Caputo …….the secret of the cupboard ………and a choice

Now, in our house I take pizza as it comes, although that said I prefer a thin base.

And that has taken me to the store cupboard, where we have a shelf devoted to a range of different flour from plain white to strong white, several bags of self-raising, along with gluten free.

But prominent amongst the lot are  Caputo Red and Caputo Blue, which we use for pizza.

The red is ideal for thinner crust pizza.

It has more gluten and protein in it than the blue flour, and provides a little more elasticity to the dough and is ideal for slow rises.

So, there you have it, I come across a red bag and a blue bag and I have instantly discovered some of the science behind making a pizza dough.

Added to which I know that Caputo is reckoned to be the finest Italian flour for making pizza, and that ‘00’ on the bags refers to how finely the wheat flour has been ground, and the overall texture, with the roughest graded at ‘1’.

Of course, this will not be new to foodies or those who spend hours inside the pages of cookbooks, but for me it was a revelation.

And set me off looking for the Caputo company, which began in 1924 and is the last mill, in Naples.*

Its site offers up little on its history, other than a  fascinating picture of the family and staff, sometime long before now.

As you would expect there is plenty there on their products, and an interesting link to Granonostrum, which is, “the first agricultural chain of soft wheat in Italy …… and provides for the traceability of all agricultural practices starting from the search for raw materials through the sowing of wheat, scrupulously monitoring every single production process up to the collection and storage, up to the final processing of the product.

The entire production process will use only two varieties to be cultivated according to the climatic and soil peculiarities and above all the products that the pasta masters must make, obtaining a wheat and a final product qualified as superior”.**

And here I confess that I had no idea that those two bags of flour would lead me off on a trip around southern Italy.

But that is what you do when you go looking for the  things we store away.

All of which leads me back to those two bags of Caputo flour, and the pizza choices we make.  

Leaving aside this the choice between thick vs thin, there is that debate on what constitutes an acceptable topping.   

Everyone is of course entitled to place what food they fancy as a topping. 

For the Italian side of the family along with Italian friends the only authentic pizza has been cheese and tomato.

That said everyone knows my fondness for mushrooms, but like the family I draw the line at pineapple.

Location; Chorlton, and Naples

Pictures; Blue and Red Caputo, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and finished pizza, from the collection of Balzano, 2020

*Caputo Mill,  info@molinocaputo.it  Corso San Giovanni a Teduccio, 55

80146 Naples, Italy

**Grano Nostrum, https://www.granonostrum.it/

Stories from the attic ...... part 6 ........ travelling across Europe with my dad

To be accurate it was our cellar rather than the attic, but the principle remains the same, which is that all sorts of stories can be conjured up from the bits and pieces we carefully store away and then forget.

Glenton Tours circa 1956

In our case, it was two leather suitcases, which had accompanied dad on his travels across the Continent, during his drive as a coach driver, transporting happy passengers on sightseeing tours from Antwerp to Paris, to the Swiss and Italian Lakes and the French and Italian Rivera.

Along the way he picked up lots of luggage labels, form hotels.

Dad being dad, chose instead to collect them, storing them carefully in envelopes, which is how we inherited them.

Over the years I have plundered the collection to write about places as varied as Venice, Paris, Nancy, and Brussels.*

But until yesterday I had missed a group of six identical one’s advertising Glenton Tours, which was the tour company he worked for, for over 40 years.

Venice, cicra 1950s

The firm had begun in the 1920s when an estate agent settled a debt with a customer by accepting a coach and that started “Glenton Motor Coach Holiday Tours.”

Dad worked for them from the very beginning and finally retired in 1987 having driven their coaches around Britain and Europe from the early 1930s.

The tours were all inclusive, offering “first class accommodation” and the “Chauffeur-Couriers have been chosen after exacting tests of their reliability and skill and give every attention to travellers.”***

 The tours lasted for anything between 7 and 15 days.

For £45 Tour C7 in 1965 offered nine days to the Swiss and Italian Lakes, leaving London on the Saturday, staying in Brussels on the Sunday night and travelling on to Lake Lucerne on the Monday, then later in the week to Lake Maggiore and then in to Switzerland and back via Burgundy to London.

