When nostalgia gets it wrong

Historically there may have been a time when Beech Road was empty of parked cars, vans and scooters.

Beech Road, 1979

And lots of people will tell you that they remember just such a time.

But you will have to go back a long time.... perhaps to sometime just after the last war or one Sunday before the arrival of the Beech Road bar and coffee culture.

And even then  you might be hard pressed to find the entire road from the Rec down to the Green totally empty.

For proof here is Beech Road in 1979. 

I have no idea now what day or what time but busy it was.

And that offers up a corrective to all those who remark that there were no cars then when seeing an old photograph.

That advert seen on the side of Walker's barn, the Green, 1979 

In the same way lets not pretend that street adverts were any better all that tme ago.

Neither photograph is the best, but then the negatives sat in our cellar for over 40 years, and were taken when I was just begining to snap away.

But they make the point.

And let's not forget that on Friday and Saturday the overflow from the Irish clun stretched along Cross Road, Beaumont Road and Beech Road.

Location; Chorlton, 1979

Pictues; Beech Road and a poster, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson