Walking the past ….. the bits I never tell anyone

 I have lost track of the number of history walks I have done over the last 15 years but along with the talks there have been a lot.

The parish graveyard, 1979

It starts with the research and a focus on the lives of people, along with events and buildings which history has forgotten or didn’t even bother with in the first place.

Sutton's Cottage, 1895

People like Sarah Sutton who lived for over half a century in a wattle and daub cottage on Beech Road, Mary Crowther the last woman to do penance in our parish church, or Samuel and Elizabeth Nixon who ran a beer shop for over 50 years.

Each offer up a fascinating insight into our community and were as important as the wealthy and powerful who lived here.

Their stories emerge from a heap of different sources, and include census returns, parish records, the Rate Books and if we are very lucky the odd folk memory.

So it is with Caleb Jordril who lived at Lane End* and who was a prime instigator in the practice of Riding the Stange or as it was known in the south Rough Music.  It was a practice which dates back to the Middle Ages and was common across Europe and involved the public humiliation of those who the community thought had transgressed correct behaviour. 

Inside one of our old cottages, 1930s

These might include “a man was known to beat his wife, or if he allowed himself to be henpecked; if he was unfaithful to her, or she to him, the offending party, if living in the village, was serenaded with a concert of music, consisting of cow's horns, frying-pans, warming-pans, tea-kettles, &c., in fact, any implement with which a loud, harsh, and discordant sound could be produced.   

This hubbub was generally repeated several times, and seldom failed to make a due impression on the culprit.”**

The story of Caleb and Riding the Stange was collected by Thomas Ellwood who wrote 25 articles on the history of Chorlton-cum- Hard in the winter of 18885 and the spring of 1886**.   

Looking into the graveyard, 2023

And once the research has been done and all the bits fitted into the sequence of the walk, there is that necessity in compiling a risk assessment which some will deride but which is essential given that we will be walking the historical walk along narrow Chorlton roads, crossing junctions where cars whizz about and stand in open spaces which were not all designed to accommodate up to 40 people.

That done, on the day there is the all important task of explaining the day, welcoming people and thanking those who have helped with the organization.

And this last consideration is particularly important with next Sunday’s walk which has been commissioned by the Library Service as part of this year’s Chorlton Book Festival.

The walk always ends with a light meal in the Café at the Edge Theatre, and those who have bought tickets need to be checked off.  This year I am indebted to Mathew and Gail who will not only do the last but assist in guiding what can become a long crocodile of participants from the village Green to the Edge.

And finally, it is their task to ensure I keep to time, and on occasion Mathew has had that onerous task of holding up the coloured cards …. green “keep talking”, amber “almost out of time”, and red “stop”.

The Narnia lamppost, 2022

Which I have always found difficult to adhere to, but Mathew remains a tenacious holder of the cards, so we shall see.

The talk is on the history of our parish church, the graveyard and those buried there with tales of strange goings on, celebrations of the lives of some of my favourite people and a peek at the way we lived in the 1850s.

Meet by the Narnia lamp on Chorlton green at 2 pm, Sunday September, 22nd, 2024

All events are bookable through Chorlton Book Festival, https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/chorlton-book-festival-2024-3536319

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Sutton’s Cottage circa 1892, photograph from the Wesleyan Souvenir Handbook of 1895  and interior of the cottage on Maitland Avenue in the collection of Philip Lloyd, the rest from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Lane End, the junction of Hardy Lane, Sandy Lane, and Barlow Moor Road

** Thomas Ellwwod, The History of Chorlton cum Hardy, Chapter 8 December 12 1885

Nightingale’s, and an old 78 RPM ............. a little bit of our retail past on Wilbraham Road

Now I wonder if anyone remembers Nightingales the electrical shop which traded from 436 Wilbraham Road.

Like most of the strip of shops along the stretch from Keppel to Albany no 436  is now a fast food out let but back in the middle decades of the last century Nightingale’s sold all things electrical and by 1960 had an impressive range of televisions, transistor radios, fridges and washing machines in its window.

Now I know it was there by 1938 and still there in 1960 by a chance find and three photographs from the Manchester Digital collection.

The chance find was an old 78 RPM record of the Boston Promenade Orchestra performing the Ritual Fire Dance and the Conclusion to Bolero conducted by Arthur Fiedler.

And the catalogue number dated the record to 1938 while the perfectly preserved dust cover offered up the Nightingale name and the address of both the Chorlton shop and another at 58 Wilmslow Road in Withington.

