course, someone might remember.

We shall see.

Location, Chorlton

Pictures; the lych gate, 1980 and at some other time from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When the snow fell on Boxing Day and stayed till March .........

It was one of those throw away comments made at the end of a TV show last night which linked a a trailer for the weather forecast with an earlier piece on the Great Freeze of 1962-63.

Early morning, January 2009

The footage had shown the appalling weather conditions and prompted the question, how did we cope?

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.

Late afternoon, January, 2009

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 all of that was in the future, on that day in December I barely gave much of a thought to the snow.

It was late on a Saturday afternoon and already dark which made that swirling storm of snow just that bit more magical.

This I know because I still have the Eagle Annual which I got as a Christmas present and which I was reading in our kitchen as the events unfurled.

Ours was a big kitchen dominated by the stove in the corner which heated the water as well as the room.

I suspect it was almost as old as the house and had no thermostat which meant that when it had been on all day the water got so hot that dad had to draw some off.

The Eagle Annual, 1962-63

That was a regular occurrence but more than that there was that sizzling noise made from the water in the tank which was one of those reassuring sounds that seemed to guarantee all was well in the house.

That sizzling noise vied with the sound of the wireless which dad would listen to and which marked him off from mum who preferred the front room and the television.

So on cold winter’s nights you could slide down the Arctic like hall into the kitchen and be met by a wall of heat and Dad, which is how I remember that day when the snow began to fall.

Now I don’t doubt that in the rural areas things were grim with RAF air drops of supplies, farmers digging out buried sheep and the use of snow ploughs on railway locomotives.

But in south east London, life pretty much got on almost as normal.

Looking out over the Rec, 2009

The morning newspaper was pushed through the door, the milk was on the step and dad went to work and I walked to school.

For both of us there was nothing unusual about walking to work and school and although it was slippy I don’t recall there being much of a problem.

As for the rest of the house outside the kitchen, the front room was another warm haven and the remaining rooms, hall and landing were no colder than any winter.

Me in 1962

Dad prepared the hurricane lamps which he left in the loft to ensure that there was just enough heat to prevent the pipes from freezing, and we all had hot water bottles.

And after the first bout of excitement, the ice and snow became nothing special.

The other great freeze of 1947 was harsher and made worse by the post war shortages and the general weariness brought on by six years of war and a hard first few years of peace.

Location; 1962-63





Pictures; Beech Road in January 2009, the Eagle Annual 1962-63 and me in 1962, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Those amazing Arnott stoves which heated our parish church in 1847

The church and Bowling Green Hotel from Chorlton Croft circa 1890

Recently I featured that picture looking towards the village from Chorlton Croft.

And in the course of the story mentioned the arnott stoves which heated our parish church.

Now I have lived with arnott stoves ever since I first came across them listed in the contents of the church in the 1847.*

But I realeize that for most people they may not so familiar.  So here courtesy of F J Ferris is a description of
Dr Neil Arnott and his stove.**

'Dr Neil Arnott 1788 - 1874  was a man of many talents including physician, public health reformer, inventor, patentee, lecturer and author. He was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society on 5th January 1838 with the following citation 

"Neil Arnott MD of Bedford Square a Gentleman well aquainted with the various branches of science being desirous of becoming a fellow of The Royal Society. We the undersigned of our personal knowledge recommend him a deserving of that honour and as likely to prove a valuable and useful member" 

Dr Arnott

He was born in Arbroath Forfarshire Scotland on the 15th May 1788. Educated by his mother at the parish school of Lunan, then at Aberdeen grammar school. In 1806 he graduated with an MD from Marischal College Aberdeen. He received his Diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1813 and was awarded his MD the following year.

 He expressed his concern about what he called the four necessaties of life, Air Warmth, Aliment and Exercise. All these factors must have created his interest in heating and ventilating which started with his involvement in matters related to public health and the need for improved ventilation in buildings. 

This led in 1838 to his publishing of the book titled "Warming and Ventilating" which explained the principles used in the Arnott slow combustion stove. The Royal Society awarded him the Rumford medal on 30th November 1854. The medal citation read "For the successful construction of the smokeless firegrate lately introduced by him and for other valuable improvements in the application of heat to warming and ventilating of apartments". In 1855 he published another book on the smokeless fireplace.
During the 1840's and 1850's Arnott is living at 38 Bedford Place in London. By 1861 he marries for the first time late in life to Marianne, and they move to a new residence at 2 Cumberland Terrace, Marylebone in London.

It appears that the Arnott stove was first manufactured following the publishing of his 1838 book."Warming and Ventilating", and although it states that the stove was Patented this was not the case. Letters to The Times newspaper called the absence of a Patent  "a serious misfortune to the public".
  
