The lost space age cafe .... of The Corn Exchange

To be strictly accurate the lost space age cafe stood in the centre of the Triangle.

And for those of a certain age the Triangle was the failed shopping out let in what had been the Corn Exchange.

Now l have written about the Corn Exchange, it's successor the Triangle and the food emporium which now occupies the interior.

And if you want more there are plenty of sites which will tell the collective history of all three.

But now l am interested in the space age pod in the centre of the hall. 

It was home to Cafe Nero and was accessed by a rickety bridge.

I loved it but it was doomed with the last make over.

And now l wonder it's fate.

Answers on a used Cafe Nero loyalty card.

Location; somewhere

Picture; the space age cafe, 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Corn Exchange https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Corn%20Exchange

Snaps of Chorlton No 10, farming some where in Chorlton

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

This is one of my favourite pictures in the collection and it is special for a number of reasons.

First it was lent to me by my friend Allan Brown who had lived here around the village green for his entire life and the seated couple are his grandmother and great grandfather which take his link with the township back into the 19th century.

But it is also because it is one of the few photographs of Chorlton which show people still working the land.

I don’t have a date or a location but we may be in the last quarter of the 19th century somewhere in Chorlton but it featured in my book The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.*


Picture; from the collection of Allan Brown

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton

Demonstrations and lost buildings ……. in Crown Square in 1983

I can’t now remember if the Peace Pledge was the document on the table, or just an application to join CND.

The original Peace Pledge dates back to the 1930s, and it is still there today, with signatories acknowledging "War is a crime against humanity. 

I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war”

That said the outbreak of the Second World War and the imperative to defeat Nazi Germany and later, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan placed the idea of renouncing war on the back burner.

But even a cynic will I think accept that working for peace is essential, more so as we enter again a period of uncertainty, with the Super Powers walking away from one Nuclear Arms agreement, new delivery systems for such weapons coming on stream, and growing tensions around the world.

And back in 1983 there was that same feeling that something had to be said against the installation of a new generation of nuclear missiles on the continent of Europe by the Soviet Union and the USA.

The march that started at All Saints and ended in Crown Square, was only one of countless such protests in Britain and elsewhere but it was one I documented.

The much bigger ones in London I also photographed but I have more images for the Manchester one.

In the course of sifting through the images I am surprised at just how many of my friends appeared in the pictures and how much the City has changed in the intervening thirty-eight years, including Crown Square.

Crown Square may have been a planner’s dream, but it was a dismal place where the only features were the weeds growing out of the paving stones, and the litter which fluttered around the benches on a windy day.

And looking at the pictures I had quite forgotten The Victoria, a place I only visited once, which I think was the day of this demonstration.

It was located on the ground floor of what had been the offices of Manchester Education Committee, which of course on that Saturday was closed.

Location; Manchester






Pictures; from a demonstration, October 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Mr Brasch, and the ongoing tale of our own brewery

Now this is another of those stories which is just about to give up its secrets.

The Bavarian Brewery, 1887

Most will know we had a brewery but my old friend Tricia has uncovered a bit more.

She told me, “I found the following entry in The Post Office Home County Directory for 1887.  Bavarian Brewery Co Ltd  (Moritz Brash Manager) High Street Eltham. 

Apparently it was originally  established under the name of Bavarian Brewing co in 1866 in Covington, Kentucky by Julius Deglow but became known as Bavarian Brewery in the 1870's. It was family owned until it was acquired by International Breweries in 1959. 

I wonder if this was the brewery at Outtrims Yard by Jubilee Cotts? I would love to find out more”.

The page with the clue, 1887

And so would I, and knowing Tricia she will uncover more.

A quick trawl of the records uncovered an entry in another directory for a Moritz Brasch at 6 Grove Terrace in High Road in Tottenham.

The date was 1882 and while there is an inconsistency in the way the name is spelt, I think this is our chap.

And that will allow us to find out more.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; extracts from The Post Office Home County Directory, Kent, 1886, sourced by Tricia Leslie

* The Post Office Home County Directory, Kent, 1886

**Post Office County Directory, Middlesex, 1882

The pungent aroma of Brylcreem and Old Spice …. defining an era

My Brylcreem days were limited.  

They lasted for just a few years when mother insisted on using the stuff and then adding a hair grip to keep the quiff in place.

I rebelled early and never went back although dad would regularly brush his hair through with a dab even on days when he stayed indoors.

But Old Spice was different, I used the aftershave, the deodorant and the talc from those distinctive shaped white and red jars.

On reflection I must have cut a powerful presence when meeting Pamela, Jennie or Ann on a Saturday night outside the Eltham ABC on the High Street.

But then my aroma would mix with their perfume and blend into a romantic haze.

Leaving for Manchester and college coincided with growing my hair, and the application of Old Spice became redundant.

I had all but forgotten that ritual of adding the stuff, but it all came flooding back the other day when on a warm summer’s evening I passed the man resplendent in his “going our clothes” accompanied by a cloud of male deodorant.

And in turn that took me back to a moment in the early 1990s when I visited a house full of bedsits each inhabited by a student and each with a different male deodorant which collectively hung in the air making a mis mash of smells.

Judging by the supermarket shelves “smellies” remain as popular, but I think not hair oil.  My generation long ago forsook it, if we really adopted it and nor do my kids, although occasionally one of them will use a gel.

It may be the end of an era, but at least it means the head rests on our armchairs are free from the grease stains which meant the addition of an embroidered cloth covering or even plastic head rest.

Of course I may have got it all wrong and out there countless heads will still have their Brylcreem addition.

We shall see.

Pictures; Advert for Brylcream and Nutriline, 1949, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and 1944 advertisement for the Old Spice Shaving Soap in a pottery mug, Old Spice After-Shaving Lotion, Old Spice Talcum, Old Spice Brushless Shaving Cream, and Old Spice Bath Soap, April 1944, The Saturday Evening Post, 1944, April 1, page 95, Author Shulton, Inc.

Snaps of Chorlton No 6 the parish churchyard before the landscaping, 1976

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

We are in the parish graveyard in 1976.  I have to say despite walking through the place many times I have no recollection of it looking like this.  And I pretend to be a historian.

Location; Chorlton







Picture; from the collection of Lois Elsden

When a bit of your past ….. gently taps your shoulder

 Yesterday I came across my wage slip for 1973 into 1974.

A 70's indulgence

For that first year as a teacher, I earned £1735, which breaks down into £144 .58 pence a month and the staggering £33 a week.

Trying to find how my £33 compared with average weekly earnings has proved a tad difficult but according to a series of Parliamentary questions in Hansard in Octover 1973 in The Minister regretted "that insufficient information is available from which to calculate national average wage rates in manufacturing industries” but quoted from a  a selection of trades which had been investigated that the weekly wage for men was £41.50 and for women came in at £21.*

All of which throws up that observation about dammed statistics, and which offers up the chance for heaps of people to pile in with their own research.

Instead, I have turned up the cost of a basket of things in 1973, ranging from a pint of beer at 18½p, milk at 5½p, bread at 11½p and the Daily Mirror coming in at 3p.

I could have added the big items like a black and white TV £61. 75 or an automatic washing machine [£106] and a Ford Cortina, [£1,075.00].

But these were items we didn’t have.  Our black and white telly was rented, our fridge was a gift.

Now, I am still trying to remember how much the mortgage was on our two up two down in Ashton-Under-Lyne the cost of which we borrowed from the Halifax for the princely sum of £4,500.  There will be someone who can do the sums but just not me.

And that is it.

Pictures; lava lamp, 2007, Saltmiser, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States license., 

 * Wages, Hansard Volume 874: debated on Tuesday 21 May 1974, https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1974-05-21/debates/45c0196a-c200-43fe-8c02-e9ec52c7d30e/Wages

**The Cost of things, https://www.retrowow.co.uk/social_history/70s/cost_1973.php

Radical Salford ................. Eddie and Ruth Frow

Now I grew up being taught about Kings and Queens, a fair few generals and more than a few “great men.”

Not that there is anything wrong in that providing all those other people get a look in.

These include the nurses, soldiers, cooks, bottle washers up and itinerant ice cream sellers.

After all these are the people who ultimately grew and cooked the food, fought the battles and toiled in the  factories, mills and mines so that the great and good could do what they did.

All of which brings me back Radical Salford written by Eddy and Ruth Frow.*

Both were committed to telling the stories of ordinary people, elevating those stories to stand beside the accounts of Wellington, Nelson and Henry V.