At which point I can claim little credit for the find or much of the subsequent research.

It was Andy Robertson’s son who came across the record and Andy who went looking in Manchester's  digital collection, leaving me the easy job of hunting down the record in the HMV catalogue.

In time I am sure there will be people who offer up all sorts of memories of the shop, what they bought there and perhaps a beginning and end date to the business.

For now I shall just reflect that it wasn’t too long ago that high streets and more humble parades of shops could boast a full range of shopping experiences from the wool shop, electrical business along with DIY, hardware and the odd travel agents.

So there you have it a bit of our consumer past on Wilbraham Road, with just one last observation that it had gone by 1969.

Additional research by Andy Robertson

Pictures; record and dustcover, circa 1938 from the collection of Andy Robertson and Nightingale’s on Wilbraham Road, 1960, A E Landers, m18308 & m18307, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 5 “debris and desolation”

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.*

Ancoats residents, 1920

Now I am a little closer to being able to date the end of Homer Street.

It went in the big slum clearance push in the 1930s when a large chunk of the area around St Andrew’s Church in Ancoats went in matter of a few years.

Homer Street dated from 1837 and so just missed its hundredth birthday

And while some may have mourned its passing I doubt that there were many.

According to the Corporation there were 1,045 properties in the area around St Andrew’s Church of which “990 were occupied dwellings and 47 business premises leaving eight properties either derelict or unoccupied.”**

They were in the words of the Manchester Medical Officer of Health both unfit and “dangerous or injurious to health [and in his opinion were] a clearance area.”

Homer Street, 1894

He added that “in general the dwelling houses were of a similar type throughout the area, all fronting directly on to the streets, which generally speaking were somewhat narrow.  

These were conditions one generally found in the area of this type of small houses; narrow passages and high back yard walls. 

Of the houses 872 fronted into streets 39 feet or less in width, 469 on to streets of 24 feet or less.  The yards in the majority of cases were small and the property in the majority of cases was old.

There were 154 houses over 100 years old, 109 over 90, and 723 over 60 years old.  The density was 79 houses to the acre on net area and 52 to the acre on the gross area.”

Now like many I lived in a small two up two down terraced house in the 1970s and such properties can still be found across the country are still doing the business of keeping people warm, and comfortable and will still have a long life ahead of them.

But these were built at the end of the 19th century and by and large had been well maintained.

Those like the one my grandparents occupied in Hope Street, dated back to the beginning of the 19th century and were past their sell by date by the 1930s, but lingered on into the 60s.

Not so Homer Street or it neighbours, Andrew’s Square, Gees Place, Dryden Street and Marsden Square, all of which had all gone by 1938. The Corporation judged that many were worth less than £50 and “719 in the area were verminous.”

Of course there were objections, ranging from the landlords of some of the properties to those who thought that the replacement homes in Smedley were not suitable, leading one witness to at the inquiry on the clearance plans to describe them as “barracks” adding it was not acceptable to “make the British workman, after he has done his work climb six flights of stairs.”

Back of the demolished school, 1966

Some also questioned the policy of not rebuilding new homes in the area, pointing out that for some the cost of travelling from the new estates in places like Wythenshawe was very expensive.

But the Corporation “had zoned the whole of the area for light industrial purposes” and this was pretty much how it turned out.

The old school on the corner of Homer Street which had been opened in 1836 went, and the site became a sheet metal works while the rest of Homer Street was left as open land finally becoming a bus depot in the 1960s.

That industrial development was slow to come and in the August of 1939 the Reverend A. R. Denn of St Andrew’s wrote to the Manchester Guardian that the cleared area as “a scene of debris and desolation” with “the remains of houses in various stages of demolition.  Some buildings remain standing with broken windows and derelict doors.  

All around one may see the foundations of houses and the remains of door steps and yards, brick bats and odd pieces of stone are strewn about on all sides, whist here and there nature tries to cover up this hideousness with weary looking grass.”***

Adding that it “reminds one of the pictures of Flanders during the last war, and resembles nothing so much as the after-effects of an air raid.”

And while his observations may well have been accurate and echoed many who felt “it was not a square deal for those who have to live and work amid it”, it is worth pausing to reflect on what the Corporation was trying to do.

According to Alderman Jackson that was nothing less than a programme “to tackle about 30,000 houses in Manchester” at a time when the City was still recovering in many ways from the Depression.

There is nothing now to see of Homer Street.

