How we shopped in 1961 …. from corner shop to supermarket

If you were born in the first half of the last century you will have experienced one of those transformations in how we shopped.

What was the present .... 1962

Long before online shopping, and the big out of town store, there was the appearance of the supermarket which with its self-service and discounted prices squeezed out the traditional small family run grocery shop, and in time also did for the butchers and the greengrocer.

Once upon a time in that age before the freezer or even the fridge, most people shopped on a daily basis at the local parade of shops, or in the market, while for the posh there was still the option to have your order delivered by the “boy on the bike”.

Our local grocer’s was Attins on Queens Road where the selection of food was limited and in the case of cheese stretched to white or red.

But of course for a seven year old there was the attraction of the broken biscuit box in front of the counter, and the fascination of watching the butter and cheese cut to order, as well as the knowledge that because you were known any short fall in the cash you had with you would be subbed by Mr. and Mrs. Attins until your next visit.

What was to be the future ..... 1961

Now we still do have corner shops, they never went away, but even they have gone up market, offer a degree of self -service and as like as not will have food from around the world, sitting beside jars of Branston and Ovaltine.

So, to celebrate both the old and the new, here is the traditional corner shop with its range of things we bought in 1961 and one of Adsega supermarkets which started with one store in Gorton in the early 1960s before expanding to 47 outlets and then being taken over by Tesco in 1965.*

Many will remember them.

Here in Chorlton they had a shop in Manchester Road, and today long after they vanished from our streets they have their own Facebook page.

But what I like about the Adsega store, is that like the traditional shops and the market stalls some of the products were displayed on the street.

Picture; shop fronts, 1961-2, 1962-3782.7, & 1962-3764.1, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* THE STORES THAT TESCO ATE: A LOST PRECINCT NOT SO PERFECT TEN https://mancunian1001.wordpress.com/2017/10/11/the-stores-that-tesco-ate-a-lost-precinct-not-so-perfect-ten/

Skating on the meadows in 1914

Well here we are skating on the meadows in 1914.

It was judging by the pictures and folk memory a popular activity and one that I have known about since I first washed up in Chorlton nearly 40 years ago.

But with all the arrogance of someone who had never seen it I always only half accepted that it was such a common activity.

It wasn’t that I doubted what people told me of what they remembered but more that the fields we now know as the meadows were part of a carefully managed stretch of land which did not benefit from being covered by ice.

These were the water meadows and were farmed to produce early grass which could be fed to cattle.

This involved carefully flooding and draining the land at regular intervals and always being mindful that if the water froze it would do the young grass no favours.

So farmers like Mr Higginbotham whose family had been here on the green from the early 1840s would never have been caught out by a sudden frost.

But the stories persisted that old Higginbotham at the turn of the last century did flood one of his fields to create a skating area.

Now until recently all I had to go on was one photograph and a handful of accounts all of which may have been drawn from that picture or from just one source.

But more photographs have turned up and I am inclined to fall on the side that this was a more common event than I had thought.

Mr Higginbotham may have just been caught out by events having miscalculated the weather or perhaps the field in question was no longer used as a water meadow for bringing on early grass.

Certainly within a few decades the meadows would no longer be used for this traditional way of farming, and now there is little evidence left of the drainage ditches which ran across the area.

All of which is a nice lesson in not becoming too arrogant about what you think you know, and instead as a good historian pay a lot more heed to popular folk memories.

Looking closely at the pictures it is just possible to make out a blur of a building in the background which might just be the old parish church, which in turn will fasten the image on that bit of land just beyond and to west of the modern car park

That said I do draw a line at the notion that the township is crisscrossed by hidden tunnels linking the old parish church to a pub and another running from one of our halls to another.

But that is for another time.

I shall just finish by wondering if Mr Higginbotham charged for the use of his frozen field.  I have on evidence he did but I doubt that he would have passed up such an opportunity.

Pictures; from Manchester Courier, 1914 courtesy of Sally Dervan

In the parish graveyard

I wish I had spent more time exploring the parish grave yard.

But when you are growing up wandering past the monuments to the long dead is not very high on the agenda.

And yet for the historian they are a powerful insight into what a community was like in the past and Eltham’s is no different.

Here for centuries were buried the good, the wealthy and those whose rank and occupation was such that they have left few records.

But some at least of those that lived here will be recorded both in the parish records and in the grave stones.

Not that I intend to name them or for that matter to dwell on their lives but more to reflect on what can be learnt from combining the inscriptions with those held in the church books.

Once upon a time the researcher had to visit the individual parishes, or walk through the often overgrown church plots seeking a family member or just getting a sense of things like life expectancy and the pattern of
names.

Now of course most records are held on microfilm in local history libraries and increasingly are being digitalised.

All of which makes possible for the historian  to track individuals from the comfort of a kitchen table.

Now there are those who regret this development, but I am not one of them. What once took months of slow laborious work can be undertaken in a few hours and opens up parts of the country which would otherwise be a train away.

Of course there is still a thrill at holding an old document secure in the knowledge that perhaps only a handful of people have touched its pages in two centuries.

Likewise to stand in front of the gravestone of a long lost family member is to get close to them.

All of which I think has written me into a new series of stories, matching those buried in the grounds of St John’s with the stories of their lives from the census returns, rate books and casual comments of their contemporaries.

And for all those who like a bit of homework, I recommend a visit to the parish graveyard and a walk with history.

Pictures courtesy of Jean Gammons