The fact that Arnott did not patent the invention of his stove allowed other people to copy the design principle, and many different firms then manufactured the Arnott Stove making variations to his original design which subsequently led to problems with the stoves performance, reliability and safety. 

See The Times newspaper articles.   In every street in London stoves were offered for sale bearing Arnotts name, of which not 1 in 50 was made in accordance with the design principles described by Arnott. So, imperfect stoves together with their incorrect use and firing method brought the invention into disrepute.

The Arnott Stove

During the 1840's and 1850's Arnott is living at 38 Bedford Place in London. By 1861 he marries for the first time late in life to Marianne, and they move to a new residence at 2 Cumberland Terrace, Marylebone in London.

It appears that the Arnott stove was first manufactured following the publishing of his 1838 book."Warming and Ventilating", and although it states that the stove was Patented this was not the case. Letters to The Times newspaper called the absence of a Patent  "a serious misfortune to the public".
  
The fact that Arnott did not patent the invention of his stove allowed other people to copy the design principle, and many different firms then manufactured the Arnott Stove making variations to his original design which subsequently led to problems with the stoves performance, reliability and safety.'

*Archdeacon Rushton’s Visitation 1847

** Researched, prepared and written by F J Ferris for the Heritage Group of the CIBSE,
http://www.hevac-heritage.org/victorian_engineers/arnott/arnott.htm

Pictures; looking from Chorlton Croft from the Lloyd collection and picture of DR Arnott and stove courtesy of  F J Ferris

Laughing at our Brave New World ………

Now I have a lot of time for the first post war Labour Government.

And Now Win the Peace, Labour Poster, 1945

In quick succession after it was elected in 1945, it set up the National Health Service, created the Welfare State, and introduced measures to improve the conditions of women, children, and workers while reorganizing key infrastructure industries, creating bold new development corporations to construct new towns and started a huge house building programme.

But as exciting as these were, they were set against a post war world where money was tight, rationing remained in place, and Britain underwent the awful winter of 1946-47 which saw massive disruptions to industry and agriculture with closed factories and animals freezing to death in the fields.

And as ever when faced with such a testing time the British film industry set out to make people laugh.

All of which is the introduction to a series of films made during the 1940s and 50s which I have been revisiting,

Back then I was too young to have seen them, but now over 70 years after they were made, I am watching the best.  Some like Passport to Pimlico released in 1949 have become classics and are watched because they remain funny but also as a commentary on the period.  

Family Ration Book, 1946-47

In short, a small piece of Pimlico discovers it is part of Burgundy not Britain and so is not subject to post war rationing and a heap of other Government regulations.  

What follows is a comical take on how the new “Burgundians” react to their new freedoms, matched by the Governments’ harsh measures to restore the status quo by turning off supplies of water, electricity, and gas, as well as preventing supplies of food entering the area. 

Coupons for clothes, 1946-47

This leads to a mixed set of reactions from the wider public which at first seeks to take advantage of the end of rationing by flooding into Pimlico buying up everything from nylons to sweets, but then responds by trying to defeat the Government’s food blockage by throwing food parcels over the barriers, parachuting in pigs, and delivering milk via a hose and a helicopter.

Three years later and a year after the very successful Festival of Britain, the film The Happy Family sought to re explore the conflict between the little people and their Government, centering around the opposition by one family to the demolition of their home which is in the way of a vital road into the festival site.

It milks the same themes of rigid bureaucracy set against the individual, revisits the Government’s tactics of a food blockade and the direct action from the family when confronted with a police attack.  

Celebrating the Festival of Britain, 1951

But because this the film is set in the Britain of 1951, the direct action consists of pelting the authorities with over ripe vegetables and flour bombs, leaving the audience to note that “no one was hurt in the making of the film”.

But like Passport to Pimlico, a compromise is reached after a direct intervention from the Prime Minister and leads to the architects redrawing the plans so that the road goes on either side of the house.  

And in that "best of all possible worlds" the film ends with the family enjoying a day out at the Festival.

There were other films exploiting that period of the Brave New World, and in time I will go looking for them.

Location; London, 1945-1952

Pictures; And Now Win The Peace, Labour poster 1945, Clothes Ration book, 1946-47 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and The Festival of Britain emblem, designed by Abram Games, from the cover of the South Bank Exhibition Guide, 1951

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.22 getting a job and remembering a building

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Now I have fond memories of this place, partly because it was of course the HQ of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society and because it was here in the summer of 1972 I presented myself for a job, which I got working in the food warehouse of the RACS by the Thames.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 140 ….. 46 Christmases on Beech Road

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Christmas Eve, 2022

Now I have no idea how Joe and Mary Ann spent Christmas.