Dad and Elizabeth, circa 1959

Of course it is easy today to sneer at an experience where everything was provided and if you failed to look out of the window you might miss a country, but in an age before the internet with television still in its infancy this was a relatively cheap way to see places which would otherwise just be a picture in a book.

And this was value for money given that the national average wage in 1965 was £26.

There are still plenty of travel companies offering this sort of holiday but back in the late 1940’s and ‘50s this was an experience just opening up for thousands who were beginning to enjoy the first taste of consumer prosperity.

St Anton, date unknown

They are as much an indication of that new Britain as the washing machine, television and motor car.

And given the stories that will tumble from these treasures, Peter and I have embarked on the next project which will be to use those objects left in cellars, attics and garages for the new book, which we have called The Lost Stories of Chorlton-cum-Hardy In Our Attics, Cellars, Garages and Sheds.

We are confident that there will be plenty of people with their own treasures and stories which they would like to be included.

Leaving me just to make the appeal for objects.

You can contact us by leaving a comment on the blog or through Facebook, telling us just what you have and its importance to you and your family.

Location; across Europe

Pictures; Luggage labels, 1950-1968, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the box of treasures from the book cover, courtesy of Linda Rigby





*Hotel labels, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=hotel+labels&max-results=20&by-date=true


**Glenton Tours, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Glenton%20Tours

***Glenton Tours Brochures, 1951-1968

Stories from the cellar ...... part 8 ........ getting around the capital in 1965

It’s odd what you come across while looking for that thing you put away, because you knew that one day it would come in handy.

Of course, I never found the thing, but instead uncovered another folder full of family memories.

This one I guess belonged to dad, after all he was a coach driver, but it might equally have been me.

Although as I was only 14, I doubt I would have been using it for its intended purpose as a road map.

But despite the passage of half a century and more I remember it vividly, not least because of those old red London Transport buses, and the Bank of England in the background,  which was one of those places I would stumble across on a Saturday, when I had taken myself off for a wander around the City.

So, having done the nostalgia bit, I looked more carefully at the map, and marveled at the small number of traffic  signs displayed on the back of the map, and just to what extent the road network is still as it was back in 1965.

As treasures go it still  wouldn’t bring a fortune if I ever wanted to put it for sale.

But it remains a nice piece of history, complete with the old Underground map, and the “Theatres, Concert and Exhibition Halls and Cinemas outside the Area of the West End”.

Not bad for a rummage in the cellar on another lockdown day.

Location; London













Picture; Road Map London, Section 1, Esso, 1966

A detachable collar, a travelling shaving kit ........ and stories of Mr. Stevens ...... the Chorlton undertaker

I doubt anyone born later than 1930 ever wore a detachable collar, other than the clergy and a few people engaged in ceremonial events.

They were once very popular, allowing you to change the collar which could be washed, starched and ironed separately from the shirt.

The added bonus of course was that while the collar might have become quite grubby, the shirt could be worn for another day, and because a starched collar is stiff and can be uncomfortable, once away from work you could take it off and just wear the shirt.

There are plenty of family photographs of grandfather and his brothers staring back at me minus their collars.

And here I have to admit that back in 1964 at the tender age of 14 I began to wear them for school.

The shirts carried a feint red and grey striped pattern, and the detachable collars were white, which at the time I thought was quite a fashion statement.

Of course fastening the collar to the stud at the back of the shirt was a faff, and on very hot days undoing the top button was not possible.

But we have all suffered for our desire to strike out and be different.

In my case the alternative were those bri-nylon shirts, which required no ironing and could be hung up to dry after a quick passage through the washing machine.

The downside was that they were uncomfortable to wear in very hot weather and seemed to stain under the arm pits.

All of which is an introduction to another attic story, which this time comes from my old friend Ann Love, who burrowed deep into her family collection and came up with a wonderful set of items from the early decades of the last century.

Ann’s father was an undertaker and they lived at 523 Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton.

