The mystery at Ivygreen ..........

Now I know I am on Ivygreen Road and the date will be around 1980 but exactly where almost defeats me.

So, hence the mystery.

My very first inclination was that I took the pictures at the top end, but that wouldn’t have given me that clear view across to the pumping station.

All of which means that we are at the Bowling Green end, and this is the site of Allan Court.

And that offers up a surprise because it means that the blocks of flats post date my arrival, although I have no recollection of them being built.

But the entrance in the photograph corresponds to what is now the drive into the car park so I am fairly certain where I was on that winter day in 1980.

Added to which other pictures in the batch include views of the rear of the parish churchyard and a shot up St Clements Road to the village green.

So it follows that I was at the bottom of Ivygreen.

At which point there may be those that mutter about a non story, but not so, because both images give a very clear idea of what the meadows once looked like, before the trees and bushes were planted and before they matured to make it impossible to see far away across to the river.

All that we now need, is for someone to describe what had been here on this bit of land beside the road.

I rather think it was a builder’s yard which may have belonged to Joe Scott, and at one time also used by the Walker Brothers who later moved into the barn at Higginbotham’s Farm.

Well we shall see

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Ivygreen Road, 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Goodbye to the ABC in the High Street .................. 1972

Now this picture postcard of the old ABC cinema in the High Street has a lot going for it.

For a start there is that simple observation that few of us send picture postcards today.

Mobile phones with cameras which can snap and send an image around the world in seconds have pretty much done for the old picture postcard.

Of course long before this technological whizz the postcard had its day.  The cost of postage and the demise of the frequent postal collection and delivery meant that bit by bit they were used less and less.

Unlike the start of the last century when if you wanted to arrange to meet in the afternoon or tell family you’d be home later that day the postcard was the thing.

And the early 70s I guess was the cross over point when the sale and use of the picture card was in decline.

Not that the Eltham Society thought so when they produced this one which was number 4 in a series on Eltham and may well have been chosen to mark the passing of this picture house which had opened its doors in the August of 1922 and closed half a century later.

I have fond memories of the place, it was after all a safer choice than the Odeon to take a girlfriend given that we lived just a few minute’s walk from the roundabout and you never wanted to encounter family on your first date.

Its passing caught me unawares.  At the beginning of 1972 I went back to College in Manchester and when I returned at Easter it had shown its last film and gone dark.

I can’t now remember if I took in a film at the cinema before I left home but given that the ABC was showing the newly released Steptoe and Son I don’t think I did.

And that may gives us a day in January for when the photograph was taken.

Of course given the large number of young people waiting outside it could be a Saturday but as the film was classified an A and there are plenty of adults accompanying the children it is equally likely that it will be a matinee in what was left of the holidays.

So I guess I shall have to go looking in the local press for January 1972 and in the meantime reflect on the wonderful collection of images held by the Greenwich Heritage Centre, from where I found this one.

Pictures, Eltham ABC, 1972, GRW 1647, http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/ courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

On borrowed time, with tram car 562 in the summer of 1938

 I do have to say that this is one of my favourites from the collection not least because there is so much going on in the picture.

Now it is August 2nd 1938 and car 562 is clanking its way along its route to Albert Square.

Once not that long ago its driver would have only had horse drawn vehicles and pedestrians to contend with but by the summer of 1938 it was pretty much free for all with cars, vans and lorries.

And the writing was on the wall for the stately tall tram.  Ten years before our picture, the decision had been taken to replace the 53 route from Stretford to Cheetham Hill with motor buses and just over a decade later in 1949 the last trams were running on their last journeys.  According to one source the switch to buses on the 53 route was to increase passenger numbers by 11%.*

Added to this was the real need to put in substantial capital investment if the trams were to continue to run and so in 1937 the Corporation took the decision to phase out the tram in favour of the bus and trolley bus.

And if had not been for the outbreak of war two years later there would have been no tram on route 38B passing Grosvenor Street.

It would mean the end of a network of 292 miles of tram track which in 1928 carried passengers on 953 trams across 46 routes. And of course the end of that delicate tracery of cables suspended above the roads which gave power to the trams.