For a while the plan of the streets continues to appear on maps but by 1960 even these have gone.

But nature and commerce abhor a vacuum and the site had undergone new development with the empty and derelict bus depot replaced by a large modern food warehouse.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; Mothers' Outing, St Andrew’s Church,1920,  m70137, and Sheffield Street back of St Andrew's Church,  Revill and Son Ltd, 1966 Brooks T, m12041 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Homer Street, 1894, from the OS South Lancashire, 1894, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Homer Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Homer%20Street

**Ancoats Clearance Order, Manchester Guardian, September 26, 1934

***Debris and Desolation, A.R. Denn, letter to the Manchester Guardian, August 4, 1939

****Amato Food Products, http://www.amatoproducts.co.uk/

Mr. Topping paints Eltham Palace …..

 Now, I maintain, and I maintain most strongly that you can never have enough paintings of Eltham Palace.

Growing up in Well Hall with the Pleasaunce and the Tudor Barn, that magnificent medieval Palace was always a counter attraction.

True in the 1960s you could only gain access on a Thursday but that was enough and as a kid with a vivid imagination my day would be spent with a host of kings, and barons down to the cooks and servants who waited on. 

Even then I was well aware that had I been in the Palace in the Middle Ages I wouldn’t be giving the orders, instead it would be my task to fetch, obey and generally be the dogsbody.

And then our Jill moved into a house nearby with views up to the Palace and as the book says, “my cup runneth over”.*

All of which made the Palace a perfect topic for a Topping painting and like New York I just had to repeat it.

Location; Eltham Palace

Painting;2024 © Peter Topping Paintings, from Pictures from an photograph by Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick 2015.

Three meals ….. one pudding….. some history …. and three happy customers

Now, if you can find a pub which offers good food, attentive staff with a large slice of local history than the Horse and Jockey has the lot.

Under Iain’s management the place has returned to being somewhere you want to go for a good meal, excellent drinks and a backstory which will keep your friends impressed.

It opened in the 1790s in a building which was already into its 20th birthday when Henry VIII walked down the aisle with Anne Boleyn

I have been going to the “Inn on Green” for almost 50 years and for a big chunk of that time it was a pretty indifferent place which really stepped up to the mark when it was bought by Peter Dalton who turned it into an excellent place to eat.

After which it rather lost its way but under Iain’s stewardship it has again become a place we like to go. 

Today Tina and her mum had the steak pie, and I had the cheese and onion, all of which came with chips and a pile of green beans with just a hint of garlic.

And when Tina wondered about which red wine to choose, Iain came over with a selection to try and with that sorted I bored her with stories from the pubs long history, which included when the pub was used for inquests, the morning a notorious prize fighter was arrested outside the door and more recently its part in promoting local authors by providing a venue for book launches.

So yep, a good afternoon in the Horse and Jockey.

To which I can add the pub stocks copies of our new book which tells the story of the Horse and Jockey over the centuries.

It will cost you less than a pint and you can order the book at www.pubbooks.co.uk  or the old-fashioned way on 07521 557888 or from Chorlton Bookshop or over the counter in the pub.

Location; the Inn on the green, Chorlton

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The Isle of Wight August 1970 ......... a concert and a lesson in what to remember for Chris and Marisa

Now just for once I am not going to let the facts get in the way of the story which is another way of saying that I would rather keep my imperfect memories of the Isle of Wight Festival in the summer of 1970 pristine. 

The concert with the hill behind, 1970

The alternative would be to allow reality to spoil what I have remembered for 54 years.

It was a weekend and the four of us were all pretty bored.

The prospect of another night in the pub didn’t appeal and so there and then around seven in the evening we took off from London with sleeping bags, a change of underwear and headed south.

We arrived at Portsmouth, waited I guess till morning and then after the crossing joined shed loads of others on their way to the music.

I am not sure any of us knew what to expect, and had not even thought about the entrance fee.
As it turned out there was a hill overlooking the concert area and to my eternal shame we sat there and watched the music for free.

The line-up I am told included Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, Chicago, The Doors, Lighthouse, The Who Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Moody Blues, Joan Baez, Free, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson, Donovan, John Sebastian, Terry Reid, Taste, and Shawn Phillips.

And of these I can remember but a few and if I am very honest only the Doors stand out.

In 1970 .......

The reasons for such a lapse of memory are unclear, but I fell a sleep listening to the Doors.

