Letting history repeat itself …. standing up for Chorlton Library Live … with a nod to the Bee Gees

Today I am thinking of how history unfolds and, in the process, repeats itself.

Chorlton Library .... all things for the community, 2026

Of course, it never quite does it exactly the same way but to mangle that historical quote it doesn’t have be first as tragedy and then as farce. *

Instead, it can be enriching, fun and strengthen a community.

Chorlton Library, 2015

And so, it is with the new initiative from our local library which aims to “open up fresh opportunities for youngsters to perform in front of an audience [along] with hosting exhibitions, festivals, talks, performances, family activities and literary events for people in Chorlton of all ages”.

Now libraries have always been about more than just books, and it was one of our Lord Mayors who at the opening of Chorlton Library in 1914 “hoped that someday there would be a kinematograph connected to our libraries for the special benefit of boys and girls, enabling them the better to understand the histories they were reading.”**

Chorlton Champions, exhibition, 2026

The kinematograph never came but in the form of computers and links to the internet his wish has arrived.

And with it have come regular exhibitions, talks and gatherings.  

To which can now be added the provision for live musical events especially designed to show case young musicians who might other wise struggle to find venues to perform.

True, these do exist both at some of the bars and at special nights at the Royal Oak’s upstairs room, but there should be more.

To which Eric will chime in with stories of the Bee Gees performing as the Rattlesnakes at the Gaumont on Manchester Road in December 1957.

Go back a century and cinemas often provided live music as did the Public Hall in the former Con Club and some of our bigger pubs. 

All of which brings me back to Chorlton Library Live and the event “Teen Spirit14 …a chance to discover Chorlton’s emerging young musical talent”

 

Location; Chorlton Library

The Gaumont cinema, Manchester Road, 1958

All of which brings me back to Chorlton Library Live and the event “Teen Spirit14 …a chance to discover Chorlton’s emerging young musical talent”

Location; Chorlton Library

Pictures; Chorlton Library, 2026 & 2015, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, The Gaumont that was the Savoy, 1958, m09220 1958, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Paintings; "Chorlton Champions" part of the exhibition from 2026 at Chorlton Library, by Peter Topping

*"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy the second as farce”. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx, 1852

** A New Library, Manchester Guardian November 5th 1914