They were member of the Communist Party and in their long life accumulated a vast library of books by and on the labour movement.

I knew Mrs Frow through the National Union of Teachers and I once had the privilege of visiting their home on Kings Road in Stretford.

It was an unremarkable looking semi and yet inside the house was stacked full of books, pamphlets, newspapers and much more.

I remember going there to research the Bradford and Beswick Co-op and on the day I was there I came across student from Madrid reading up on material produced by a trade union branch on the Spanish Civil War and another reading up on working class poets at the time of Peterloo.

At which point I could write go into great detail exploring their lives but that has already been done so I shall just suggest you follow the link.

Before they died they came to an arrangement with Salford City Council to deposit their collection in a special library which became the Working Class Movement Library.***

Instead I will recommend their book on Salford’s History.

*Radical Salford: Episodes in Labour History Edmund and Ruth Frow, 1984

**Our Founders - Ruth and Eddie Frow, http://www.wcml.org.uk/about-us/our-founders--ruth-and-eddie-frow/

***Working Class Movement Library, http://www.wcml.org.uk/ Crescent, Salford M5 4WX

Shopping on Well Hall Road in the summer of 1907

Well Hall Parade in 1907

Now I am back with two more from Greenwich’s collection of old photographs.

They are both of Well Hall Road and are separated by just eight years.

Of the two the first offers up much more detail of what this row of shops looked like just over a century ago.

And it is a world away from today.

It starts with those ornate lamps protruding from the shop fronts which may have been lit by oil but I suspect will have been gas.

The chemist,  the fancy draper and the watchmaker, 1907

Then there are the large windows  with their iron frames which have just a hint of ornate decoration, which are topped by the names of the owners some of which will have been painted but others might have been etched on glass.

And finally there are the shop displays some of which adhere to that old Edwardian maxim of pile them high and sell them cheap.

Now I rather think it must either be a Sunday or early one morning as most of the shops have their blinds down, even though some have opened their large canopies.

On balance I would go for a Sunday afternoon sometime in the summer judging by the number of  pedestrians and the way the light is falling.

And for those with an even keener eye for detail there are no tram lines and of course a total absence of traffic bar the solitary horse and cart.

The caption says 1907 and assuming that there hasn’t ben a rapid turn over of shop keepers the shop on the corner with Greenvale Road opposite the Co-op was Mr William’s who was a cycle maker and seems to have left his shop signs propped up outside.

Little change in 1915 on Well Hall Road

And using the same street directory for 1908 it is possible to identify all the shops and their owners up to the chemists run by the London Drug Company.

Nor has much changed in the eight years that takes us up to the second picture taken in 1915.

By then the tram has arrived, there is a little more traffic which might just be explained by the fact that the shops are open and there are a fair few people about.

It is easy to forget that our parade of shops would have been as colourful as those of today and each would have displayed their names on the awnings which on this sunny day were pretty much all down.

Picture; Well Hall Road in 1907, GRW 378, and 1915, GWR380 http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/ courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

The story of CC 9305 and the search for the Glenton 121 Group

This is CC 9305, and its story is bound up with the history of public transport and the leisure industry from the 1930s, but it is also intimately linked to our family.

CC 9305, 2025

I came across its existence by pure chance earlier in the week and tracked it down to Dover Transport Museum where it has resided for 40 years.*

The chairman of the museum told me that it “is a 1929 Dennis GL fitted with a "toastrack" body by J. Roberts for Llandudno Urban District Council who used it for tours of the Great Orme until 1953 and was acquired in the 1960s by Glenton Tours of Peckham Rye and still carries the Glenton Livery”.

And in those two sentences we cover the early years of motor manufacture, the emergence of coaching holidays and two companies which are part of that history.

CC 9305 was made by Dennis Brothers Limited which my Wikipedia tells me “was an English manufacturer of commercial vehicles based in Guildford. It is best remembered as a manufacturer of buses, fire engines and lorries (trucks) and municipal vehicles such as dustcarts. All vehicles were made to order to the customer's requirements and more strongly built than mass production equivalents. Dennis Brothers was Guildford's main employer.”.**

Happy chara travellers, undated

And as you do I followed this up with a visit to Grace's Guide To British Industrial History which chronicles in great detail the emergence of the firm from one which began in 1885 making bicycles and progressed through motor cycles to a variety of vehicles which whizzed across our roads during the twentieth century.***

So, to CC 9305 made in 1929 and customised as a touring vehicle for a local authority doing the business until 1953. It was just a motorised char a banc replacing the older horse drawn version.

In the collection I have pictures of both which often feature groups of day trippers out for a “jolly” into the countryside or on one of those beery excursions to the seaside via as many pubs as could be found.  

Horse drawn chara, undated

We called the latter "beanos" and were often a workplace adventure, although I guess any organizations went in for the day trip out taking in beauty sights, churches or the houses of the great and the good.

And that brings us to dad whose career was in the leisure industry ferrying happy and maybe not so happy holiday makers across the country and beyond onto the Continent.

Like Toad of Toad Hall, he was fascinated by motor cars and having forsworn a place at grammar school was working with buses and coaches by 1922 and always described himself on official forms as either a “Motor engineer” or “Motor mechanic”.

And some time in the 1930s he left the North East for London securing a position as a driver for Glenton Tours and quickly became one of the two drivers taking Glenton coaches across Europe, to France, the Low Countries, and on to Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

Only the war interrupted the holidays, but with the return of peace dad and Glenton Tours were back on the road.

Travelling with Glenton's, 1963

The firm was never backward at promoting themselves and they regularly advertised in the quality newspapers, often with a lightness which suggested a company who mixed seriousness with the silly.  So, in 1963 the Observer carried an advert announcing “Snobs & Char-a-bancs are out of date.  Dowagers and flower sellers equally enjoy Glenton Coach Cruises.  Knowledgeably planned routes, first class hotels and superb char-a-bancs (sorry coaches).***

Dad and Glenton travellers, Gindleward, Switzerland, undated

I don’t know if these ads worked but mother always liked them and was impressed with the anonymous copy writer.

And some time around “Snobs & Char-a-bancs” Glenton’s acquired CC 9305, gave it the company livery and used it to promote the firm.

That work will have been done in their garage in Nunhead and given that dad worked in the paint shop in the winter months he may well have been involved with its makeover.

Back almost where we started in Dover with CC 9305

All of which makes CC 9305 special and rekindled long forgotten stories from dad about the Glenton’s Char-a-banc.

He retired in 1986, and sometime after the firm closed down, just when I have yet to find out, but there is a clue which comes from the archive of the Dover Transport Museum in the form of a letter dated 1996.

In that letter a Ms Kenny comments on the purchase of one of the coaches and refers to “Glenton 121 Group”.

So far, I have only found a few references to the group and pretty much all are a record of them participating in vintage vehicle rallies.

But someone will know, and with that I will get a bit closer to the story of Glenton Tours and where they fit in the history of the luxury coach trade.

And a long the way I may find out a bit more of CC 9305, whose story goes dark between 1953 and its acquistion by Glenton's.  I am hoping that the archives of the Dover Transport Museum my reveal details of the lost years, and here I have to thank the museum for their help in revealing its history,  allowing me to reproduce a picture of the vehicle and their promise to trawl their records for more information.

Which in turn will contribute to Glenton’s story.*****

Doing the biz of having fun, undated

Well, we shall see.

Location; with Glenton Tours and Dover Transport Museum which is open from 1030 to 1630 every Wednesday, Sunday and Bank Holiday during the summer and autumn of 2025

Pictures; Glenton Tours memorabilia from the Simpson collection, CC 9305, courtesy of Dover Transport Museum, the horsedrawn char a banc, undated, from the Lloyd Collection and happy holidaymakes, undated courtesy of Ron Stubley

*Dover Transport Museum, https://www.dovertransportmuseum.org.uk/

**Dennis Brothers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Brothers

***Grace's Guide To British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Dennis_Brothers

****The Observer, April 21st, 1963

***** Glenton Tours, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Glenton%20Tours

At Burndon Park in the September of 1937 with the Wanderers 4 goals up.

I have been rediscovering the photographs of Humphrey Spender.

During 1937-38 he recorded the lives of working people in Bolton as part of the mass observation project.