That said it was magical, because as dusk gave way to night hundreds of camp fires had been lit across the hill.  I would like to think that as the fires burned the Doors played “Light my fire” but I have no idea.

We left the following day missed Jimi Hendrix but felt relieved that we had avoided the mud and gunge which was the area around the lavatories.

So I have to say I came away with no revelations of spiritual awareness, and not even much of a memory of the music.

In the years afterwards I discovered four colleagues I worked with and another half dozen acquittances were also there but again to my shame I never shared the fact that we stayed for just one day and one night.

And all of this, because two of my Canadian cousins were impressed at my casual reference to the adventure, which in turn has made me come clean.

Location; the Isle of Wight Concert, 1970

Pictures; at the Festival, 1970, Roland Godefroy,who granted permission to use the image  under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 and me in 1970 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 4 the school by Homer Street

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.*

Homer Street was located just south of St Andrew’s Church and was bordered by the canal to the north, the river to the south and London Road Railway Station to the west.

The houses date from 1837 and just six years after the church was built.

Back in 1831 St Andrew's  Church was in “the midst of fields [when] the waters of the River Medlock which are  close by ran pure and sweet and were the home of beautiful trout.” **

At the time “the congregation of St Andrew’s was in its early years a fairly comfortable middle-class body, [with] most of the pews in the church being privately rented by people of substance. But by the middle of the century it was surrounded by rising Lancashire industry and black slums filled the parish.***

Five years later the church opened a Sunday school on the corner of Homer Street and Arundel Street which in 1846 became a day school.

The school records show that teaching there was to use that modern description “challenging.”

In 1850 there was an average attendance at the day school of about 200 and four of five hundred boys and girls attended irregularly at the Sunday school.

And in 1866 the authorities went looking for forty boys who were absent one morning  concluding  that “the parents are sadly to blame for keeping their children at home” and on another occasion observed that “130 present at a time and the teacher ill, make it rather hard work to keep things straight.”

Given all of that I can sympathise with the comment made in 1864 that the school master was “glad that the week has closed so that one might have a little rest.”

But even by the 1860s the population of St Andrew’s parish was in decline and in 1891 the school reported that "the number of children on the books was gradually diminishing owing to properties being condemned as uninhabitable", although the final clearances  only got  underway in the late 1930s.

So that by 1936 the population had fallen from 16,000 a century earlier about to 3,000 with many families having been moved out to Gorton and Clayton.

That said the school still had about 230 students on roll and their attendance was very good winning them the Entwistle Memorial Shield for the best school attendance in the city’s elementary schools which seems a nice positive point to close on.

The site is now part of the warehouse of Amato Food Products.****

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; St Andrew’s School, Homer Street, 1920, m48646, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Homer Street

**Commemorative Booklet, St Andrews Church Ancoats, 1831-1931

***A Centenary in Ancoats, St Andrew’s School, Manchester Guardian, June 13 1936

As others saw us ……… Chorlton-cum-Hardy ….. 1903

An occasional series which offers up just a snapshot of what we were like.

Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1903

Kemps's Croner & Wilbraham Road, circa 1900

This one dates from 1903, and comes from Slater’s Directory of Manchester & Salford.

Directories covering Manchester and Salford, date from the 18th century, and originally listed just the most prominent citizens and mains streets. 

During the course of the next two centuries, these directories became ever more detailed, listing residents alphabetically, along with all but the smallest of streets as well as a full list of all the businesses in the twin cities and a section devoted to local government, educational establishments and places of worship.

Unlike the census returns, directories were complied annually, which makes it possible to track an individual across the city.

A little bit more of Chorlton-cum-Hardy in 1903

Added to this, the Directories carried adverts, ranging from small ones to those which took up a full page, and a short description of each part of Manchester and Salford.

Which is a convenient point to stop and leave you with Slater’s description of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; extract from Slater’s Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1903, and Kemp’s Corner, circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection

The River Thames in 11 colour paintings .... no 1 a poster

Now there are very few original ideas and so I was well aware that launching the project Painting Eltham and telling its stories was bound to have been covered before.*

And almost as soon as the idea had been launched, the first story written and the “special” facebook page set up my friend Kath gave me a book of paintings about the River Thames.

Almost all of the paintings come from well known artists of the late 18th and 19th centuries and will be familiar to everyone.

There is an interesting accompanying text and the added bit is that the book dates from 1940.
It was produced by Collins in their Peacock Colour Books series and in the fullness of time it will head back south when I passed it onto to Tricia.