The house was part home, but also the office.  The coffins were made in the garage at the back and the deceased were laid out in a room in the house.

And as was the practice in the first half of the twentieth century, staff attending a funeral wore formal dress which included not only a detachable collar, but the winged variety.

Ann found a collection of the collars  "which were the wing collars, still in their box. I'd never looked at them closely before, but apart from two which were from Lewis's, the others seem to come from Ireland.

I also found photos of my father and grandfather wearing wing collars, all dressed up for their job, as undertakers”.

There is lots more, including trade cards, “a travelling shaving set, which I believe was my grandfathers, obviously not used much.

A strop, for sharpening blades, and two boxes of shaving equipment. I love the boxes, particularly the 'Rolls Razor' which is nicely decorated and fits together very cleverly".

Added to all these Ann has over the years shared with me a selection of her drawings of the house and surrounding area made while she was studying art.

All together they make a fascinating record of how one family lived in Chorlton.

At which point there is a danger that I will fill the story with bits of Ann’s finds, but for those you will have to read new the book which is “The Lost Stories  of Chorlton-cum-Hardy …. In Our Attics, Cellars, Garages and Sheds”.

The book is predicated on that simple idea that we all have “treasures” stored away which tell our own personal story as well as casting light on the history of the last two centuries.

Peter and I are working on it as I write, but would welcome contributions.

You can contact us by leaving a comment on the blog or through Facebook, telling us just what you have and its importance to you and your family.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; what Ann found, 2020, from the collection of Ann Love.

Stories from the attic ...... part 10 ........ when history is a dangerous thing

Always be careful of the history you read …………… because it ain’t always what it seems.

Now that might be a surprise to many, who like my mother always maintained that  “the past is what it is”, which because it is based on facts as Mr. Gradgrind espoused in Hard Times, is never to be questioned.

But I have enough books on the shelves which by their age and scholarship would seriously challenge that idea.

And lurking in a corner of the cellar are the six editions of Pictorial History, published by the Daily Mail in 1962 “telling the story of man from the Ice Age to the Space Age in six monthly parts”.

In cost two shillings and sixpence and arrived each week on the door mat from the local newsagent.

I remember pestering mother to buy them and I remember carefully looking at the pictures and pretty much leaving the text.

But a full 58 years later I have been reading each of the six.

On one level they deliver a comprehensive account of the history of the world, which is not over Eurocentric and includes  all the ancient civilizations, even if China and India are confined to five paragraphs on one page of Book One, and  Africa and Colonialism don’t get a look in.

I suppose they are of their age, which was still one where in schools little outside European history was taught and great chunks of the world’s heritage were ignored.

And that in turn makes them interesting, because they have become history books in their own right.  It starts with the total absence of women in the text summed up by that opening paragraph which refers to “the story of man”.

It signs off on Stalin and Russia with the comment “But the final aim of Communism never wavers.  The technical triumphs in science, industry and sport are only wayside stations on the crusade to make the world Communist”, while passing over the powerful and pervading influence of the United States of America in all things economic and cultural.

Nor does it hide the real concerns which preoccupied many of a future war between the two superpowers.

The penultimate chapter is entitled The Shadow of the Bomb, and concludes with “There is little doubt that this permanent shadow of disaster which has hung over a whole generation of young people is responsible for the instability of their conduct.  

The only encouraging side to the problem is that the results are now so certain and so terrible that even the most foolhardy statesmen would hardly risk a major war.  Nevertheless less the testing [of nuclear devices] continues to increase radiation dangers”.

Which was an optimistic interpretation nearly overturned by the Cuban Missile Crisis and the later nuclear brinkmanship by the USA and the Soviet Union during the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

And as frightening as the paragraph was, it does highlight that age-old concern that the young are somehow doing something wrong, which echoed through the earlier decades of the last century and into the century before that.

So, Pictorial History is of its time and as such might well be a little misleading if not dangerous as a guide to the past.

But in one aspect it is spot on, and that has to be the artwork which runs through the six volumes.

The cover designs are of the period, and I remember coming across posters and adverts which used the same bold style, some of which have also sat in our cellar for over half a century.

In time I may dig them out, and ponder on their inclusion in our new book “The Lost Stories  of Chorlton-cum-Hardy …. In Our Attics, Cellars, Garages and Sheds”.

The book is predicated on that simple idea that we all have “treasures” stored away which tell our own personal story as well as casting light on the history of the last two centuries.

Peter and I are working on it as I write, but would welcome contributions.

You can contact us by leaving a comment on the blog or through Facebook, telling us just what you have and its importance to you and your family.

Location Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Peckham, and 1962.






Pictures; from Pictorial History, 1962, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir! “Thomas Gradrind Hard Times, Charles Dickens, Chapter 1, 1854

Manchester’s Industrial Past.... another story by Tony Goulding

Manchester’s industrial past was, as is well documented, centred on the production of textiles specifically cotton leading to the city being given the by-name “Cottonopolis”.

However these three artefacts reveal that although the area’s industry was predominantly textile based it was not exclusively so...
 
The ruler is marked “Sutcliffe and Bingham Ltd Manchester with two of their products “KKOVAH PLUM PUDDING” at one end and “KKOVAH MINCEMEAT” at the other.

The small pewter tankard is stamped underneath, “Morgan Crossley & Co. Ltd. They claimed to be the largest manufacturers of lamp and candle wicks in the world.
   

This remaining item is a curiosity embossed “Blair & Sumner Ltd, Bolton”.

The only one of the three objects associated with a firm directly involved in the textile trade its more substantial nature perhaps reflecting that industries importance.

Blair & Sumner were a firm of bleachers with premises at Mill Hill Bleach Works, Little Bolton, Bolton, Lancashire. They had an office in Manchester at 6, Back Pool Fold Chambers, Chapel Walks. Cross Street.

Blair & Sumner's Office, 1944

This firm dates from at least 1844 as an article of “The Bolton Chronicle” reported on  14th December of that year on the closing of a subscription list for a testimonial  honouring the work of Rowland Hill in instigating the penny postage scheme. 

The report published the list which included a donation of £2 -2s -0d from Blair and Sumner. A devastating fire caused £70,000 (a huge sum at that time) worth of damage to part of their premises that they shared with Hodgkinson & Gillibrand, a hosiery manufacturer, on 13th July, 1928. 

Despite this setback the firm was still in existence after more than a century of trading in 1954 when it had entries in Kelly’s Directory of Lancashire, Manchester, Salford and Stretford.
Sutcliffe and Bingham’s factory, Kkovah Works, was located on Ogden Street in the Cornbrook area of Manchester and dates from 1892 when Arthur Sutcliffe and George William Bingham left the employ of  Mr. John Bury a produce merchant of Corporation Street, Manchester  and started their own business originally at Milton Street, Hulme, Manchester.

The partner’s joint enterprise thrived by the year 1899 when on 18th March the “Nursing Record and Hospital World” carried this glowing endorsement for their “KKOVAH JELLIES”  “--- can fairly be described as delicious and their flavour seems to confirm the claim made for them that they are flavoured with the actual and unadulterated fruits --- and are most palatable --- but as they are also most nutritious they form a valuable addition to the dietry (sic) of the sick.”

Another product of Sutcliffe and Bingham was “Laitova Lemon Cheese” which in the 1920’s was promoted as “building sturdy boys and bonnie girls” a legend which was proudly displayed on their packaging.

Morgan Crossley & Co. has a much longer history, the company of that name only dates from 1905 with the amalgamation of three previous companies Joseph Morgan, James Crossley and Hewitt, Bunting.

Both James Crossley and Joseph Morgan started business in the early 19th century (Morgan in 1829, Crossley two years later, in 1831) The firm of  Hewitt Bunting has even longer history, being established in1770.
 

The new company continued to use the existing factory sites Morgan’s at Ducie Mills, Miles Platting, Manchester,
PICTURE
 5

M29911 Ducie Mills Hulme Hall Lane – 1924

 Crossley’s at Ripley Mills, Ripley, Derbyshire and Hewitt Bunting’s at Furnace Hill Works, Chesterfield. They also had an office in London at 121, Newgate Street, E.C.1
   

The amalgamated companies soon faced a decline in demand for their main products, wicks for candles and oil lamps, brought about by the widespread adoption of electric power for lighting.