It is something I wrote about recently when I featured BOLTON WORKTOWN, Photography and Archives from the Mass Observation*

I first came across Humphrey Spender in 1982 when someone bought me a book of his pictures.**

It is a book I never tired of looking at and it was one that I thought I had lost.  Well perhaps put away safely, so safe that I had no idea where.

This loss was not helped by colleagues at Bolton Library and Museum Service who said it was difficult now to obtain a copy.  An observation confirmed by a glance at Amazon where it was being offered  at anything between £30 and £60.  All of which made me even more gloomy given that mine was a first edition.

All however is now sunny because after an evening of hunting it turned up on a bookshelf.

And I have decided I shall feature another of the pictures from their online collection.

It is one I like.

According to the caption it was taken on September 25th 1937 when Bolton Wanderers reserves took on Wolverhampton reserves at Burndon Park in Bolton, and Bolton won 4-0.

I would like to know at what moment Mr Spender took the picture. Perhaps at the point that the home team were cruising to their final goal, and the smiles of the spectators say it all especially that of the man who has turned his back and shares the happiness of the moment.

Picture, courtesy of Bolton Library and Museum Service, who hold the copyright for this image, 1993.83.08.07

BOLTON WORKTOWN, Photography and Archives from the Mass Observation*, http://boltonworktown.co.uk/

***Worktown People, Photographs from Northern England, 1937-38, Humphrey Spender, Falling Wall Press

Snaps of Chorlton, from Neale Road off towards the Meadows 1963-64

An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

It was taken in the winter of 1963-4 from the back upstairs window of Ida Bradshaw’s house on Neale Road.

Today the view would be obscured by the flats of Lawn Green, but back then it was all that was left of the farm yard, workshops and land of the farm which had fronted the parish graveyard for two hundred years.

To the right in the background is the Bowling Green Hotel, to the left the houses which face Brookburn Road. And away in the distance are the meadows. What is perhaps remarkable are the buildings on the horizon just left of centre.

These I think were the homes of the sewage workers and stood just to the left of the little footbridge across Chorlton Brook. It is still possible to make out a break in the hedge where the garage of the properties was situated. There are those in Chorlton who remember living in one of them.

Location; Chorlton, Manchester

Picture; from the back upstairs window on Neale Road 1963, from the collection of Ida Bradshaw

One Roman poet …… a heap of poems and ...... a story

 Today I am renewing my friendship with Catullus.

2016

To be more accurate I am reading the biography of my favourite Roman poet.

I first came across him in 1966 along with the 16th century poet John Donne and they have stayed with me ever since.

Both appealed to a sixteen-year-old with their mix of funny, irreverent and love poetry, and anyone who has fallen in love, only to lose that love will remember just how bitterly intense the feelings are when you are a teenager.

1966 edition

All of which brings me back to Poem 8 with its angry response to an ended affair

“Break off 

                    Fallen Catallus

     time to cut losses,

bright days shone once

               you followed a girl

               here and there

............................................

now a woman is unwilling

Follow suit

a clean break

hard against the past”*

So that’s it.

Catullus’ Bedspread: The Life of Rome’s Most Erotic Poet, Daisy Dunn, 2016

"A biography of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Rome’s first great poet, a dandy who fell in love with another man’s wife and made it known to the world through his verse.

2004 edition

This superb book gives a rare portrait of life during one of the most critical moments in world history through the eyes of one of Rome’s greatest writers.

Living through the debauchery, decadence and spectacle of the crumbling Roman Republic, Catullus remains famous for the sharp, immediate poetry with which he skewered Rome’s sparring titans – Pompey, Crassus and his father’s friend, Julius Caesar. But it was for his erotic, scandalous but often tender love elegies that he became best known, inspired above all by his own lasting affair with a married woman whom he immortalised in his verse as ‘Lesbia’. A monumental figure for poets from Ovid and Virgil onwards, his journey across youth and experience, from Verona to Rome, Bithynia to Lake Garda, is traced in Daisy Dunn’s brilliant portrait of life during one of the most critical moments in world history”.**

Pictures; cover Catullus’ Bedspread: The Life of Rome’s Most Erotic Poet, 2016, cover of The Poems of Catullus, Translated by Peter Whigham Penguin Classics, cover shows a portrait of Arteidorus from Hawara, Egypt, second century, British Museum 1974, reprint, and Catullus The Poems Translated by Peter Whigham Penguin Classics, 2004, cover shows a detail from a Roman mosiac 3rd-4th century AD in the Piazza Armenia villa of Maximinorous. Sicily, photoo AKGO/Eric Lessing

*Poem Eight, The Poems of Catullus Penguin Books, 1966

** Catullus’ Bedspread: The Life of Rome’s Most Erotic Poet, Daisy Dunn, 2016

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.

When a chunk of your history takes an unexpected turn ….. Glenton Tours

I have lived with the story of Glenton Tours for 75 years.*

Luggage label, undated

It was a coach company, offering tours of Britain and the Continent from the 1920s and was at the luxury end of the market.

They began when an estate agent in south east London settled a debt by accepting two coaches and entering the touring business.

Dad & Elizabeth, undated

It was the right thing to do at the right moment, as the growing middle class with money to spend sought holidays which combined a bit of culture, with a lot of sightseeing.

 Added to which Glenton’s promised to do the lot, and the lot included the itinerary, the hotels and meals with drivers and couriers who were pleasant, knowledgeable and always attentive.

In the age before cheap air travel and decades before the internet this was the way to see Britain and a host of European countries. 

Tours lasted between seven, twelve and fifteen days, with plenty to take in and free time built into the journey.

Brochure, 1951

And our dad drove their coaches across the UK and on to France, the Low Countries as far as Switzerland and Northern Italy.

He joined the firm sometime in the early 1930s and continued working for them until he retired in 1986.

Very early on in his career he was chosen as one of the two drivers to take coaches into Europe, and apart from a break during the last war, dad did the business and was highly thought of by the firm, his colleagues and the passengers.

And we grew up with that job, which from spring through to autumn would see him leave one morning to return seven, twelve or fifteen days later.

My treat when younger was to be picked up by him at the end of a tour and after the passengers had been dropped off Dad and I would go up to the garage in Nunhead where the coach would be serviced before starting all over again in the morning.

Now, while we had accumulated a lot of memorabilia from Dad what was missing was the detailed story of the firm itself.

And despite years of research, I had drawn almost a blank, until someone who worked with him got in touch. The message was simple enough with “I ran Glenton Tours until 1985. I am happy to supply information” and the promising news that “the archives are held in the Dover Transport Museum”.**

Dad,ready for the off, undated

So the next chapter is about to open up.

And like all such new twists, the story will offer up much about Glenton's along with how some of us spent our holidays during the last century, and maybe even something about our Dad.

We shall see.

And just before the story went live the museum got back to me with a picture of a vehicle Glenton's acquired in the 1960s. 

It is CC 9305 which Mr. Flood of the museum tells me "is a 1929 Dennis GL fitted with a 'toastrack' body by J.Roberts for Llandudno Urban District Council who used it for tours of the Great Orme until 1953. CC9305 was acquired in the 1960s by Glenton Tours of Peckham Rye and still carries the Glenton Livery".

Now l remember Dad talking about it and given that in the winter he worked in the paintshop of the garage he may well have worked on it.

CC 9305 which is a 1929 Dennis GL, bought by Glenton's in 1960

All of which adds to the excitement of the new chapter.

Pictures; Glenton Tours memorabilia from the Simpson collection, and the Glenton's coach, courtesy of Dover Transport Museum

* Glenton Tours, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Glenton%20Tours

**Dover Transport Museum, https://www.dovertransportmuseum.org.uk/

Reading the newspaper in Bolton in 1938

It is odd to think that in some ways the world I grew up in is far closer to that of my parents than the one I have shared with my children.

My parents and I belong to the wireless generation, remember ice on the inside of windows in the winter and accepted that public transport was the way you got around.

Now I could go on but there is always that danger that it becomes a bout of nostalgic tosh or becomes a political statement of the passage from a collectivist society to one where the overwhelming measure of success is wealth and fame.

So instead I shall reflect on these  pictures of the Reading Room from the Work Town collection.*

And before anyone accuses me of being either a tad reactionary or just dead old I am the first to enjoy visiting our local library. It is bright, light and unlike that blanket of serious silence you used to endure it is a place where children are encouraged to enjoy books, act out the stories they have read and want to come back to.

It’s also where the traditional book of reference sits beside a bank of computers offering a link to the world.

Now back in 1937 the Bolton Public Library did offer that all encompassing experience it is just not one that most people would feel comfortable in today.

It is all very spartan which may be because this was temporary reading room while the new one was being built in the Civic Centre.

This new library along with a museum and art gallery opened in 1939 and was designed by local architects, Bradshaw Gass & Hope.

But I remember something similar in our own Public Libray in New Cross in the 1950s.  The rows of newspapers and the big wooden tables and above all that powerful smell of disinfectant which I am convinced was also sprayed on the books.

It had a slightly sweet smell and so permeated the books that it still lingers on the odd copy sixty years after mother borrowed and forgot to return them. To open these volumes of the Deptford Public Library is to be transported back.

It is a feeling reinforced by the sharp lighting and above all by the fact that no one seems to take their hat or coat off.  They have wandered into a place which seems to be saying “by all means come in, do what you have to do but by golly don’t get comfortable.”

And under those stern notices to refrain from smoking and above all to be silent you can hear the pages turn and that resounding noise as a book is dropped onto a table or a chair is scraped across the wooden floor.

It is not a library that my children would recognise but it is familiar enough to me and no doubt to my parents.

Pictures; courtesy of Bolton Library Museum Services, 1993.83.19.22, 1993.83.12.21 & 1993.83.12.20

*The pictures are from Work Town which were part of a Mass observation “project founded in the late 1930s by a group of young writers and intellectuals, led by Tom Harrisson. They believed that British society was deeply divided, with very little understanding or consideration given to the lives and opinions of ordinary people.

The first focused study carried out by Mass Observation began in 1937 in Bolton, which they called Worktown.

Bolton was chosen as a ‘typical’ northern working class town, and Harrisson recruited a team of men and women who tried to capture a vast range of information about the local population using observation techniques."

They remain a wonderful and powerful record of life in the industrial north during the late 1930s and can be seen online at http://boltonworktown.co.uk/

Snaps of Chorlton No 4 Bringing down the chimney of the Queen and Pasley circa 1990s or perhaps even earlier

An occasional series featuring  private and personal photographs of Chorlton.

I can’t remember exactly when this was but I reckon it was in the 1990s and points to that simple observation that much of our recent past slides away without us bothering to record it.

Now I have written about the Queen and Pasley Laundry along with the other ones that served us including the one on Beech Road and others on Manchester Road and Wilbraham Road.*

But the Queen and Pasley was the biggest and was still in business in the late 1980s on Crossland Road.

My old friend Tony Walker took the picture which may have been linked to an article which was published in Chorlton Green in 1985 or was taken later.

I can’t now remember if this was during a repair of the big chimney or just prior to its demolition.  And I pretend to be a historian.

Picture; from the collection of Tony Walker

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%27s%20lost%20laundries%20and%20launderettes

Annie Morris, Lady Kirby and a neat little history lesson

Annie Morris circa 1900

What connects a reward issued by the Lord Mayor of London at the height of the Whitechapel Murders with Avery Hill and Mrs Morris of Court Yard?

This was the question I posed last week and now it is time to reveal the story.

According to a leading newspaper
"The Lord mayor, acting upon the advice of the Commissioner of City Police, has, in the name of the Corporation of London, offered a reward of £500 for the detection of the Whitechapel murderer, the last crime having been committed within the jurisdiction of the city.”

But he was not the only person to come forward with a reward and the same newspaper reported that “Colonel Sir Alfred Kirby, J.P., the officer commanding the Tower Hamlets Battalion Royal Engineers has offered, on behalf of his officers, a reward of £100, to anyone who will give information that will lead to the discovery and conviction of the perpetrator of the recent murders committed in the district in which his regiment is situated.”

And it is Colonel Sir Alfred Kirby who is the link to Avery Hill or to be more precise his wife, Lady Kirby who regularly visited Avery Hill with her husband to dine with Colonel North who lived there.

Their food would have been prepared by Annie Morris who lived at Court Yard but worked as the family cook.

Avery Hill today

I doubt that Annie and Lady Kirby ever passed through the gateway at Avery Hill at the same time but even so they were bound together by that simple relationship of cook and guest.

The one was a resident of Eltham and the other a visitor.

