Posters from the Past ........... no 17 ......... Woolwich .......Walking The River

Now the project is simple, take an image of a building we all love and turn it into the style of poster which was popular in the middle decades of the last century.*

And because so many of us have fond memories of the foot tunnels under the Thames, here is our take on how Woolwich Borough Council might have marketed the trip.

Location;Woolwich

Painting; Woolwich Foot Tunnel, © 2018 Peter Topping,  Paintings from Pictures, from a photograph by Neil Simpson, 2016





Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk 

*Posters from the Past, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Posters%20from%20the%20Past

I have seen the future and it works* …….. shopping in 1961

I like this picture because it offers up a range of shop fronts, from the traditional to the brand new.

And there is no doubting that when Shelia Montgomery and the Electricity Board opted for their bold and striking  fronts they were staking a claim to being modern and at the cutting age of the new Britain.

Back in the late 1950s and early 60s I was too young to appreciate  just how much of a break with tradition they were, and by the time I was in my teens they were so commonplace that I took them for granted.

But in 1961 they stood out as very different from the fashion shop of S. Pickles, which will noy have changed over much since the row of houses with their shops were built.

And walking back along the parade, Rushtons, Sprent and the supermarket had also chosen modernity over tradition.

A full sixty or so years later I rather think all five look dated in comparison to number 111, which modern shop fitters might seek to imitate.

I had thought we were on Princes Road and certainly some of the other pictures in the collection suggest so, but pinning down these shops has so far proved inconclusive.

And happily Michael Wood, came back with this, "Looking at the shop fronts I just got an inkling this was Alexandra Road, and sure enough in the Local Image Collection there is Sheila Montgomery on m30313, next door to Rushtons just before they too had gone for a makeover with the trendy brash new signboard seen in your photo!  

My mum used to occasionally go shopping along here in the 60s as it offered some cheaper alternatives to the Chorlton shops, and I used to pass along here whenever I got the bus into town.  

It was always bustling, with so much dense housing nearby.  There is also m30349 in 1972 both Sheila and Sprent beyond Rushtons have disappeared and the place looks a bit jaded!  Interesting series of photos".

And as ever Michael's correction shows how the blog is always a collaborative project.

 Location; Manchester

 Picture; shop fronts, 1961, 1961-3476.4, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*"I have seen the future, and it works", Lincoln Austin Steffens, 1919, after visiting the Soviet Union

Lunch time at the Lloyds …..

The Lloyd’s is one of those big pubs with heaps of history and a popular venue.

And on Friday there were the happy regulars who told me that they were “always here” and pointed to a picture of the Lloyd’s Three by the bar.

Added to these there was a family who had popped in for a quick half an hour before heading off on a journey with a suitcase, the woman with her phone and the man with his pint.

And as I snapped away, they were joined by a party on a late lunch meet up, bumped into Alan and watched as couples fell into the pub for a lazy drink and chat.

Location; The Lloyds

Pictures;  Lunch time at the Lloyds, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Miss Caroline Kane ..... a dress, a cake and a steam ship....... Chorlton in the 1900s

Now I came across Miss Caroline Kane while looking for a relative of someone who lives in Chorlton.

Miss Kane's shop,trading in 1960 as Meadow's

The brief was that the Kane’s had lived in Chorlton and had a shop.

Finding Miss Kane who ran a dress making business from 24 Wilbraham Road proved relatively easy except that my Miss Kane didn’t belong to the family I was researching.

And that of course is how it often goes.  At which point anyone who has gone looking for their family will know that out there, there are the desperate who will hoover up anyone who vaguely seems connected which might tick a box but is pretty pointless.

So back to Miss Kane, who’s life like everyone’s is fascinating and offers up an interesting take on how a single woman in the early 20th century made her living.

She was born in Shropshire in 1874 and was one of eight children born to Mary and Arthur Kane who was a French polisher.

Sometime between 1879 and 1880, they settled in Pendleton in Salford and by 1901 Miss Kane describes her occupation as “Confectionary Bakery” adding “on her own account” which suggests she was working for herself.

But to what degree is unclear, because she is not listed in the business directory before 1907 when she has changed direction and is selling dresses on Wilbraham Road.

And in 1979 as Budget Wallpapers.

The change may have been connected with her sister Martha who six years earlier is listed a “Tailoress” and who in 1911 is working in the Wilbraham Road business as a “shop assistant”.

The devil will now be in the detail because to track her after 1911 will mean visiting Central Ref and trawling through the hard copies of the street and business directories.

I know that in 1930 she returned from New York aboard the Cunard steam ship Scythia having visited Boston, and her address is listed as Cranbourne Road which where she is still living nine years later in the company of a Louise Keogh.

By 1939 Miss Kane describes her occupation as “unpaid domestic duties” while Ms Keogh was a retired accounts clerk.

And there for now the trail goes cold, although I do know she died in 1967 in Manchester leaving me to ponder on when her shop became Meadows which then became Kyle’s the wallpaper shop and changed its name to Budget Wallpapers.

Leaving me just to thank Luisse who set me off on the search for the Kane's and led me to Miss Caroline

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Wilbraham Road, 1960, A E Landers, m18302, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, and in 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The age of the parking meter was short ....... we won’t see their like again

Now I am always surprised at what was once familiar street furniture can disappear like snow in the winter sun.

And looking at this 1968 picture of St Peter’s Square there will be a few who wonder what I am on about.

But I suspect that anyone born in the last two decades may wonder what that poll with the domed shaped device beside the car was used for because the age of the parking meter has come and  gone.

It was a short life.

The first in London was installed just fifty years ago which post dated their introduction in an American city by just 40 odd years.*

There are some  in Central London but 3,500 have gone leaving just 800.

And as ever, I can’t remember exactly when they vanished from the streets of Manchester and Salford.

At which point I know someone will come up with chapter and verse and also point me to the surviving ones somewhere.

As it is there were parking meters here by 1961 when the barrow boys of Back Piccadilly were concerned that their livelihood was under threat from the introduction of parking meters along the narrow street in November of 1961.*

Our image was taken in the October of 1968.

And for me the bonus of the picture is that it shows those lost buildings, one of which went I think sometime in the early '70s and the other very recently.

Location; Manchester







Picture; St Peter's Square, 1968, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Time runs out for the parking meter, Josie Barnard, The Telegraph, November 07, 2017, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/4029123/Time-runs-out-for-the-parking-meter.html

**Back Piccadilly may lose barrow Boys, Manchester Guardian, November 20, 1961

Walking the Woolwich markets …….. 1914

Now I don’t usually just lift someone else’s work directly off the page, but today I am breaking that rule.

And I am breaking it because the description of the Woolwich markets back in 1914, from The Woolwich Story is so good it deserves to appear just as E.F.E. Jefferson presented it.

The book is a wonderful account of all things Woolwich, while chapter XV, vividly recreates a walk through the market on the eve of the Great War.

The account runs across 19 pages and is fascinating, both because of its description of the market but also as an insight into how we lived just over a century and a bit ago.

Location; Woolwich in 1914

Pictures; Woolwich market in the early, 20th century, from Woolwich Through Time is at Woolwich, Kristina Bedford, 2014

*The Woolwich Story, E.F.E. Jefferson, 1970 pages 156-7

Gaze upon the Rec ...... and spot the changes .....

The blog doesn't usually do then and now pictures ...... well not unless there are  accompanying stories which elaborate on the changes, explores why they happened and concludes with heaps of references.

Looking across the Rec, 2023

But today  I rather think I will leave it at the pictures, taken a year or so apart in The Rec from almost the same spot.

This morning had I thought about doing a then and now I would have paced out my position, but I didn't.

Lost to sight, the Irish Club and car park, 2024

On a cold autumnal morning with plenty of pale sunshine I had just wanted to record an empty Rec, but that big block of apartments dominated the scene.

Of course from spring through the summer it is hidden but as the leaves fall there it is growing by the day.

And for those who will ask, the Irish Centre is still there although it is not open, and for those who want more, the club started out as a Masonic Lodge, and site of the apartments was a bowling green.

Location; the Rec

Pictures; looking across the Rec in 2023, and 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

On Edge Street in 1969 ........... waiting for something to happen

This is how I remember Edge Street, which is part of that warren of streets which is now known as the Northern Quarter.

Back in the late 1960s and early 70’s it looked tired and run down, waiting for something to happen.

The street was cut sometime before 1793, and the buildings are a mix of late 18th and early 19th century with some from succeeding decades and pretty much all of them have gone through multiple uses in their long existence.

Leaving aside the trail of litter, the street has that air of neglect, but that might just be because we have caught it on a Sunday, when everyone with any sense was elsewhere.

Of course it is very different today, the whole sale market at the end of the road closed a long time ago and is now part of a residential development, and some of the buildings lining Edge Street were demolished to make way for new ones, while the remainder have changed their use, reflecting the new Norther Quarter.

But the Bay Horse Tavern is still there on Thomas Street, and many of the residents and shopkeepers on this stretch of Edge Street, were not so different from their predecessors in 1911, who included a potato merchant at no. 32, a fruits salesmen, coal dealer, and shop keeper, although I suspect few in 1969 would have understand the need for the Patent Ice Company which operated from no.22.

Location; Edge Street, 1969,

Picture; Edge Street, 1969, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,

The mystery behind the Maypole on Wilbraham Road

Now I grant you as mysteries go it ain’t Agatha Christie or even a Sexton Blake but I am intrigued by the wrought iron arch behind the Maypole grocery shop at number 41 Wilbraham Road.

Maypole Dairy, 41 Wilbraham Road

The shop opened in 1909 and was still trading fifty years later and is now part of LewisBet, the Bookmakers.

Today the gap between the Maypole Diary and what is now Barclays Bank is a small retail unit.

When this was constructed is unclear but in 1959 it is there and part of the grocery shop.

But that doesn’t help with my bit of ornate iron work.

It may of course still be there and I suppose I should pop down and explore, or at the very least ask the owners of R J’s the barber shop to have a look out back.

That ironwork

But where would the mystery be in that?

Even if it is still there, that doesn’t help with the question of why it was erected.

Maps of the period do not help although the 1907 map does hint at something beside the bank and back then this was the Manchester and County Bank who may have decided on putting up a bit of decorative iron work, but I somehow doubt it.

Of course Mr Lloyd who added this to his collection may have mistaken this Maypole Dairy for another, opening up the possibility that this isn’t Wilbraham Road, but I doubt it.

We shall see.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; the Maypole Dairy Wilbraham Road, circa 1909, from the Lloyd Collection

In a very different Berseford Square

I have to thank Steve Bardrick for the collection of pictures of Woolwich he kindly agreed to share with me.

Part of the pleasure of looking at them is that they remind me of the Woolwich I remember which has now pretty much vanished but also because each of them has set me off on a detective trail.

So here I am in Beresford Square flanked by the Ordinance Arms on one side with Draper’s the butchers directly ahead.

I can’t be sure of the date but I am guessing we must be in the late 1940s into 1950s judging by the clothes, and the presence of the tram lines.

Now the last tram clanked into the history books in 1952 and while the tram lines took a bit of time to vanish they will not have lasted the decade.

So the key will be that butcher’s shop and a trawl of the directories will give us a beginning and end date for the business which might not offer up an exact moment but will be close enough.

That said I don’t have access to the directories for that period but they are located in the Greenwich Heritage Centre and my olf friend Tricia might come up with something when she next visits.

The Draper Brothers have long gone, the Ordinace Arms trades under a new name and the square has lost much of the hurly burly activity all of which Brings me back to Steve's picture.

Like some of his other images it captures a busy day.

And just perhaps there will be people who remember Draper's or sat in the Ordinance Arms watching the trams rattle past.

We shall see.

Picture; Beresford Square, date unknown courtesy of Steve Bardrick

Forgotten Chorlton ................. nu 1 on Wibraham in the 1930

Now Wilbraham Road and Edge Lane were popular locations for commercial photographers not least because of the many posh properties which stretched out on either side of these two roads all the way up from Stretford into Chorlton.

The canny photographer would not only sell the images to the postcard companies but would also have called in at each house featured in a picture offering up a print for a price.

This one was taken by Harold Clarke who lived in Chorlton in the 1920s and 30s and had a photographic business.

And as you do I have come to be quite fascinated by him and have not only written about his work on the blog but discovered that Tony Goulding who is a regular contributor is related to Mr Clarke.*

So as they say a small world, and for those who know this corner of Wilbraham Road and High Lane/Edge Lane the fun will be trying to spot the changes.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Picture; Wilbraham Road, 1930 from the collection of Mark Fynn

*Harold Clarke, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Harold%20Clarke

**Mark Fynn, http://www.markfynn.com, 

Trapped …… in a country that won’t let you out……. and countries that won’t let you in

I am rereading The Passenger by Alexander Boschwitz, which is to my knowledge the first fictional account of the events which led up to Kristallnacht.*

Alexander Boschwitz, wrote the book in 1939, and it details the experiences of Otto Silbermann a German Jew caught up in the growing nightmare of  state sponsored antisemitism just before the Night of Broken Glass in 1938.

In an effort to evade arrest, Otto takes a series of train journeys from his home in Berlin across Germany. 

In the course of which he encounters a cross section of the population, from rabid Nazi antisemites, to “regular” Germans getting on with their life, and minding their own business.

But there is no doubting the danger he is in, which at one point involves an attempt by an acquittance to cheat him out of the true value of his home, and by the actual appropriation of his business by his partner and long time friend.

Much of the book revolves around his own internal debate about whether he should have left Germany earlier, and the contradiction between those he meets who appear “decent” and those who at best are indifferent and those who are hostile.

And while he flips from despair to optimism that things can’t get any worse, there is also a sense of incredulity that in his own words “in the middle of Europe in the twentieth century” this could be happening.

Along with that observation is the chilling fact that he is trapped, because Germany  won’t let him out  and other countries won’t let him in. "For a Jew, the entire Reich has become one big concentration camp".

What I like about the book is that it offers up no easy key to how he should have acted when the Nazi’s first came to power.

Both he and his wife who is not Jewish found reasons not to leave.

Shop damage in Magdeburg, following Kristallnacht, 1938

Some rest on relatively trivial reasons, while others get to the heart of how most of us might react, balancing the antisemitic policies of the Nazi’s with measured judgements on how far the new Government would actually go, and indeed how long they would stay in power.

It is not an easy read, but it is  fascinating one, which I suspect owes something to the translation, as to the subject matter.

And as a result, I read half the 256 pages in one sitting.

All of which is more poignant because Alexander Boschwitz saw the writing on the wall just two years after the Nazis seized power, and judging that the Nuremburg Laws were just the start, he and his mother left Germany, finally arriving in Britain just before the outbreak of the Second World War.  

Being German, they were interned, and Alexander transported to Australia.

Later with the relaxation of control of who was interned, he was given permission to return to Britain, but his ship was torpedoed by a German U Boat and he perished along with the crew and his fellow passengers.  He was twenty-seven years old.

Pictures; cover The Passenger, 2021, and Kristallnacht, shop damage in Magdeburg, 1938, from Kristallnacht, Wikiperdia, supplied by The German Federal Archive, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht

*The Passenger, Alexander Boschwitz, 1939, published by Pushkin Press 2021

Piccadilly Gardens ....... the early years nu 4 on a warm summer's day in 1956

Now this just captures a carefree summer’s day in Piccadilly Gardens back in the 1950s.

It was taken in 1955 and pretty much has the lot.

The two stylish young women attract some but perhaps not that much attention.

For whatever reason the two  men in suits stare away while the chap next to them is lost in his newspaper.

So it is down to the woman in the hat and two others to glance at the passing of those stylish young women.

There will be many who remember sitting in the sunken gardens during their break from work, and when I washed up in Manchester in 1969 this was still a popular way of passing the hour on a sunny day.

My friend Sally came across the image in the digital archive collection but when I went looking for the picture the site had gone down which is a shame because I would like to think thee may have been some extra information.

And as ever it is the tiny detail that draws me in.

My Nana had a hat just like and mum had the identical sun glasses which also reminded me of her usual spectacles which were pink plastic with wings at each corner.

Thinking back they were exactly like the fins on those ever so large American cars that sum up the style of the 50s.

As were those big while plastic ear rings designed to look like flowers.

Which brings me back to those two elegantly dressed young women.

In time when I can access the Manchester collection site I may discover that this was a fashion shot but it is equally likely that it was just a random shot on a hot summer’s day.

Either way it is one to treasure.

Picture; courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Going to the “flicks” in 1928

This will be the easiest cinema story, and is just a list of which picture houses were around in Eltham and Woolwich in 1928.

The challenge should you accept it, is dredge up the pictures, with the memories.

And yes I know someone will have written the book, but where would the fun be in going there?

Instead the list is from the Kinematograpgh Year Book for 1928, which lists all the cinema’s in the country, the film companies and much else.*

I have four Year books in the collection, spanning 1914, 1928, 1929 and 1947.

And because I can I shall wander across to Plumstead, and Blackheath, to publish their cinemas, and while I am at it will accept quests for other places.

Remember you saw it first on the blog.

Location Eltham and Woolwich

Picture; list of Eltham and Woolwich cinemas, 1928

* The Kinematograpgh Year Book for 1928