You can of course be swept along by such nostalgic tosh, so back to the summer of 1938 on Grosvenor Street.  Our tram is sandwiched between the van of Ball & Lawrence Ltd who dealt in carpets and that swift moving car crossing car its path.

And then there are the adverts, some of which just fade into the background but deserve mention.  In the shop directly in front of the van and by the speeding car are displays for Craven and Players cigarettes while partially hidden from view is a reminder that the railway company offered routes to Liverpool and North Wales.

But for anyone with an eye to the date and to outbreak of the war a year later it is the advert to “Join the Modern Army” which has a special significance.

Picture; from the collection of Alan Brown

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Corporation_Tramways

1816 .... the year without a summer

1816 should have been a good year, it was after all the first year of peace since Waterloo, the battle that had ended the long wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France which had run with only a short break since 1792.

But it was according to one writer, “the year without a summer, when weeks passed into months and the sun did not appear to ripen the produce [and] there was just torrential rain and thunderstorms.”*

Leading to harvest failures, distress and unrest across Europe and the US.

The terrible weather was connected to the “biggest volcanic eruption in recorded history, which had taken place on the other side of the world.”

According to the agricultural records ** for 1816 it was a wet summer with a very poor harvest with snow lying on the ground into mid April.

 The temperature for July and August was 4-8⁰ below average and the heavy rains were accompanied by strong winds, which meant that the harvests began late with the result that in the Midlands and the North corn was still in the fields in November. Sheep rot was prevalent, hay scarce and much livestock sold for lack of keep.

All of which is easy to gloss over until you try to fix this to people’s lives. The cost of wheat rose to 78s 6d a quarter which would have a real impact on the cost of bread which remained a staple part of the diet of most families.

Here in the township we were dependant on agriculture. Of the 119 families, 96 were directly engaged in farming and another 16 engaged in trade, manufacture and crafts. So a poor harvest impacted not only on those who harvested the crops, but the blacksmith, wheelwright and countless others.

Only the people of plenty might escape hardship and for them the lack of food in the community raised the spectre of unrest and trouble.

There are accounts of people walking from Wales into England begging for food, along with demobbed soldiers wandering the country looking for work.

The unrest is reflected in the resumption of Luddite activity in the North, food riots and protests in London where some carried the French revolutionary flag.

Little in the way of evidence for the township has survived although the records for Stretford show the demand for poor relief. The death rate that year was not exceptional and generally reflected what we might expect with younger people dying than any other age group and these were concentrated mostly in the summer months.

I doubt that we escaped lightly from that year without a summer but as yet the township has not revealed its secrets.

 We would have seen high levels of ash in the atmosphere which would have led to the spectacular sunsets seen in the paintings of Turner but more will be revealed through more diligent research.

Picture; Chichester Canal, circa 1828, J.M.Turner


*Jad Adams, 1816 The Year Without A Summer, BBC Who Do you Think You Are Magazine, Issue 60 May 2012
**Agricultural Records J.M.Stratton 1969

Saturday Morning Pictures at Well Hall Odeon in 1965

You never quite forget that mix of noise and anticipation which was Saturday Morning Pictures.

It started when the manager asked if everyone was happy, continued into the competitions and lasted through most of the morning.

It is easy to over romanticise what was just another way the cinema chain could create more revenue while introducing a young audience to the magic of the big screen.

And once you were hooked you were hooked for life.  The cycle might begin with Saturday Morning Pictures but quickly moved on to the “date” on the back row and in the fullness of time to visits with your children to Disney and of course to Saturday mornings all over again this time dropping off and collectiing a new generation of Saturday children.

But you can also be over cynical even given that what you saw was pretty dire.

I can’t say I ever enjoyed those stories of daring do by young children or the equally improbable tales of faithful dogs and intelligent dolphins saving the day.

I do remember a series which mixed the theme of Ancient Rome, alien invaders and a particularly nasty dictator.

On reflection it was probably shot on a back lot using B actors and involved lots of oddly dressed men riding on horseback across dusty plains.

You knew it was cheap because the plot didn’t follow a logical path and events often passed from bright daylight to late afternoon and back again in the course of one horse race.

All that said they were fun.  There were the cartoons and films, along with live events ranging from talent competitions and fancy dress to the appearance of a well known celebrity and it was always someone’s birthday which was met with a loud shout.

I am not sure whether it would still work today but from the 1940s into the 60s they were a way of life for many children with that added advantage that it freed up time for the adults. In the 1950’s the average weekly attendance at  children’s cinema matinees was over 1,016,000 with 1735 cinemas holding cinema matinees for children.*

The ABC chain began a special club in the 1940s for their ABC Minors complete with badge and song and birthday cards.  It cost just 6d.

I can’t now remember which cinema I went to, but I still have vivid memories of collecting my sisters from the Well Hall Odeon and getting there a little early just to catch the last ten minutes of whatever was going off.

They were never ABC Minors, after all when you lived just minutes away from the Odeon there was no point tramping all the way up to the High Street to the ABC on the corner of Plassey Place.

So that was my Saturday mornings in Eltham till mum judged that Stella and Elizabeth were old enough to take my two younger sisters without me.

I don’t suppose my mornings at the flicks had lasted that long and nor did theirs. They were probably one of the last generations to enjoy that mix of noise and anticipation in the dark accompanied by that warm smell of cinema disinfectant, and popcorn.

There may still be Saturday Morning Pictures but it costs a lot more than 6d and I can't think they will be the same, but then perhaps I am just old and biased.

* Wheare Committee http://terramedia.co.uk

Pictures, Well Hall Odeon, courtesy of Eltham, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eltham/210661675617589?fref=ts and  ABC Minors Badge, ABC Minors children’s cinema postcard Happy Birthday, 1948, BD084660
University of Essex, http://collections.ex.ac.uk/repository/handle/10472/3222?show=full
http://cinematreasures.org/video/abc-minors-matinee

Capturing a moment on Corporation Street in the December of 1902

It took some working out but I know exactly where I am and when.

We are on Corporation Street just after it has crossed Market Street and if we hitched a lift with the chap on the wagon as it passed M. Drapkin we would be heading towards Victoria Station.

Today this corner is dominated by Marks and Spencer’s, but then it was a collection of shops and offices which included at number 1 a chemist at number 3 Drapkin Major & Co tobaconists, and a music seller at number 5.  Beyond that stretched out more offices before Corporation Street crossed Cannon Street, skirting the Corn Exchange and passing on to Victoria Station.

Of course all that has gone, swept away by the redevelopment which included the Arndale on the opposite side of the road and Exchange Square which pretty much stands on top of Cannon Street.

I won’t bore you with the detective story but placing the wagon and tram car 327 on Corporation Street on December 7th 1902 required a sifting excercise.  Drapkin’s had a number of tobacconists in the centre of the city but only one by a music shop and this was on Corporation Street.

I suppose the clincher was the tram with its destination board showing a route from Victorai Station and on to Albert Square.

Now my sense of direction is not very good and it took a bit of time to place the tram in the right direction and square it up with the buildings behind.

What helped was Goad’s Fire Insurance map which details many of the properties in the city centre including the materials used and the design of the property.

So as they say the boy got there in the end. And I rather think the pillar box in front of the shop selling “Pianos by the best makers for cash or hire” is in the same spot as the one which survived the IRA bomb.

This was the main route from Albert Square to Victoria Station and Cheetham Hill and so was a busy place, along with the people thronging the streets there are plenty of  horse drawn vehicles that catch the eye which is a reminder that as late as the start of the last century most goods were still transported by horse.

There were stables, vets and blacksmiths still operating in the centre of the city to support these horses and all the railway companies had their own stables close to their warehouses.

But it is that tram that draws me long after I have clocked the contents on the wagons or gazed at the pedestrians.

The tram driver turns to talk to the conductor while on the top deck amongst the animated conversations one man leans on the rail, his attention caught by something on the street below which maybe the young woman just at the extreme edge of the picture.

Nor is he alone for another on the top deck  looks down in the same general direction.

And while all this is going on one passenger chooses that moment to leave the rear of the tram.

There is just one little point that I can’t quite resolve and that is the date.

I902 seems fine but I rather think we can not be in December given the lack of overcoats, but that is down to who ever wrote the caption and after a century there seems little point in shouting about that.

