Keeping Chorlton local ……… the historical view point

Now I have lived in Chorlton long enough to have read some excellent local newspapers all of which I have written about.*

They stretch back into the 1880s and it may be there will have been others which predate the South Manchester Gazette, which in the winter and spring of 1885-6 carried 25 articles about the history of where we live.

They were the work of Thomas Ellwood who not called on the earlier history of Chorlton and Didsbury written in 1852, but contained comments by old men and women who would have been born at the start of the 19th century.**

Their memories which would have drawn on stories told to them by their parents and grandparents take us back to the Chorlton in the decades after the old King George lost the American colonies.

And after the South Manchester Gazette there have been The Chorlton and Wilbrahamton News, The Chorlton Journal as well as the Stretford and Chorlton Journal.**

And my own favourite the alternative Chorlton Green which ran from January 1984 till sometime in May 1986, which announced in its first editorial, “Let 1984 come alive with Chorlton Green....Chorlton Green is a community newspaper and offers Chorlton the voice it’s never had before – in personal opinion, in creative work and as an information exchange”.

For over a decade we had Community Index which morphed in to Open Up, and I had high hopes that the company that purchased it would retain its format.

And now there is the excellent Chorlton Post.***

It perfectly fulfils the role of a local newspaper, mixing stories touching on the "bigger picture" along with those directly related to us, throwing in a bit of nature, some history and plenty on community events.

*Chorlton Newspapers, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20newspapers

**A History of the Ancient Chapels of Didsbury and Chorlton, the Rev. John Booker, 1852       

 ***Chorlton Post, www.chorltonpost.co.uk