Fortunately for them the fast developing motor car making industry provided another opportunity and the company switched to manufacturing brake linings under the trade name “TENOID”.

They also began fabricating sponge cloths, blind cords, stair treads and woven matting. These new products enabled the company to remain in business until the late 1970’s


m29920 F. Hotchin 1962 Morgan Crossley & Co.
“TENOID” factory Hulme Hall Lane

Tony Goulding © 2020

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Blair & Sumner’s Office, M78943City Engineers Dept. 1944, M78943, Ducie Mills Hulme Hall Lane – 1924, M29911, Morgan Crossley & Co., F. Hotchin, m29920, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 
remaining pictures from the collection of Tony Goulding

Stories from the attic ...... part 9 ........ of trolley buses, funny tummies and cuts and grazes….. Em’s story

Now I say Em’s story but strictly speaking it is her friend Kelly who came across a collection of “bits belonging to her Nana”, and Emily sent then north to me.

They consist of a trolley bus ticket, two small tins and a set of instructions.

And here I feel my age, because when I told Em that I thought the ticket was a trolley bus ticket, she relied by asking “what was a trolley bus?”

But to be fair Emily was born in 1980, a good two decades after trolley buses were beginning to disappear from our streets.

I have to say I wasn’t a fan of them. I don’t know whether it was the smell of the leather seats, the constant accelerating and decelerating or just that the inside always seemed so hot, but I always ended up feeling travel sick.

They had a short life with London Transport.  The first batch of 60 entered service in 1931 and the last were replaced by motor buses in 1962.*

I tracked the ticket down to east London, via a fascinating map of “Trolleybus and Tram Routes, 1947” and while I think our ticket will date from the late 1950s or early 60s, at least one of the routes on the ticket shows up on the map .*

At which point I could get a tad nostalgic, if that is I was fond of trolley buses, but as I am not I shall finish with the two tins, one of which was designed to “Relieve, Indigestion, Heartburn, Flatulence,  Acidity, [by taking] One or two Tablets sucked after meals will give you complete STOMACH COMFORT”. 

It was made by Meggeson who had been established in 1796 and in the 1950s and 60s were based in Bermondsey.

So far I haven’t been able to find out any more, although I do know that according to the National Archive, “the 1957-1966: minute book of directors and general meetings (previously Beckdale Laboratories Ltd) are held privately".

I can’t recall that we ever had a tin of Meggeson’s in the house, referring Andrew’s Liver Salts.

But we did like most homes have at least one tin or packet of Elastopast, which back in those days was still made with a fabric coat, which quickly went soggy when you washed or went swimming.

And for those unfamiliar with how to use the product, the tin came with a set of helpful instructions, for which you paid one shilling.

So, that is all I have to say, other than the objects might make their way into the new book, on Lost Stories …of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, in our Attics, Cellars, Garages and Sheds***

Of course they will have to be in a special chapter about things from around the world, given that all four come from south east London.

If I move quickly and deftly I doubt Peter will notice,

Alternatively I could just own up and suggest he comes up with something from Preston, where he was born.

We shall see.




Location; south east London

Pictures; family objects, circa 1950-60, from the collection of Kelly Richards

*Trolleybuses in London, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_London

**“Trolleybus and Tram Routes, 1947”, Mapping London, https://mappinglondon.co.uk/2018/trolleybus-tram-routes-1947/

***A new book on the Lost Stories; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20The%20Lost%20Stories

Stories from the attic ...... part 7 ........ a mystery, a typewriter, and a shared family story

Now, I had completely forgotten the big brass decoration which had always been a feature in the house as long as I could remember.

And because familiarity often creates  a sense of complacency, I never wondered where it came from, or how it first came into our possession.

The realist in me thinks that it might well have been something mum picked up in a secondhand shop.