So I shall finish with one last tiny bit of detective work for which again I will never know the answer but down to our right to the right might just be the subject of our man on the tram''s gaze.

She is that young woman at the extreme edge of the picture.  Dressed in a blouse and fashionable hat she may have just turned on to Corporation Street from Market Street.  But as there will be those who accuse me of idle speculation I will let all that hang in the air.

Picture; from the collection Alan Brown

Passing an old landmark

Now I can’t remember what prompted me to take to the river or who I was with.

I am guessing it will have been one of my sisters, and we may just have been filling in a few hours.

But I am glad I did, because back 39 years ago I took a lot of pictures from the boat which are all that is left of much of what we saw.

Location; the Thames

Picture; on the River, 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Gentrification …… Beech Road ….. and those posh people who lived here

How easy it is make judgements about how Chorlton and Beech Road in particular have changed. 

Chorlton Row, circa 1880s

And in those debates came that old familiar assertion of gentrification, which I am never sure whether it is  a] an insult b] a lazy definition or c] something else.

My dictionary describes gentrification “as the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, often displacing current inhabitants in the process”.

Now if you moved on to Beech Road in the 1970s or grew up in the surrounding streets it is just possible to have some sympathy with that assertion.

Charles Clarke our blacsmith from the 1860s

What was an indifferent but nice shopping area offering the range of retail opportunities from food, booze, hardware, and a TV shop has morphed into a row of bars, restaurants and gift places.  Added to which the small rows of two up two down houses, many of which were built for rent by Joe Scott at the start of the 20th century are now desirable and sought after modernised homes, commanding high prices which are beyond the range of our children who were born and grew up on Beech Road.

But all of that is to be a little unhistorical.

Even in that so called pre gentrification Beech Road which I am guessing is meant to be sometime before 1960 stretching back into the beginning of the last century there were a lot of well healed, comfortably off families living here.

That is attested not only by the census records and street directories but by the big houses along Cross Road, and Chequers, Stockton and St Clements Road.

And look again at the shops themselves and there was a mix of basic and slightly up market shops from when Beech Road was developed during the late 1870s onwards.

Go back another thirty years when we were a small agricultural community and Beech Road was called Chorlton Row, and between the blacksmith, a beer shop and some wattle and daub cottages there were several wealthy households.  They included the Holt family in their huge house and garden on the corner of Beech and Barlow Moor Road, and several very comfortable families, one of whom lived beside the smithy. To which can be added the Blomey’s who had the pond on the corner of Acres Road named after them.

Chorlton Row, 1854

The reality is that Beech Road has always been a mixed area, and the expansion of smaller houses on Provis, Neale and Higson was a response to the changing demographics which saw the occupation of the residents defined by clerical and professional occupations and away from the land.

To conclude it is a moot point what came first in the late 1970s and 80s.  Was it gentrification or the collapse of the traditional shopping patterns which saw more and more shops close with no apparent hint at what would replace them?  

Our own brief amusement arcade came and went in the 1980s, and the first restaurants and bars were opening up along with the Italian Delia by the end of that decade.

Bar de Tapas, 2023

And the trend by professionals to buy up and modernise those small two up two downs was only just beginning during this period.

On the cusp of change Beech Road circa 1980s

Go back to the beginning of the 20th century and we find the Manchester Evening News reporting that large parts of Chorlton including the roads off Beech Road were being transformed from open farm land to comfortably off modern properties home to the middling people.

All that seems to have have happened is that a century later the process continues.

And with that comes that other rather blunt observation which is the residents of Beech Road when I moved in in 1976 might well be offended by being told they lived in a "poor urban area". 

Beech Road Cafe Society, circa 2008

Looking at the historical records their occupations ranged from manual, through to clerical, retail and professional and Chorlton -cum-Hardy  was always perceived as a comfortable if not affluent suburb of the city.

I assume the gentrification jibe refers to the shops and restaurants, and here the question is "if not them what?"

Retail shopping has changed and small independent food shops rarely survive, and that has pretty much been the case since the 1980s.  

Leaving aside the deli we do have one grocers shop which competes with the Co-op and Etchells and that I think is all that Beech Road can sustain.

