One hundred years of one house in Chorlton …. part 162 …. endings

The continuing story  of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Long before a distinguished historian chose to tell the story of a house and made it into a popular TV show, I embarked on the same historical journey.

Mine was located on Beech Road and what started in the December of 2011 was joined by two spin offs based on the houses I lived in London and a municipal flat in the Italian city of Varese.

And in time sat beside the story of a garage which began as Chorlton’s first cinema, another building which over three centuries had many different stories and even morphed into a series on the Nokia 3310 and our own Citroën 2CV bought brand new and the last to roll off a production line in Portugal.

What each had in common was that the house, the garage, and the car were just vehicles to tell the bigger story, which showed the transformation of Chorlton and Britain over time.

But was always the house opposite the Rec which I kept coming back to.  It was built by Joe Scott in 1915 who built many of the smaller houses and semis in Chorlton.  And it was here that he and his wife Mary Ann lived for the next 58 years.  In all it has had four owners of which we are the only ones to have had children born here.

I first washed up in the house for a brief stay in 1976 when it was owned by my dear friends, John, Mike and Lois, returning just a few years later when I bought it.

I can’t beat Joe and Mary Ann’s tenure, but I have called it home for fifty years, and even during my short break away it was always home.

To which there are many others over the years who can also have a claim to have passed through, from friends, and family to the childhood mates of my sons some of whom still speak fondly of their time here.

I opened the series in reflective mood asking "Why is it that only the rich and more especially the old, landed rich can talk of holding a great house or estate for posterity?

They tell us as if we should be grateful that they are custodians, not owners and it is their duty to maintain it and hand it on to the next generation. All of which is fine, but theirs is always the family that holds onto it and raises the question of what about the rest of us? Do we not also do the same?

Some might argue that there is no comparison between Blenheim Palace, and a 1930 semi built on the outer reaches of Manchester. Or that a post war council house has anything in common with one of the country’s national treasures. 

Such a grand place with its Adam furniture, Capability Brown landscaped gardens, priceless paintings, steeped in history is unique and therefore ranks well beyond the mass produced, often ugly and in some cases poorly maintained social housing.

But both have histories, both were built for someone to live in, and both were cherished by their inhabitants.

This is a roundabout way of writing about our house. It was built a hundred years ago, has had only four custodians, of which we are the only ones to have had children here. 

More than that this is the only home our eldest three have known and it was where one of them was born. It is also a place where countless friends have come and stayed before moving on, seen Christmas parties, a boat turning event in the back garden, and a succession of decorating fashions.

So, over the next few months I want to tell the story of this one house set against the bigger picture of what was going on here in Chorlton and the national backdrop".

The stories were meant to only last a few months but have run to over 160 stories, and far out ran the one hundred years of the title.

They often picked up on bits found in the house, from fuse boxes, the old copper in the cellar and the mystery of why the Scott’s never installed a kitchen range.  

Most then became an exploration of the changes in our social, economic and political life set against two world wars and that post-war affluence.

During that time, I came close to Joe and Mary Ann and some of the objects.

These included a broken clay pipe found in the garden and maybe dating from the 1840s, and remanets of electrical fixtures.

But things come to an end and my family’s stewardship is no different and so to mangle that wonderful final message from the dolphins in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker series of books “So Long and Thanks for all the stories ….. and the memories …. and all the friends”. Bettered perhaps only by "There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story." — Frank Herbert

Location, Beech Road

Pictures; random pictures from the collection of Andrew Simpson and friends

*The story of a house, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=the+story+of+a+house

*So long and Thanks for all the Fish, the fourth book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, Douglas Adams, 1984