But that is not all. Almost a century later the descendants of Annie Morris and Lady Kirby met by chance both shared an interest in painting and began attending art classes together.

They became friends and discovered the link with the past, a link which has a nice twist.  Annie Morris’s great granddaughter is my friend Jean who readily admits she “hates cooking” while Pam whose great grandmother was Lady Kirby loves entertaining and so Jean is regularly wined and dined by Pam and her husband.

Jean and Pam 2013

It is one of those quirky turn of events that the great granddaughter of the cook at Avery Hill should in turn be served by the great granddaughter of Lady Kirby.

Now I could go off and explore the neat reversal of roles and examine the social changes which in just a few generations transformed the relationship between the descendant of a cook and a Lady.

But I won’t, that is perhaps for another time.

Instead I shall just leave with that thought that history is messy and it always has a habit of surprising you.

Picture;s of Avery Hill, 2013, Annie Morris, circa 1900 and Pam and Jean today courtesy of Jean Gammons

Mrs Keal and the mystery of 419 Barlow Moor Road

Leon's, 2015

It has taken sometime but I am closer to solving the mystery behind the date on the wall of  419 Barlow Moor Road.

Most people will know the place as Leon’s the fabric shop but I have long wondered why the building carries the date 1885 when it was built around 1915.

The Leon family began trading there in the 1990s and before that it had been the Addressal  Print Works which is listed in the directories by 1921 and for an even shorter time between 1915-17 it was the Chorlton Laundry owned by Mrs Keal.

Not that this helps with the date of 1885 which appears above the door along with the word Established.

Addressall Printing Works, 1959

Now it is just possible that the date refers to either establishment of the laundry or the printing company but there is no reference to Addressal in any of the directories in the late 19th century and any way the stone lettering looks like it was done when the building went up.

So I rather think we must be with Mrs Keal who was running a laundry business on Beech Road in 1894.

That said there is no evidence that she was trading before that date and in 1881 Mr and Mrs Keal were living in Croydon.

But by 1889 they had settled in Chorlton and were running a business from nu 30 Wilbraham Road.
Mr Keal described himself variously as a brick layer or builder and I suppose it is just possible that the date 1885 refers to the start up of his business.

Either way in1915 Mrs Keal was in that building on Barlow Moor Road operating the Chorlton Laundry.

Now I can’t be exactly sure when she moved in but in the April of that year Mr Keal of “Brookbank Bridge Barlow Moor-road died at Chorlton Laundry Brookbank Bridge.”

London Gazette, February 1917

And just over a year later the business went bankrupt.*

According to Mrs Keal at the bankruptcy hearing in the February of 1917 “the main cause of her coming into court was the shortness of loose working capital when she removed to her new premises in Barlow Moor Road after having carried on a similar business on less extensive lines for many years in Beech Road, Chorlton.

Mrs Keal further stated that after she had expended over £900 on new machinery so that she might undertake the laundry work of the military hospitals in Manchester a large proportion of the work was undertaken from her.”

But the “military authorities had established laundries under their own control.  Difficulties in the way of getting sufficient labour had it impossible for her to get the work done as promptly as the hospitals required [and] she could not overcome these difficulties by paying higher wages.”

She went on to say that “she had taken steps to strengthen the weak point in her business affairs which had been pointed out by her accountant.”

But it seems that was it and she finished up the business and moved to St Annes-on-Sea where she died in 1935 leaving £2625.

It is just possible that the date refers not to Mrs Keal's Laundry but to the building business of her husband which may well date from 1885.

And it t maybe the Leon family can help who could have the deeds to the building which will offer up its history.

Peter painted the picture of the building and while there he spotted the story of the Leon family which is displayed inside the shop.

It is a fascinating account of one family business stretching back across the last century and so by the time I get round to writing their story they may well be able to offer up a missing document.

Well we shall see.

Additional research from Tony Goulding

Picture; Addressall Printing Works (originally built for laundry), House adjoining used as office for printers, RE Stanley, m17530 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Painting; Leon's Barlow Moor Road, © 2015 Peter Topping,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*First Meetings and Public Examinations, The London Gazette, February 16, 1917

**Laundry Proprieters Ill-luck. Failed with a surplus of over £3000, Manchester Evening News March 6 1917