Beech Road, circa 1900

Remember, when there were a multitude of food shops all along Beech Road, and around the Green and off both Crossland and Ivy Green in the early decades of the last century people didn't have either a freezer or a fridge, and were forced to shop daily. 

It is less that Beech Road has gentrified and more that few people  now shop as they did a century ago.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Chorlton Row circa 1880s, , Beech Road circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection, picture of Charles Clark, 1913 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, picture of Charles Clark, DPA 328.18, Courtesy of Greater Manchester Archives, Chorlton Row, 1854, from the OS map of Lancashure, 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/, Beech Road in the 1980s, from the collection of Tony Walker, 1980s, Cafe Society on Beech Road, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Tram car 283 out from Victoria Park ……. with Mr. William Becket

I don’t have a date for the picture, but it will be sometime after the Great War.

The guard standing in front of the tram is Mr. William Becket, and his career pretty much matched that of Manchester Corporation Trams.

He started on the trams, but ended his career as a bus inspector, while motor buses slowly replaced the tram, with the last tram car taking its last trip as a scheduled route on Sunday  January 9th  1949.

This was the 35, from Victoria Street to Hazel Grove.  The last moments of that journey have been recorded by Ian Yearsley in his book The Manchester Tramways.*

“That evening a group of us made our way over to Exchange to ride on the last car to Hazel Grove and back. As we stood on the wet pavement by the Cathedral it was hard to believe that this was really the end. ….... Eventually the last through car to Hazel Grove arrived, and we watched it go through the familiar routine for the last time.  The few passengers got off, and the car rolled gently down to the end of the track by Oliver Cromwell.  The light went out and in the faint light of the streetlamps we could see the guard walking around.”**

Tram car 283 had ended it service two years earlier, on December 22nd, 1947 when it was replaced by a bus.

I have Steve Casson to thank for the picture.  Mr. William Becket was his grandfather, and Steve wondered just where the photograph had been taken.

I haven’t been able to find the spot, but I know that in its forty-five years it plied a course from Victoria Street to Princess Road, and later to Fallowfield and Wilbraham Road and then Barlow Moor Road.  Later still the service was extended to Mauldeth Road via Kinsgway and was extended again to East Didsbury.

But I think Steve will be interested to know that its period of service from Victoria Park to Princess Road was from December 1st, 1902 till December 1924, and as this was the time his granddad worked the route, I guess it will be along that corridor that we shall have to look for the location of the picture.

Location; somewhere between, Victoria Park to Princess Road

Picture; tram car 283, somewhere between, Victoria Park to Princess Road, circa 1902 to 1924, from the collection of Steve Casson

*The Manchester Tramways, Ian Yearsley and Philip Groves, 1988
**ibid The Manchester Tramways,  p244

There is always another on the way …… travelling by bus to Chorlton Station

I have Kevin Barker to thank for this picture.

I am looking at two employees of Manchester Corporation posing for their photograph on route number 9.

It’s a perfect example of how there is always another on the way, which might be a bus or a new picture I haven't seen before.

I think we will be on Edge Lane sometime in the early 20th century.

A quick search of The Manchester Bus by Michael Eyre and Chris Heaps reveals that this is “Daimler NA2687 at Longford Park on the service from Chorlton to the Stretford boundary at that point; it has the first of many bus bodies that would be built by the Car Works. Note the taller bonnet line of the Y type chassis”. 

They date the picture to 1914 and tell me that the bus could seat 38 but in 1923 was rebuilt to increase the number of seats to 44 by extending the upper deck over the driver’s cab.

And that is about it.

Other than to say I have no idea that there was once a bus to and from Chorlton railway station to Longford Park.

The fun will be to identify the back drop and leaving me to thank Kevin for whizzing the picture over today and to Andy Robertson for his indulgence in letting me continue to borrow his bus and tram books on an extended loan which will soon be a decade.

Location; Longford Road?

Picture; Daimler NA2687 at Longford Park, 1914, courtesy of Kevin Barker

* The Manchester Bus by Michael Eyre and Chris Heaps, 1989

A lost sweet shop from Beech Road revisiting a popular story

I won’t be the only one who has memories of buying sweets at the shop which was on  the corner of Beech Road and Claude Road, and there may be others like me who bought things when it sold a mix of almost antique stuff back in the late 1980s.