But I guess it involved a tree, a heap of those paper chain decorations, some presents, and a meal followed by that special Royal message.

Of course, they may not have tuned into the Christmas broadcasts, from King George V, George Vl and the late Queen but I suspect they did.

If so the first which was just 17 years after they moved into the house would have been in 1932 and listened to on the wireless, and so it would have been until the first TV broadcast in 1957, by which time I am confident they had a television.

Fast forward nineteen years and I was here in the company of Lois, Mike and John.  

It was my first Christmas in the house while the other three had been here since 1974.

We were all teachers but there was a distinct “student feel” to the way we celebrated the festival, not least because they all went home for the event, so our celebration was done a few days earlier, with the meal and presents and continued again a few days later with shared stories of the latest Morcombe and Wise show and the alcohol  excesses of Christmas Eve.

The tree with the lean, 2022

After which Christmas took on a new meaning as it became a festival shared with our kids, with home made decorations which mingled with the commercial ones, which still come out each year and cover the tree in an ad hoc set of physical memories.

We still put out stockings although our eldest is just short of 40 and the youngest a mere 27, but to these are added those for the grandchildren.

And like all Christmases the event has changed slightly with the years.  

So, 2022 was a buffet, with an absence of advent calendars.

But the short football game on the Rec was back after a break of two years, which is a tradition going back at least 25 years to when they were young and attracted friends who joined them.

Although with the passage of time the game has become shorter.

And for the first time in three years all the brothers and partners were together, triumphing over the Covid and immediate post covid Christmases.

Added to this the normal culinary extras from Italy were joined by a mix of Polish food and heap of other interesting starters.

The game circa 2014

That said the memories of Christmas Day in the garden are still vivid, and remnants of the decorations Tina used to replicate our front room and dining room still linger on the odd tree branch.

So, this year was almost back to normal, although like the Christmas card that misses the post, this was the second Christmas that the crackers never got pulled.

Last year they just got overlooked on the day and never made it to the table, and yesterday they were forgotten and remained in the study waiting for someone to bring them down.

The forgotten crackers

Leaving me to wonder about next year.

Location; Beech Road and Italy

 Pictures; Christmas Day past and present from the collections of Andrew Simpson and Balzano

 *The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

The Lost Chorlton pictures ......... no 7. ......... snow across the meadows

The meadows are a special place for me.

During the time the lads were growing up it was a place we went to a lot, often with the dog and always looking for adventures.

More recently it became a subject for research, because long before it became a nature reserve, a place to tip household rubbish or even before the sewage works, it was farmed as meadowland.

This was a particular form of farming which involved the flooding draining and flooding again of the open land in a specific way and designed to grow “early grass” for feeding to the cattle.

Sometime in the winter of 1978 or '79 I wandered across the stretch from Brookburn Road to the Mersey.

It was a bitterly cold day, more cold than we get these days and the snow stubbornly refused to melt.

I suppose if I checked back using the weather records I could pinpoint the exact year but I won’t.

Location; Chorlton






Picture; the meadows,1978-79 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

On Christmas Day with presents from the 1950s

Dinky toy, circa 1955

Now I doubt that any one will be beating their way to a computer today and the readership of the blog will take a dip.

Nevertheless as you are sitting back amongst the discarded wrapping paper, with a day of indulgence ahead I thought that I would just be more than a little selfish and share a few of the Christmas presents that came my way when I was a child.

A book I still read, 1954

Most have long since vanished like the wooden toy forts my dad made, complete with battlements, towers, drawbridges and even one year a portcullis.

This was also the year he made four identical rocking cribs for each of my four sisters for their Christmas dolls.

They were massive affairs and each painted a different colour.

But for me throughout the 1950s and into the early 60 presents were dominated by the train set and the Eagle comic.

So there would be an addition to the big train set which stood on a converted ping pong table and took up all of a big room with its track lay out, marshalling yards stations, signals and model village.  Usually this might be a new locomotive or a few freight wagons.

Alongside these there was always an Eagle annual and the odd Dan Dare toy.*

Dan Dare from Eagle Annual nu Six, Christmas 1956

The toys had usually broken by February but the annuals have lasted the test of time and can still fascinate me over 50 years after I opened them under the tree infront of an open fire.

And as you do I continue to collect a whole range of the books put out for children during the 1950s.

Some I wish I had been given, others are totally new to me, and others still were ones that at the time I would not have gone near but now are as interesting as the Eagle.

Of these it is the Girl  which was the companion to the Eagle annual that I return to.

And that I think is enough of nostalgia for another year.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson







*The Eagle, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Eagle

Passing glory ………. Manchester ……. 1968

I don’t have a location for the pictures, only that we are in Manchester in 1968.

There may be someone who can identify the street, but for now that is it.

Other than to reflect on the sad fate of this once impressive looking car, which again someone will be able to offer up a name, make and date.

But for now, it is enough to note that what had once been the pride and joy of someone, had been pretty much used and abused.

Once the wheels and other fittings had vanished it quite clearly became a place to play for the local kids, before even that attraction passed off.

I can remember similar abandoned cars when I was young and the fascination they posed to young children, bored with the park and looking for something to exercise their imagination.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; abandoned car, Manchester, 1968, 1968, 0150, 0149, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk 

Nothing to do in Oldham ……..

So there are possibly 96,420 people who I could offend with this picture postcard, which dates from the early 20th century. *

To which I could add heaps more who now live elsewhere, or passed through on a sight seeing tour, or like me visited occasionally to call on my friend Lois.

But a picture postcard dedicated to shrubbery and a set of gates is fair game.  

The commercial photographer who wandered into Alexandra Park sometime in the 1900s seems to have lacked a  bit of imagination, given that there are heaps of things he could have photographed.

And even more today which Oldham Council proudly declare is “Alexandra Park is a Victorian town park, which was built by the people of Oldham during the cotton famine sparked by the American Civil War, which prevented the export of raw cotton from America to Oldham. Small areas of clough woodland can be found at the southeastern end of the park.  There is a woodland walk adjacent to Queen’s Road.

From Alexandra Park there are marked paths leading into Snipe Clough, Brushes Clough and to Park Bridge Heritage centre and beyond".** 

And the attractions include a "Heated conservatory, Boating lake, Fishing club, Boathouse with cafe, 7 free tennis courts, 3 crown green bowling greens, Children’s play area, Sand pit, Toilets (when the gardeners are on site), Ornamental gardens, Herbaceous borders and shrub beds, Car parks. Alexandra Park is also the home of the 'Lion’s Den' a public shelter which has been recreated from an original design, and now forms the focal point along the promenade.”

All of which makes the park a fascinating place to visit and leaves me to point out that the picture postcard doesn’t do the place justice.

Even if this card is typical of many produced across the country.

That said it does anticipate that popular series of books produced by Andrew Simpson and Peter Topping which goes under the name of nothing to do in Chorlton.***

Location; Oldham

Pictures; Oldham Park, undated, courtesy of Tony Golding

*2012 census

**Alexandra Park, https://www.oldham.gov.uk/info/200393/parks_countryside_and_canals/676/alexandra_park

***A new book on doing nothing in Chorlton, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20doing%20nothing%20in%20Chorlton

The magic of the markets ............. crossing the Continent

Yesterday was a wet day in Varese.

And while today it is dry and sunny the weekend offers up more rain.

So far there is no sign of snow, but I live in hopes.

After all, it will soon be Christmas, and like Manchester, there is plenty of emphasis on the forthcoming festival, which should be accompanied by snow.

But in the absence of the stuff, I am reflecting on a day at the markets.

I have always liked markets, from the one at home in Woolwich, which once upon a time was so busy that the stalls spread out across the square forcing buses to gingerly crawl past them, flanked by traders and shoppers, to the battered old one in Grey Mare Lane and the bigger and busier ones in Ashton and Bury.

And into that mix are added the Christmas Markets, which pretty much pop up everywhere.

Varese has them, and so does Manchester, and here I have to confess to being a little down on them.

I like the idea, and I know lots of people find them fun, and come away with some smashing stuff, added to which there is a magic about wandering past countless different stalls, all lit up against the night, with the promise of all sorts of interesting things.

And there is no doubt that they bring in lots of people into the city centre, who go on to visit the pubs, bars and restaurants as well as the more traditional shops.

So, it all looks a winner, and on top of  this, there is the atmosphere, which reminds me of being taken to see the Christmas lights on Oxford Street in the 1950s

The historian in me wonders just how different the stalls might have been in the early  19th century, when in the absence of street lighting, the markets would have offered their own little bit of bright light, noise and bargains.

Of course I am well aware that the present Manchester Markets are a recent Christmas addition.

But there would have been their Victorian and Edwardian equivalents

And here there is a danger in being too romantic.  Those 19th century traders were forced to stay open late to catch workers, who in turn were late at work, and there was little in the way of trading regulations, with the result that some foods were heavily adulterated, and in the gloom offered by just candles and oil lamps, the quality of what was on offer was hard to judge.

Today, the lighting and the quality of the produce are not in question, it is just that often the products are replicated across the streets, but that I suspect is a small objection, compared to the magic of the markets, here or in Varese.

Location; Varese; and Manchester, 2016, and 2019

Pictures; Varese; 2016, 2017, and the Manchester markets, 2019, from the collections of Andrew Simpson and Balzano