Rational Rationing down at the gas showrooms with Miss Arscott of Whalley Range in 1940

Now this is one of those little bits of history which deserves to be brought out and explored.

It is another advert from my friend Sally who unearthed it from a back edition of the Manchester Evening News and dates from January 1940.

At first glance it is just a trailer for a cooking demonstration, but there is much more.

We are of course at the beginning of the Second World War and the country is once again coming to terms with food rationing, hence the very practical title of “RATIONAL RATIONING.”

The speaker was Dr. C. Arscott who was headmistress of Whalley Range School.

She had overseen its opening in 1939 and would be still be in post decades later.*

And Dr. Arscott was assisted by a team of cookery demonstrators who will have been familiar with the gas showrooms and similar events from before the war.

Manchester Corporation as part of the campaign to promote both the use of gas and electricity had hosted regular demonstrations during the 1930s.

So there you have it.

Picture; from the Manchester Evening News, January 1940, courtesy of Sally Dervan

*I am, yours sincerely, Miss Christine Arscott.... a story from Sally Dervan, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/i-am-yours-sincerely-miss-christine.html

This really is the last of Sidcup in 1961

Well just when I thought I wouldn’t post another Sidcup picture, here is the last in the series from Tuck and Sons.

They were marketing a collection of images of the High Street in 1961 and this one of the parish church was too good not to include.

Location; Sidcup, London


Picture; Parish Church, Sidcup, from the set Sidcup by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://www.tuckdb.org/,

Looking at the familiar ………… Barlow Moor Road

Now I like the way that what looks a familiar picture of a place quickly offers up a host of period detail.

So here we are, almost at the junction of Barlow Moor Road, and Mauldeth Road West with just a hint of Hardy Lane.

It comes from the collection of Andrew Holland and will date from the 1960s, although the more observant may be able to find clues to push that date back into the 50s.

Until recently this spot didn’t look that different.  To the right is the school and beyond it is the park and the tall elegant streetlamps resemble the present one.

But look more closely and there is much that places this I the past.

Today in front of the school is the modern admin block, and even more recently has come the metro stop and the tram lines.

All of which is obvious, but because I remember them well, there on both sides of the road are the Belisha Beacons, introduced in the 1930s, and way off in the distance is the cinema.

Someone I am sure will remember the telephone kiosk on the left of the picture and may even remember when it was taken away.

Location; Chorlton;

Picture; Barlow Moor Road, circa 1960s, from the collection of Andrew Holland

Just what Sir Nicholas would have seen in 1596 ………

Now, since September I have been reflecting on what has been going on down at Hough End Hall that much knocked about Elizabethan home of the Mosley family for nearly 200 years and a succession of Withington farmers till 1940.*

During the 1920s it was in danger of being demolished for a new superhighway, and after failed attempts to turn into a cultural centre it was acquired by a series of property developers who created the two big glass and concrete slabs which pretty much hid the place.

And now one of those abominations of desolation has gone, cleared away to be replaced by a low-rise supermarket.

All of which I have written about over the last couple of months as I charted the demise of the unloved office block.

And today Peter Topping was back and recorded the site minus the said abomination of desolation, allowing us to get a glance of the hall as it might have looked to Sir Nicholas Mosley in 1596, and to generations of people from Chorlton and Withington until the 1960s.

At which point I won’t rehearse the supermarket story, but just leave it at that, leaving you to visit all the past stories by following the link.

Although Picky Edna of Peverel Crescent is bound to make the observation that I am being a tad economical with history, as Sir Nicholas would not have owned a car or van or ever agreed to a school being sited behind his magnificent hall. 

Location; Mauldeth Road West

Pictures; looking at Hough End Hall, 2023, from the collection of Peter Topping

*Hough End Hall, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Hough%20End%20Hall

In Albert Square with dirty buildings and bus stops ……………1956

This is Albert Square in 1956, and while it would be a full thirteen years before I discovered it, the scene in front of us was pretty much the same.

Except of course for those soot blackened walls which were the product of a century of coal fires and other industrial pollution.

Not that Manchester was alone in this.  As a child playing in the local parks in Peckham, I could get pretty dirty from climbing the trees which like the buildings were caked in the stuff.

But when I arrived the Town Hall had just undergone a clean up.  And not before time.  The interior of the Town Hall had been cleaned in 1925, and although the Council in 1964 estimated it would cost £25,000 the project was delayed.

I am not quite sure why there was a time lapse, but Ian Nairn in an article for the Guardian in 1965,  had called for caution arguing that “such action could ruin the stone of many British buildings”, and asserting that some “town hall and stations have gone jet black, covered with a crystalline  deposit which sparkles in the sun and seems to defeat the gloom by annexing it to a deeper darkness”.*

Adding that in uncleaned these public buildings could “become lustrous pools of darkness in grime-free cities, appreciated for their innate qualities and freed from any moral taint of being ‘dirty’ or ‘clean’”.

It didn’t however seem a popular idea, and most people I met back in 1969 were very pleased with their newly cleaned Town Hall.

Whether they were equally happy after Albert Square was closed to buses and was no longer used as a car park is unknown to me.

But I suppose it must have taken a wee bit of adjustment, and that takes me back to the picture which offers up other fascinating details, like the presence of a J. Lyons Tea Room across the square, or the partial cleaning of the Northern Assurance Buildings.

There is more to discover but that I will leave for now.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Albert Square, 1956,Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY


*Think before you wash! Ian Nairn, The Guardian, June 27, 1965

Back in Sidcup in 1961, at the war memorial

I think this will be the last from the series of Sidcup in 1961.

This is the war memorial and our commercial photographer decided on just one more which was a close up of the parish church.

I have to confess I have never visited either but armed with this picture postcard I think I shall go looking for both next time I am home in Well Hall.

Picture; War Memorial, Sidcup, from the set Sidcup by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://www.tuckdb.org/