Not that it was always a shop; back in 1911 soon after it had been built it was the home of Robert and Janet Connell.  They were from Scotland, had been married for 38 years and had two children one of whom was still registered as living at home despite being a ships steward.

It was then an impressive seven roomed house.  If I wanted I could no doubt discover when the property was converted into a shop.  It was certainly selling sweets in the November of 1958 when R.E. Stanley photographed it.

Nor had it changed much when Tom McGrath took his picture almost thirty years later.  And I think the old bill boards were still there in the 1980s advertising the current films showing at the cinema around the corner.

Today it has reverted to a home as have other commercial conversions along Beech Road.

Pictures; Number 1 Beech Road by R.E. Stanley, November 1958, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, m17659, and from the collection of Tom McGrath

The Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.13 behind our house

A short series on the pictures of Eltham and Woolwich in 1976.

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich



Picture; Woolwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The tram ......a King's visit ..... and a freebie ..........

 There will be someone who can date the picture postcard, and by extension name which King was visiting Manchester and set off this display of civic loyalty.

It could be Edward Vll, or his son, George V or  just possibly either Edward Vlll, or George Vl.

And quick as a flash, David Harrop pointed to the cypher on the front of tram car and offered up the explanation that this was a visit from Edward Vlll.

For me, what is more intriguing is the printed information on the reverse of the car, which carries the information, “This beautiful Series of Fine Art Post Cards is supplied free exclusively by Brett’s Publications, comprising ‘My Pocket Novels’, ‘Keepsake Novels’ and Something to Read’”.

A first trawl revealed no company called Brett’s Publications or the three series for 1911 in the Manchester Directories, and I suspect I won’t turn them up in earlier directories.

They could of course be based in London or any other part of the country.

But they offer up an insight into advertising and retail long before a soap company offered free plastic flowers with each sale, or various companies gave away novelty toys in their packets of breakfast cereals.

But like the date of the picture postcard, someone will have an opinion on Brett’s Publications and will have done the serious research.

Well I hope so.

Location; Manchester

Picture; The King’s Visit to Manchester, date unknown from the collection of David Harrop.

See here the villains of the piece …….. trolley buses and motor buses kill off the tram

Now I have no love for the trolley bus ……… and remember too many journeys where I felt ill soon after we boarded.

I think it was a combination of the quiet purr, the smell of disinfectant and seat fabric, topped off by the heat.

All of which makes me feel no compunction about citing them along with the motor bus as complicit in the killing off of the Corporation trams which for more than a half century dominated the way we travelled, in Manchester and London as well as Leeds, Newcastle and Liverpool and heaps of other places.

Here in Manchester as early as the 1920s plans were hatched to do away with the tram, and that plan took a pace during the 1930s, only slowed down by the Second World War.

The trolley bus required no rails which needed maintenance, and the bus had the flexibility that it could alter its routes unhindered by those rails or overhead cables.

I was born in the year that the last Manchester tram ran its last journey and while those in London lingered on a few more years I have no memory of being taken for a ride on one.

So, I can’t testify to how comfortable they were to travel in but judging by the public’s outburst of affection at their demise, and the continuing interest in these stately towers of transport I wish I had done at least one journey in one.

But perhaps I am surrendering to the same romantic tosh that is reserved for the steam railway locomotive.

I never tire of that smell of steam and warm oil but remember mother’s realistic comment about the effect of that plume of dirty smoke and hot cinders on a line of clean washing.

And there were plenty who put the blame for the awful traffic congestion in the wake of a new road scheme in 1938 at the foot of the humble Corporation tram.

The scheme which saw a one-way system around the city centre was dogged by traffic congestion, which both the Transport Committee and the Congestion Committee of the City Council put down to the tram car.