But the design shouts out the Far East, and like many families we had connections with the sub-continent and Africa, through one of our uncles who spent his adult life working in India, Siri Lanka, and Kenya, before settling in South Africa.

And so, I think it is entirely possible it was one of his presents to my parents, along with a collection of African elephants carved out of wood and other “exotic things”.

Uncle Charles was the adventurous one of dad’s brothers, and in his early 20s went out to the Empire, not as civil servant but as an administrator in a succession of companies, which I guess dealt in export and import, although exactly just what they and he did I never asked, and are now lost.

But he was one of thousands of young men and women,  who went East to service Empire and Britain’s vast commercial and trading business.

But I do remember that when he retired in the early 1960s, he and a “pal”, drove from Cairo to the Cape, and having reached South Africa, and apart from brief trips home, that is where he stayed.

Mother was never quite reconciled to the suitcase he left with us on one visit, which included tins of butter, which then and now, still exercise my imagination.

Just what happened to them I have long forgotten, but the “treasures from the Far East” were shared out between me and my sisters when dad died.

And that is why I had all but forgotten that big brass plate, because it went with Elizabeth who sent over a couple of pictures of it, along with some of a typewriter which belonged to Colin’s mum.

The typewriter is one of those sturdy black numbers which were an essential part of offices around the world and in its way is as much a comment on how we all used to live as the brass plate.

I still marvel out how people used them, relying on erasers  and later Typex to gloss correct mistakes, while remembering to buy into new ribbons.

Today, they are as much a bit of our past as the technology of producing newspapers with printing presses.

Of course there are still writers who use typewriters, and mother wrote plays, short stories and a novel on an Olivetti, which was a sleek portable version of Colin and Liz’s model.

And I am in awe, given that with a computer, corrections are just a click away, while the process of copy and paste revolutionizes the stuff of expressing ideas and feelings.

So that is it ……….. one brass plate taking me back to our uncle and Empire, and the typewriter offering up a very different way of expressing yourself.

Location; Kent

Pictures; from the collection of Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick

The Lost Stories of Chorlton-cum-Hardy ....... the new book ….. coming soon

Like all good stories, it started with a discovery and a conversation.

The discovery was a hoard of treasures stored carefully in Peter’s attic for over 30 years and brought out into the daylight last week.

Those treasures ranged from an old cigarette packet, and tea carton dating from the 1930s, through to a selection of electronic consuls, and games from three decades ago, and in between were dozens of military cap badges, bottle openers and badges.

Having found them and knowing I would be interested, Peter sent over some pictures of the hoard, and from there we had the conversation, which roamed over the excitement of rediscovering the bits in the attic, to just what they said about how we lived.

And as they do the blog stories followed, which in turn inspired friends  to offer up their treasures, which then led to more blogs, and by degree to the book, which we have called The Lost Stories of Chorlton-cum-Hardy In Our Attics, Cellars, Garages and Sheds.

It is as they say a work in progress, which at present has clocked up some wonderful items, all of which with a bit of research and memories from the owners, has taken me to the Great War, a textile factory outside Hebden Bridge, and an unforgettable night in a Yates Wine Lodge in Preston.

But this is just the start, because out of that conversation came a parallel one where we discussed just how to involve groups of people coming together with their attic finds and sharing the stories behind each one.

And here we have been joined by Jolene Sheehan, whose very successful community writing project culminated in the recently published book, The Stories of Our Lives.*

Just how this exciting part of the project develops is still in the planning stage, but it holds the promise of being fun, and rewarding.

So that is it, ………. just leaving me to make the appeal for more treasures, from your attics, cellars, garages and sheds.

You can contact us by leaving a comment on the blog or through Facebook.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; cover of The Lost Stories of Chorlton-cum-Hardy in Our Attics, Cellars, Garages and Sheds, featuring Linda Rigby's box of treasures, and selection of attic hoards from Peter and me.

* The Stories of Our Lives was a community writing project in Chorlton cum-Hardy which involved 50 local people coming together over four Saturdays in August to share their memories, which in turn were transcribed by a group of volunteers and became the book.