And that is about it.

I have chosen Westminster From the Thames by E. Mc Mcknight Kauffer because it reminds of many similar posters from the 1950s which I grew up with.

It was made in 1934 and I just like it.

Location; London


Picture; Westminster From the Thames 1934, by E. Mc Mcknight Kauffer from The River Thames


*Painting Eltham and telling its stories, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Painting%20Eltham%20and%20telling%20stories

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 3 Homer Street when the developer came knocking

The story of one street in Ancoats, and the people who lived and worked there.

North of the river, 1819

Homer Street was located just south of St Andrew’s Church and was bordered by the canal to the north, the river to the south and London Road Railway Station to the west.

A short walk in pretty much any direction would offer a mix of cotton mills, dye works and timber yards all of which provided work for the residents of our street.

I can’t be exactly sure when it was built, but St Andrews which is just one street away was opened in 1831 and by 1837 the properties show up in the rate books owned by a Mr Price.

And just eighteen years earlier on Johnson’s map of 1819 the area up from the river to the canal was still open land although already it was edged with buildings.

The area, 1966

Homer Street seems a cut above some of the others.

The houses consisted of four rooms and they commanded a rent of 1 shilling and 9d a week.

This was at a time when the best wages paid in the cotton factories in 1833, for a man in his 30s might earn 22 shillings and 8d.

Sometime between 1934 and 1988 the properties were demolished and the site is given over to a sheet metal works which continued to occupy the site until the 1960s when for a while the land was vacant.

During the 1970s and until quite recently the area was a bus depot which ceased operating at the beginning of this century.

It is now a food warehouse owned by Amato Food Products.*

It would be intriguing to know if anything the Homer Street properties still exist just below the surface.

Not that I would ask Mr Amato to dig a hole in his warehouse floor.

Location; Ancoats

Pictures; a section of Ancoats whre Homer Street was to be built in 18i6, from the Johnson’s map of Manchester, 1819 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ and  St Andrew’s Square from St Andrews Street, facing west, 1966, T Brooks, m10604, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

A little of what we have lost, Wilbraham Road in 1955

Sometimes I think it is the more recent photographs of Chorlton which are the more fascinating, and in their way the more revealing of how we lived.

And so I am drawn to this one of Wilbraham Road looking north towards the railway station.

Now I don’t have an exact date but I think it must have been taken in the 1950s which of course is a hostage to fortune, and I await the first expert on cars of the period or public transport to give me a definitive date based on the make of car or the type of bus.

Some of the other more basic clues like the registration plates and advertising hoardings don’t yield anything, so it will be a matter of visiting Central Library and slowly going through the directories to match the names on the shop fronts with a year.

But the tram lines appear to be missing which would suggest a date after the last trams had run their last journeys and the tracks had been taken up which would take us into the 50s.

What strikes you is still how old fashioned the shop fronts appear with many of them still retaining their old signage and shop fronts.

And then there is what they sold, ranging from paint to shoes, mystery coach excursions to lace doilies.

Now I accept that we still had a DIY store in the precinct into the 1980s and the last shoe shop only closed a few years ago followed by Burt’s, the gentleman’s outfitters in 2011.

But back in 1955 it was the sheer number of these shops.  There were lots of clothes shops and shoe shops, as well as countless grocers, green grocers, and butchers which for good measure were by and large all independent traders.

And some will mutter there were also two wool shops, private lending libraries and of course plenty of old fashioned, smelly, sell everything hardware stores.

Quantity did not always equate with either quality or choice.  In our grocers shop there was white cheese and there was red cheese along with lots of tinned things.

Which given the period may be a little unfair and opens me up to people feeling a little miffed that their bit of nostalgia has just taken a kicking not to mention those who ran good quality shops here in Chorlton, so back to the picture.

Looking at it again you get to see just how the shops in the distance were really just later  add ones to what had been traditional houses.

And then jutting out from the end of that first parade of shops is a cast iron veranda while the absence of traffic allows you to see how the road rises as it goes over the bridge.

And we still had a railway station with trains that took you into the city in under ten minutes.

So there you have it a little of what we were like, not that long ago.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

So were you in the Eltham Hill Gaumont on Sunday September 12 1965?

Now you pretty much know it’s time to get a life when you go looking for the date for a film listing for the Eltham Hill Gaumont.

Eltham Hill Gaumont, 1998

The listing was posted recently by Kath May and advertised the four films showing for the week beginning September 12.