Sir William Davy, chairman of the Transport Committee argued that “The new scheme now appeared to be working fairly satisfactorily, but that there could be no doubt that matters would be considerably improved if they were in a position to dispense with the trams”.*

A position endorsed by Councillor Hugh Lee, chairman of the traffic Congestion Committee, and Mr. J Maxwell, Chief Constable, also emphasised the view "that most of the difficulties with which they were confronted could be traced to the tram cars, [which  included] the nuisance of a permanent tram track in the middle of the road and to the impracticability of establishing roundabouts in the streets where they would be useful because of the existence of the tram services.”

So, there you have it.  I am the first to acknowledge that the economic, and traffic considerations which doomed the tram were the main reasons for their demise, leaving the bus and the trolley bus as complicit in the departure of the tram from our streets.

Pictures; Manchester Corporation Trolley Bus, 1955, m48371, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Manchester Corporation Bus, 1961, Glossop, Manchester Corporation Tram, somewhere in the city, date unknown and Manchester Corporation Trolley Bus, 1961 Denton from the collection of Allan Brown

*The One-Way Route @Abolish the Trams’, the Manchester Guardian, June 15th, 1938

A little bit of our unremarkable past ...... that hut in the Rec

Now here is a little piece of our past which makes me very happy.

The picture was taken in 1980 and confirms that I wasn’t imagining that once the Rec which new comers call Beech Road Park did indeed have its own hut.

I have no idea when it was built.

I know that it doesn’t appear on photographs from the 1900s but is there by the 1940s, because it shows up in a picture of our own barrage balloon.

Nor am I quite sure when it vanished.

All of which I suppose is indicative of the state of my memory.

But there it is, and for those now in the 40s who sat on its bench on long winter’s nights passing the time till they were old enough to visit a pub, here is a memory.

And soon after the story was posted, Bruce Wemyss commented, 

"Andrew Simpson I remember it well in the sixties and would guess it was removed in the early 70s 

It was turned on by the Park Keeper each spring and back off again in the Autumn Chorlton Park and Longford park each had a couple 

They where double sided and operated by pressing a Brass button on the top of the font 

They we’re all the same design I suspect Manchester Corporation will have some pictures hidden away somewhere 

As a footnote In the sixties and early seventies we local lads played football in the Rec most weekends and summer evenings sometimes with games going on all day and well into the evening breaking off to go home for lunch and tea it was not unusual for there to be 12 to 15 on each team Great times I feel very lucky to have grown up in Chorlton back in the day"

All of which was repeated by my own kids, who did the same Bruce, and had to be called in at night
  

We even had a special box full of their friends football boots for the games, and my lads would exhaust shed loads of their friends which came and went.

Location; Chorlton.

Picture; the hut on the Rec and football games, 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no.23 one that I thought would last for ever

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich circa 1976, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A new history of Chorlton in 20 objects, number 8, an amusement arcade and the future of Beech Road circa 1983

I can’t be exactly sure of the date of the picture but it was during the early 1980s when Beech Road was about to enter its troubled period.

The old patterns of shopping were beginning to change and one by one many of the traditional shops closed.

It had begun a decade earlier with the closure of the TV shop, moved on apace with the disappearance of the grocers shops  and sweet shops followed by the hardware place with its familiar smell of paraffin and waxed string and then one by one the butchers went until only Muriel’s was left.

So this was an uncertain period with plenty of closed shops and the hint that Beech Road was past its best.  Into this came the amusement arcade at 111.  It sparked a bit of controversy and lasted but a short time.

And after its closure there was another quiet time till Patrick opened Primavera followed by the Lead Station and the rest as they say is history.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

The lost pictures from home ...... no.24 a favourite pub

For four decades the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s sat undisturbed in our cellar.

But all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

Now I know this is Greenwich and not the other two places, but I was still living in Well Hall when we made this our local.

In the late 60s it was where we would go to sit on the wall and watch the Thames busy itself on warmer summer evenings, listening to the gentle thud as thebarges banged together on the swell.

Later it was where I would finish off the 6 till 2 shift at Glenville's the food factory, caked in dirty overalls covered in milk dust and yearning a pint.

And then I went back in the autumn of 1979.  The pub was still there and the power station and big crane, but my companions had scattered to different corners of London or like me far beyond.

I could have felt melancholy but that would have been daft.

Location; Greenwich

Picture; Greenwich, circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson