Looking for Susan on Wilbraham Road

This Susan is a ghost sign located above the Royal Cod on Wilbraham Road in a building which dates from 1933 and might be older.*

Looking for Susan beside the fried chicken, 2024

It was a bit of infill between a row of semidetached houses and what was Sunwick which became a bank and is now the tile place.

But just when Susan opened her business and planted the sign high up on the wall is unclear.

The telephone number might offer up a clue.

Manchester switched form telephone numbers using a mix of letters and numbers in the late 1960s but the sign looks newer than that. 

A ghost amongst the signs, 2024

If so the street directories which list residents and businesses will be of no help as the last published directory was 1969.

And I have to confess I don’t remember a hairdressers saloon in the building during the 50 or so years I have lived here, but then I am not the most observant chap.

If I were to make a guess perhaps the 1970s, only because the lettering on the sign has that 70s look.

Still someone will know, and be able to tell me ….. perhaps even Susan.

And just as l finished writing the piece Anthony promised to use his street directories to look for Susan but then replied "l didn't need to look it up.  It all came back to me.  Susan Smart Hairdresser.  Our next door neighbour's daughter worked there around 1974. It was on the first floor".

Nor was that all because Antony follwed up the memory with two images.

The first was drawn from his 1962 directory which shows that before Susan there was another hairdressing business operating from the same spot.

And concluded with a screen shot of the present shop with a note on how to get to Susan's.

So there you have it and in my defence 1974 was two years before I arrived in Chorlton.

Not that this should be the end.

1962

I would love to hear from anyone who worked there or had their hair done at Susan's.

2024

It might just be a ghost sign but it's history.

Location; Wilbraham Road

Pictures; ghost signs amongst the signs, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Directory entry from Anthony Petrie, and Royal Cod courtesy of Google maps 2024, and Anthony Petrie

*A ghost sign is the name of a person or business which has long vanished.