For those with time on their hands on that Sunday the cinema was showing for just the one day The Unknown with Dean Jagger and Teenage Frankenstein with Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates and Gary Conway.

With titles like that they were of course X rated under the old Board of Censorship classification and if there was anyone still unsure the listing carried the warning Adults only.

Now I have never really given it much thought but I suppose Sunday in the cinema in the 1950s and 60s would be a slow day.

The cinema , circa 1938

Most people would have gone on a Friday or Saturday night and the week would be given over to a more discerning audience, leaving Sunday for those just over 18 with money left in their pockets and with a taste for the macabre.

For the rest of the week starting on the Monday and running for a full six days there was Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn in Last Train from Gun Hill which was an A and Yul Brynner in Escape from Zahrain.

I went looking for the plots of the four films and wish I hadn’t bothered.  Suffice to say that today I doubt that even the most desperate of TV executives would look to showing them on even the graveyard slot.

So as a reward and in answer to Kath’s musings of when this week was I went off and roamed the records.  

Film poster, 1957

Now the films themselves were no clue.  The Unknown dated from 1956, Teenage Frankenstein from the following year and Last Train from 1959 which left Escape from Zahrain which was made in 1962.

But given that you can on the internet find a day if you have the month and the year with just a little bit of fiddling it was possible to place Sunday September 12 in 1965.

Which just leaves me to record that the Gaumont had opened on April 14 1938 showing Queen Victoria with Anna Neagle and closed on June 19 1967 with David Niven in Happy Go Lovely and Dana Andrews in Duel in the Jungle.*

It reopened as a Mecca Bingo Club and the rest as they say is a down to two fat ladies and a joyful shout of Bingo.

But I wouldn't have done the job properly if I didn't also try to date the second picture of the cinema.

It was showing Will Hay's film Oh Mr Porter which was released in 1937 and so I am guessing it will be the late 1930s.

And that's all I am going to say except to thank Kath for finding and posting the film listing leaving me to go off and watch the paint dry on the back door.

Picture; the old cinema November 1998 courtesy of David Simpson and sometime before 1952, cousinadnab taken from Gaumont Eltham Hill, Cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/14991 and film poster for Teenage Frankenstein, 1957 which is in the public domain

* Gaumont Eltham Hill, Cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/14991

Spreading the news ….. updates on Chorlton’s own blue plaque project

The community-based project to identify and acknowledge people, events and places which have a special meaning to Chorlton’s past has been up and going for almost a year.

Telling the story to Chorlton Good Neighbours, 2024

And on Tuesday members of Chorlton Good Neighbours got to share in the story, and as it turns out were the first group to engage in the new power point presentation which explained the scheme and described the progress so far.

The idea of recognising a person, event or building with a wall plaque has a long history and here in Chorlton we had one on the side of a house on Oswald Road to one of the two men who were the first to fly across the Atlantic in 1919.

And now Chorlton Civic Society has chosen to erect more, with the difference that instead of the famous the new blue plaques will be about subjects which history has not only forgotten but in some cases never even bothered to notice and yet were central to our history.

Unveiling the first three Blue Plaques, 2023-24

The first went up on the Bowling Green Hotel in recognition of its place as one of our oldest pubs, and the second recorded a family business stretching back three generation of Foster’s Cycle shop on Barlow Moor Road.  

The third celebrated the life of Mr. Euton Christian, who served in the RAF during the last War, returned to Britain on the SS Windrush and was the first black manager in the Post Office, the first black JP, helped establish the West Indian Sports and Social Club as well being actively engaged in Race Relations.

The Civic Society is eager to receive nominations, but the individual must have been dead for at least 20 years and have been a resident in Chorlton.

Nomination should be sent to Stephen, ChorltonPlaques@hotmail.com or Peter Topping, events@chorltonarts.org or Phone Peter 07521 557888

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Blue Plaque events, 2023-24 Telling the story to Chorlton Good Neighbours, 2024, courtesy of Peter Topping, Unveiling the first three Blue Plaques, 2023-24 and Chorlton Blue Plaques, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Looking for "June" The Ladies hairdresser and Busy Bee Stores, sometime in 1930

Looking "June" the Hairdressers on Wilbraham Road

I never underestimate the power of a collection of old local adverts to offer up fascinating stories and pretty much take you all over the place.

So here in front of me are a set of those adverts which appeared on the dust jacket of a book lent out by Mr R. Greig Wilson who owned a newsagents on Sandy Lane and also ran one of our Circulating libraries.

