There are plenty of ways of telling the story of Greater Manchester’s history but no one has done it by using the tram network, and yet with eight tram routes and 99 stops it is the perfect way to do so.
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| The Milk Maid, from 1906 |
Each route and each stop have a heap of stories so find those stories, add a few more from the surrounding areas and very quickly they will by instalment build into a rich account of how we lived set against the big and small events.
Small events like visiting the Milk Maid bar in Piccadilly Plaza in the 1970s and gazing out at the historic Gardens which was once the site of a hospital
and before that a place of punishment. Or
taking the tram to New Islington via a railway station and discovering its textile
and canal past while pondering on how it changed its name and changed it back
again.
It is the fourth in the series, The History of Greater
Manchester By Tram and includes memorials, the old BBC building, with a look at
the new Mayfield Gardens and that nightmare for motorists which is Stoney Brew.*
There is the big stuff like the Manchester Blitz, but also
stories about the Doll’s Hospital and Sundays on a deckchair in Piccadilly
Gardens.
And having read book four you can collect the first three, which take you on a journey out of south Manchester, into the city centre and on to Victoria Railway Station.
In between there will be stops in rural Chorlton, industrial Cornbrook, the elegant St Peter's Square and those bold new civic enterprises from Manchester Town Hall to Exchange Square.
The books are available at £4.99 from Chorlton Bookshop, the
shop at Central Ref, St Peter's Square, or from us at www.pubbooks.co.uk
Location; Piccadilly Gardens, the Railway Station and New
Islington
Pictures; Out of Manchester Piccadilly, bound for Vrewe, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, The Milk Maid, from a 1906 picture postcard from Tuck and Son, courtesy of
Tuckdb, http://tuckdb.org/about
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| Out of Manchester Piccadilly bound for Crewe, 1979 |
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