Now circulating libraries were private affairs and existed alongside the local public library, and such was the demand for novels and lighter factual material that many of our newsagents went into business renting books out.

Busy Bee

At home in London mother was a regular at the local bookshop who also traded in lending copies and across Chorlton there were quite a few, from the one that operated on Beech Road, to Mr Lloyd’s on
Upper Chorlton Road and of course R. Greig Wilson’s on Sandy Lane.

It is a topic I have visited quite a few times over the years and no doubt will return to.

But for today my attention has been drawn to Busy Bee Stores  (W. Wellard, Proprietor) at 264 Upper Chorlton Road, and “June” The Ladies’ Hairdresser and Beauty Specialist on Broadwalk Wilbraham Road.

It will take some time to date the collection of adverts and that will involve trawling the directories but I think they will be from the 1930s.

Not that Mr Grieg has been much of a help for he was selling his “Stationary, Tobacco and Picture postcards” along with delivering his newspapers from at least 1911.

That said it will be after 1911 because down on Upper Chorlton Road at 264 was a Mr John Joseph Taylor who was a tailor.

Now Mr Wellard was trading as an iron monger at the shop by 1929 and Charles Slightman who also advertised on the dust cover was selling his newspapers and lending out his collection of over 1,000 books from his lending library on Manchester Road from 1923 through to 1935 so we are in the right decade and a bit.

"June"

And until those directories yield up a definite date I am settling for sometime in the 1930s for it was around then that “June” at the Broadwalk began Permanent Waving by the Nestlé System which was the "Radione" system in which the hair was wound dry and inserted into hollow cellophane tubes sealed at both ends, but contained moistened paper”*

Long along Wilbraham Road circa 1930s

She was in her saloon at 523 Wilbraham Road by 1929 but Karl Nessler who had perfected his alternative method of curling hair in 1905 using a mixture of cow urine and water did not come up with the improvement which he called the Nestlé System until the 30’s.

“June” charged 20/- for the process and also offered "Tinting, Manicure, Face Massage , [and] all kinds of hair work carried out by experts.”

I have often wondered whether her customers were aware that Mr Nessler had arrived in Britain from Germany in 1901 and facing being interned when the Great War broke out fled to America, or that during his first experiments on his wife he managed to burn her hair off and cause some scalp burns.

That advert for an early perm, circa 1905

All of which is a complete digression but is one of the fascinating little journeys behind which there is a serious point because together the eleven adverts will reveal a little bit more about the Chorlton of just eighty or so years ago.

And in one of those nice little twist of coincidences, 264 Upper Chorlton Road is again a hardware store specialising in much the same stuff as Busy Bee which along with offering “Glass and China [as] a speciality offered “Electric Vacuum cleaners for Hire.”

But there the coincidences stop for now where “June" permed and manicured the present proprietor offers sweets and newspapers which I suppose has almost brought us full circle.

Pictures, adverts from the dust cover of a book courtesy of Margaret Connelly, Wilbraham Road in 2014 from the collection of Andy Robertson and an  early 20th century advertisement for Nessler's permanent wave machine, transferred by SreeBot, Wikipedia

*Perm (hairstyle), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perm_(hairstyle)

Looking for the lost ...... one street over time in Ancoats ..... no 2 Homer Street and the Ward family

Now I would like to think that one of these young people could be Ethel Ward.

Students at St Andrews School, 1920

She was living with her parents at number 9 Homer Street and it is just possible she attended St Andrew’s School which was at the end of the road.

Homer Street and in particular number 9 has over the last few days drawn me in and I want to know more.

It was just a few minutes away from Fairfield Street and on a quiet night the Ward family would have heard the distinctive clunk of railway waggons being shunted in the nearby sidings, caught the smell from the river and the dye works and worried that young Ethel might do something daft beside the canal.

Homer Street, 1894

That said I remember my old friend Norman who had been born close by telling me how he had learnt to swim by being thrown in that same canal.

I last visited number 9 in 1851 when it was home to two families.

At that time I knew little about the property but now know that it consisted of four rooms which given that there were seven of them must have made it a squeeze.

Just exactly what the condition of number 9 was like is unknown, but by 1911 it was at least 74 years old having been built as part of the swift development of the area in the early and mid 19th century.*

The class of 1920, St Andrew's School, 1920

The earliest entry in the rate books is 1837 when the block was owned by a Mr Price who is still the owner in 1851.**.

I suspect Mr and Mrs Ward counted themselves relatively lucky because many of the surrounding properties consisted of just two and three rooms and were home to large families.

He was an electrician for Manchester Corporation and as such was a skilled worker.

They had been married for eleven years and Ethel as their only child.

For Ethel there would have been little that could be said to have offered up exciting places to play.

Just a short walk down Phobe Street was a tree lined Recreational Ground which backed on to the river but it was dominated by a cotton mill off to the east and the Ancoats Goods Yard to the north delivering a fair share of noise, smells and if the wind were in the wrong direction no doubt the old cloud of smoke.

Of course there is a danger in letting your imagination over play the industrial scene and I have also to concede that by the time our school picture was taken Ethel would have been fourteen and already working, perhaps in that very textile factory that overlooked the Rec.

St Andrew's Square, 1966

Her home and the rest of the houses on Homer Street had gone by 1938 although the street and some of the surrounding ones continued to appear on maps, but by the end of the century even their imprint had vanished under a site which had various industrial uses and now is a warehouse for Armato Food Products  and it was the current owners who suggested I might be interested in the site.***

Which is almost the end, but I have to add that in wandering the neighbouring streets I did come across a Mr Simpson living with his wife and two boarders in three rooms at number 17 St Andrew’s Street.  He was no relation but I like the way a random search throws up a Simpson.****

Pictures; St Andrew’s School, Homer Street, 1920, m48646, and St Andrew’s Square from St Andrews Street, facing west, 1966, T Brooks, m10604, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Homer Street in 1894, from the OS for South Lancashire, 1894 courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Homer Street, Enu 12 272, Central, Manchester, 1911

**Manchester Rate Books, 1837- 1851

***Amato Food Products, http://www.amatoproducts.co.uk/

****St Andrews Street, Enu 12 188, Central, Manchester, 1911

It’s what they do ….. when you are not there …… knocking down Eltham Baths

Now, for everyone who never left Eltham or moved in some time at the turn of this century the demolition of Eltham Baths is not news.

But then I left for good in 1973, and on visits back over the next few decades, it was just a place to show the kids…… one of Eltham’s landmarks.

It was built between 1938-39, contained two swimming pools, the larger one had tiered seating for 320 spectators and a smaller one was mainly intended for instruction.

A hydrotherapy pool was added in 1968.*

But I haven’t been back for a while, and our last flying visit took us down Well Hall Road, past the old family home and on to Woolwich, a river crossing and the long journey back to Manchester.

So, I was only vaguely aware that the baths had closed in 2008, and were knocked down three years later.

I would like to say that a little bit of my childhood had been taken away when it shut its doors, but I must confess I never went.

We only washed up in Well Hall in 1964, and by then I was past going to swimming pools, although I have fond memories of the open air one in Danson Park in the long hot summers of the late 1960s.

Sad to say that has also gone…… closed in 1979, demolished in the 1980s and now grassed over.

So, I indebted to the site Blackfen Past and Present which informed me that, “Danson was opened as a public park in 1925 and was a popular place for meeting up with friends and family. 

There was an aviary containing birds near the Mansion, a boating lake, miniature railway and deck chairs for hire. A swimming pool opened on 25 July 1936, located on the southern edge of the park. 

There was a large rectangular main pool with an ornamental fountain, a paddling pool for children and a beginners’ pool. There was a cafe selling pots of tea and on hot summer days it was wise to get there early to avoid disappointment as queues would run all down the road”.**

The passage of time has left those visits a bit of a blur, but I do remember waiting outside the Rising Sun, with John Coward, and two friends from Eltham Green nursing a hangover and waiting for a bus to the pool.

All of which has taken me away from Eltham Baths, and a fine selection of photographs taken by John King and posted today on social media.

I  thank John for giving me permission to reproduce them.

The eagle eyed will have spotted I have omitted pictures of Danson Park, but then Tricia posted some recently so it has not been entirely missed out.

Leaving me just to reflect I really must get back to Eltham more frequently.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; Eltham Baths, 2008-2019, from the collection of John King

*Former Eltham Baths, Mola, https://www.mola.org.uk/former-eltham-baths-eltham-hill-london-se9-standing-building-survey-report

**Danson Park Swimming Pool, Blackfen Past and Present, December 31, 2014, https://blackfenpastandpresent.com/2014/12/31/danson-park-swimming-pool/